[[User:Pakaran]] did us a great service by retracting his statements. Upon
reading his apology, I immediately retracted my opposition to his adminship
on the votes for de-adminship page. Real sincerity and reflection was
evident. In the end, Pakaran did us all a service by putting his foot in his
mouth.
This major concern, after all, isn't really Pakaran's unfortunate comments,
but an over-arching problem that the statement epitomized. This episode has
alerted us to the prospects of "tyranny of the majority," which seems to be
festering and intensifying from my observations. To say the least, it's a
quite a banal and elusive danger. It crops up when well-meaning admins
engage in such oppressive behavior without even realizing it. Perhaps
Pakaran's statement to RickK was a nonchalant Freudian slip. Given the group
hysteria that Lance/Hector/Richard's presence has generated, this might not
be a baseless conjecture.
Regarding Lance/Hector/Richard, the charges of "vandalism" and "trolling" do
not explain the root of the problem. Instead, his bad behavior is a symptom.
Since his view of the world starkly diverges - to put it in an understated
way - from those of the vast majority of users with whom he's been
interacting, joining the Wiki community of users becomes an impossible game
to play.
The "red faction" isn't a vandalism problem, but an example of mutual
misperception and misjudgment breeding conflict and hostility. On a more
practical note, the persistence of the "red faction" in regenerating itself
over and over again (almost like Lir and his many incarnations) makes it
clear that banning this user, or attempting to chase himaway and make him
feel unwelcome, are crude, self-defeating solutions. Since the Wiki mailing
list is libertarian country, I'll say that it's like slapping on price
controls to curb inflation. Or perhaps putting a bandage on a leaking dam.
In other words, it's an unworkable straitjacket that will only confound the
problem.
For the problem to subside, Pakaran, RickK, Adam Carr, PMA, Very Verily, Tim
Startling, and Robert Merkel (the most virulent critics of our Red user)
need to treat him with respect (or at least a facade of respect for the sake
of cooperation), allowing Lance/Hector/Riohard to meet his critics at least
halfway.
BTW, I know that a few cynics would dismiss these comments, accusing me of a
leftist agenda. If these charges crop up, I refer to the October 2003
mailing list, where I was the most ardent critic of banning [[User:RK]].
Recently, I also remarked to [[User:G-Man]] that we desperately lack elderly
contributors (giving us Gen-X and Baby Boom biases). I also noted the need
to promote more non-Western admins a while ago.
- [[User:172|172]]
_________________________________________________________________
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Summary: Timwi asked to have a policy against
talk page spamming.
My reply:
I don't think it would be good to have such a
policy. And the incidents you described are not
"spamming".
--Optim
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From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov(a)hotmail.com>
> Since the Wiki mailing
> list is libertarian country,
I don't like that facile generalization.
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)world.std.com alternate:
dpbsmith(a)alum.mit.edu
Summary: Ed Poor blocked a user "Jesus Chirst". I
posted a message saying he should be unblocked if
the username was the only reason for the block
and there was no discussion about it before (and
I forgot to add that the user should not have
been involved in any act of vandalism).
Message:
Forget my previous post. I managed to find some
time to check the contributions of "Jesus
Chirst". I wouldn't suggest anybody to unblock
him/her without discussion here.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Jes…
--Optim
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On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 09:39:21AM -0800, wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org wrote:
>
> For the problem to subside, Pakaran, RickK, Adam Carr, PMA, Very Verily, Tim
> Startling, and Robert Merkel (the most virulent critics of our Red user)
> need to treat him with respect (or at least a facade of respect for the sake
> of cooperation), allowing Lance/Hector/Riohard to meet his critics at least
> halfway.
>
The only "red faction" user that I have personally criticised, as far as
I can recall, is you.
> BTW, I know that a few cynics would dismiss these comments, accusing me of a
> leftist agenda. If these charges crop up, I refer to the October 2003
> mailing list, where I was the most ardent critic of banning [[User:RK]].
> Recently, I also remarked to [[User:G-Man]] that we desperately lack elderly
> contributors (giving us Gen-X and Baby Boom biases). I also noted the need
> to promote more non-Western admins a while ago.
>
My problem with "red faction" users (and you are the only one I can
remember tangling with more than once), is very simple. The group
systematically mischaracterise facts and omit
others to give uniformly favourable impressions of various left-wing
despots like Stalin and Kim Jong-Il. Secondly, trying to alter the article
to point out the atrocities committed on their watch, as well as
pointing out their achievements, if any, is like trying to pull out one's own
teeth with tweezers, as they are rarely prepared to concede that anything is
the subject's fault, and continually revert and challenge edits, and are
impossible to engage in debate on talk pages. They are essentially unable
to see any other perspective. If they do concede that some bad things
happened on this person's watch, It's always the system's fault, or the
West's fault, the Soviets' fault...
Trying to treat such users with respect ends up with the article
remaining unchanged, and terrible. Hence, frustration builds up and
civility tends to go away after dealing with enough of this crap.
As far as my own clashes with "the red faction", I invite readers to
have a look around [[Kim Jong-Il]]'s edit history and talk page, for
instance, and make up their own minds. Contrast with, say, [[Deng
Xiaoping]], which cunningly buries the Tiananmen Square protests in such
a way that a reader not already familiar with the subject would miss it.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel
robert.merkel(a)benambra.org
http://benambra.org
I always thought the most significant thing we ever found on the whole
goddamned Moon was that little bacteria that came back and lived and
nobody ever said s... about it.
-- Pete Conrad.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thought number 1: Is the print version of Wikipedia going to have things in it like "List of famous gay, lesbian, and bisexual people" in it? That should distinguish us from the Columbia Encyclopedia and the Britannica, all right! Leaving Wikipedia subject to attack only by the clan Wallechinsky... (and, conceivably, disgruntled members of the list who object to their inclusion).
Thought number 2: regardless of the legal defensibility of the use of some other encyclopedia's list of articles as a guideline for shaping Wikipedia's, it strikes me as being intellectually lazy and a bit dishonest. If we claim to be producing an encyclopedia, and do not have any other way of knowing what should be in it other than to compare its contents with some other encyclopedia, we're certainly leeching off of someone else's work, regardless of whether or not they can conduct a successful lawsuit over the matter.
Hi,
please can we introduce a policy against spamming of User talk pages?
It seems to have become a habit of people to take the revision history
of some page and spam everybody's User take page with a request that is
vaguely related to that page.
As an example, someone wanted to create a Wikibook on [[Lucid
dreaming]]. To find contributors, they spammed the User talk pages of
all Wikipedians who had previously edited the Wikipedia article on
[[Lucid dreaming]]. This is particularly annoying because they didn't
even care to check if any of the edits might have been only a spelling
correction (like mine was).
Today (or yesterday, whatever), [[User:Zanimum]] spammed loads of User
talk pages in an attempt to find someone to "send out the press
release". I have no idea what that means, and I don't even care, but I'd
really rather not be bothered with these things just because I have
corrected a spelling mistake.
If this continues, then people will eventually be discouraged from
correcting spelling mistakes (or making similarly minor improvements)
for fear of being spammed with random requests on their User talk page.
Thanks,
Timwi
Funny, I was just looking at his contribution list as this turned up in my
inbox.
I don't think you need to worry about him contributing - all he's done to
date is argue on chat pages. It's a sock puppet for someone else - probably
User:Micheal.
his user page contains much rhetoric about reformed vandals.
User:akaDruid
-----Original Message-----
From: Poor, Edmund W [mailto:Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com]
Sent: 05 March 2004 14:29
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked user: Jesus Chirst
I blocked a user whose handle is "Jesus Chirst".
It should be self-evident that this is an unacceptable user name.
I feel very strongly about this, and I feel my action though unilateral
is justified. Our username policy is clear.
If his aim is to contribute to the encyclopedia, he can pick a less
provocative user name. If he has some other name, then he has no right
to register at all.
I expect Mav and Jimbo to back me up on this, or my vacation will be
permanent.
Ed Poor
Bureaucrat
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
If my 2cents count here, Ray's position sounds quite reasonable to me, too.
If Jimbo is the one taking the legal risk, and if he honestly thinks that it
falls under fair use, then I think we should let him work on the list.
At Japanese wikipedia, we sometimes talk about taking legal risks. Current
understanding is that if administrators are too cautious taking risks (or
too bold) and other users do not like it, the users recall the admins, and
find substitute who can take reasonable risk.
This idea is again, because admins are far more likely to be sued for
knowingly keeping suspected copyvio, obscene, defamatory, or other allegedly
illegal material available - more so than other users.
We take admins' opinions a bit more seriously when it comes to risk. But
admins have to serve the users, so if they think their idea of reasonable
risk is too far away from other users', then they should resign.
I think there is little dispute regarding Jimbo's good leadership and
contribution, and there is no need for recall or resignation. So we can
support his move.
If Columbia comes to notify us, then we would discuss again.
Regards,
Tomos
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