Hi!
I am a little annoyed by Martin's recent antics, regarding the unblocking of
vandals, not to mention his defense of the most obvious cases of extreme
vandalism (the Zog incident comes to mind). It is very difficult to ban someone on
Wikipedia--in fact, the number of permanently banned users I know of is just
six (HJ, Ark, Lir, Michael, DW, Zog, some of whom had various incarnations).
The ability to block an IP (and not a user name) is used to prevent kids from
adding grafitti to the site. In most cases, it is effective, and those vandals
disappear once it becomes more challenging to edit. It is not some instance of
eternal damnation. If the person apologizes and begins to really contribute,
they are welcomed back. Even in the serious bans above, people have been told
that if they reform their behaviors they can return and continue to contribute.
Discuss it with Jimbo and they will be welcomed back. Most don't because they
have no interest in coming back.
Wikipedia is a project with a stated objective--creating an encyclopedia. Its
objective is not to create an ideal democratic society a la Martin's
perception of one. Nor is it a dumping ground, where anyone can put any crap they want
in the name of free speech. It is a place that works best by consensus and
compromise--not by making abrupt decisions that this must be the policy, come h
ell or high water. That is why I was opposed to making a final decision on the
date format and spelling policies. Look how much time that wasted from the
overriding goal, when a compromise of allowing people to do what they want seemed
to be working fine for the most part. Unfortunately, it was Martin pushing
that finalizing agenda again.
The end result of all this is that some of the serious long term contributors
have left--Zoe, for one, was one of the most prolific Wikipedians and a real
defender of the project against vandalism. While Martin is certainly prolific
on the Recent Changes, a quick look at his past 500 changes show that his work
is over 90 percent focused on users' Talk pages, and most of the rest on
contentious pages, where it is bound to flame the fires of dispute.
What I would like to see are some solid contributions--an article culled out
of a Talk page does not count---before wasting our time with the Vandal
Liberation Front. Instead I wonder when he was made a sysop whether it was to police
it over the rest of us or to further the goal of creating an encyclopedia.
Danny
I'm pretty sure Chuck M is Triton, and probably Trontonian, so if not
DW, one of the DW crowd. As for Pizza Puzzle -- I don't know if he's
Lir or not, but I find it interesting that he's putting encouraging
remarks on Chuck M's page and elsewhere where ChuckM places comments.
Otherwise, hi all -- is someone please going to wipe my real name?
Please?
Cheers and Happy Summer -- and for the record, no hard feelings towards
Jimbo. Even the best of us occasionally say thing we regret.
Jules
> "unmoderated mailing lists..."
> "a mailing that anyone can join"
Mr. Wales> "Otherwise, just have your final word, and then I will remove you from
the mailing list"
When singing our own praises, it would be useful if our hymns reflected reality.
Martin "MyRedDice" Harper
>"Wikipedians should generally refrain from witch hunts of users who
>may be reincarnations of banned users."
>
>However, grave concerns have been raised, and I have reason to think,
>based on what's been going on the past few days, that ChuckM, Joe
>Canuck, DW/Black Widow, and perhaps some others may (or may not) be
>the same person, posting repeatedly on the same sorts of topics and in
>the same sorts of obnoxious ways.
>
>So, after a bit of research by one of the sysops, who will remain
>nameless unless he wants to take public credit, we've determined that
>there is a relatively small block of ip numbers where this user is
>coming from. At least through the weekend, we're going to block all
>of those completely.
>
>Next Monday morning, we'll assess whether it worked, and discuss when
>to unblock that range of addresses. It seems unfortunate in case
>people in a certain ip block in Canada happen to want to edit this
>weekend, but odds are, they won't.
>
>Additionally, any and all of those names can be banned by names, and I
>authorize a witch hunt (but please, practice WikiLove) on new
>instances. :-) Just for the weekend.
>
>My concern is that this might spiral out of control into a
>full-fledged attack, and I'd just as soon prevent that and deal with
>it next week.
>
>--Jimbo
Is there any program that can be written to keep track of any new users
coming from those IPs and perhaps highlight them to a handful of senior
figures on wiki? That way, subtle watch could be kept to see if similar
patterns are appearing. Given that David Baltzer (if that is his real name,
and not yet another phoney name) has seemingly used such an astonishing
array of identities on wiki it seems exceedingly likely that he will not try
to come on again. (Triton and Tritonian are just the latest two to come to
light since my original messsage pointing out the astonishing similarities
between DW, Black Widow, Ron Davis, Olga Bityerkokoff, Jacques Delson, Joe
Canuck, ChuckM et al - I'm kicking myself for not coping on immediately who
Triton was; the topic, the 'I'm just a poor foreigner whose poor english . .
. ' malarkey, the person he ganged up on, the tone adopted, etc was all
classic DW, he having used it all before a couple of times, but it was only
by spending hours wading through past 'visitatons' that the pattern could
truly be spotted and conclusions drawn.)
Ensuring a subtle private eye can be kept to spot a user with classic DWism
from those IPs would help avoid recent situations where people in the dark
had to spot similarities, the new 'DW' in the process having caused a lot of
damage, bad feeling and probably as DW has managed to do in the past driven
people away, as well as in the process having uploaded many images with
serious copyright problems. (There are still images from past DWs that have
yet to be examined. Those I have checked at random uniformly lacked any
information whatsoever on source, though I strongly suspect they all came
from one sourcebook or source, because all are almost identical in
composition, size, colour, shape, etc.)
But that private eye program should not be generally available. All users
should be treated with the presumption of innocence. But a quiet track of
users from those IPs (maybe only for a couple of weeks) might help wiki spot
the new DW within days and react, rather than the current weeks or longer it
has taken, during which time a lot of damage has already been done by him.
One final point - even by DW's standards, his 'Sue Joe Canuck' antics hit a
new low. To pretend to be a paedophile, editing pages on sexual matters and
leaving summaries asking could he ''keep'' a copy of an image of 'Pan'
copulating with an goat and especially asking could he copy a picture of a
child from one page, was horrifying.
18:33 27 Jun 2003 Incest (a linky)
18:30 27 Jun 2003 Talk:Child (can I copy this photo too?)
18:29 27 Jun 2003 Child pornography (one teeny weenie linky!)
18:21 27 Jun 2003 North American Man-Boy Love Association (another linky
pooh by Sue-Sue!)
God knows what visitors to wiki thought when they saw someone all this. We
can say what he want about Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] and Michael, but they have never
stooped to such a level of vandalism. If DW is willing to stoop to such
levels, what else will he try when he comes back. This is one user that wiki
needs to be ready and able to clamp down on as soon as possible.
JT
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Dear asshole,
You're a real jerk and everyone here knows it. You can pretend that you're
/not/ an asshole, but you're not fooling anyone. The fact that you continue
to troll the 'pedia and vandalize despite being repeatedly banned is just
sad. Is your life /truly/ so pathetic that this is how you derive pleasure?
Take my advice, jump off a bridge. The world will not miss you.
-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri(a)digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
-Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
More on Anthere. Sigh, It just keeps getting worse. She
has now made a comment on a Talk page, rebutting a position
she thinks I have. The problem is, I don't have the
position that she attributes to me.
Do you see why I keep saying that this is the *English*
Wikipedia?
Anthere bizarrely writes "RK, you just can't remove this
page. Gaia Theory was originally proposed as The Gaia
Hypothesis by James Lovelock in 1972. Please check your
references. It was found in Gaia: a new look at life on
earth. It just is not the same thing that the Gaia theory
proposed later."
This is just insane. (A) I never claimed that post-Lovelock
ideas of gaia are the same as his 1972 hypothesis. In fact,
I repeatedly wrote the exact opposite! (B) English
speakers DO NOT use the bizarre terminology that Anthere
uses. She uses the title of Lovelock's book (gaia
hypothesis) as the name for his version of the theory, and
the nam "Gaia theory" for Margulis's version. The problem
is that most English speaking scientists DO NOT use this
terminology.
Most English speakers use the names "Gaia theory" and "Gaia
hypothesis" interchangably. They do make a distinction
between Lovelock's Gaia theory and Margulis's Gaia theory,
but not with the terminology she uses.
Further, we *already* have an article on this subject
[[Gaia theory (biology)]] that discusses both points of
view in detail. Yet Anthere keeps insisting that we have
THREE articles on this same topic, in the same detail. One
on [[Gaia theory (biology)]], one on [[Gaia theory]] and on
[[Gaia hypothesis]]. No English speaking scientists use
this terminology.
Look, we already went through this once before, and now I
am asking Wikipedai Sysops to talk to her. If she can't
follow English speaking conventions, then she should not be
here at all. Let her work on Wikipedia-French, or any other
forum.
But I am sick of her confusion...or trolling.
Robert (RK)
=====
"I prefer a wicked person who knows he is wicked, to a righteous person who knows he is righteous".
The Seer of Lublin [Jacob Isaac Ha-Hozeh Mi-Lublin, 1745-1815]
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>
> Message: 8
> Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 21:52:13 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Anthere <anthere6(a)yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Anthere's Gaia obsession is out of hand, again.
> To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
> Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
>
> Hello again "Royal We".
>
Hello anthere. You are OK in my book :-)
Graham (Quercus Robur)
We have another problem with Anthere and here obsession
with all the Gaia articles. Despite repeated
clarifications, she keeps causing problems. She has
invented her own private naming system that no scientist in
the world uses, and is insisting on naming Wikipedia
articles in this way.
I and others have tried to work with her before, but she
refused to discuss anything; she again is just using
reversions. No talk or discussion, mind you. Just reverts.
And worst of all, Anthere has no regard for how thousands
of other English speakers and scientists use these terms.
Let me crystal clear: English speakers DO NOT use the
bizarre terminology that she uses. She should not be
allowed to rewrite Wikipedia entries to suit her peculiar
desired.
English speakers do NOT use the terminolgy she uses, plain
and simple. I have read books on this subject, articles on
the subject, and followed Google links to a huge number of
websites. The result is always the same: She doesn't know
she is talking about.
This isn't about science, mind you. It isn't about NPOV. It
s about the fact that no one uses Anthere's perculiar
terminology. This isn't the French Wikipedia, its the
English one. If she doesn't like, she can go elsewhere. But
her reversions, and your refusal to even admit that English
speakers *might* be misled by your private terminology only
proves that she is not a team player.
I am tired of her trolling.
Robert (RK)
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I don't know what is wrong with Anthere, but she is
*totally* obsessed with the Gaia theory. (Oh no, I mean
the gaia hypothesis! No, wait, I mean the gaia theory
(biology)...!)
She now keeps on insisting that an article on the Greek
goddess Gaia have a scientific discussion on Jim Lovelock's
gaia hypotheis. This can not possibly be about her poor
English comprehension skills; there is no way she can
possibly be this stupid. She is ismply trolling at this
point.
We already have a convention: It is called SEE ALSO. In
worst case scenarios, we have another convention. It is
called disambiguation. But Anthere's bizarre obsession with
the Gaia idea is causing her to make more and more pages
about the same damn topic. Three full length gaia article
about the same topic already exist, four when you include
Anthere's insistence on adding science discussions to
ancient Greek theology articles. And who knows when she
will stop?
Will someone please do something about her?
Robert (RK)
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Probably is another DW/Chuck/etc. All the edits are harmless, so far
my guess is that its just a blatant attempt to play on what Chuck, DW,
Triton, Trontonian, et al. call the atmosphere of paranoia. That is,
make lots of minor, useful, edits (and clearly by someone not a novice,
BTW) while making ingénue-like comments. Definitely antisocial like a
stalker who knows exactly how far his restraining order operates, and so
stays six inches beyond it at all times. Dont feed it.
Jules