Greetings.
I'm new to Wikipedia. I've made a few posts. Still don't know my way around
the neighborhood.
I'm up crunching a couple of deadlines, but I'm bored, so I return to a
wikipedia listing I hated, but changed only the first sentence (too
preoccupied/impatient to go any further). I spend some time making the edit -- only to find
I've been blocked. (Annoying. Lost everything.)
What's that about?
While I may have ruffled a few feathers with my first few posts
("motherfucker"/talk), I don't believe I've violated any rules.
The message I received was:
"Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by 'Hephaestos
vs. Dallabnikufesin'. The reason given for Hephaestos vs. Dallabnikufesin's
block is as follows: 'Vandalism, clearly aimed at user:Hephaestos'. "
So, what's this "vandalism" crap? More importantly, how do I get unblocked?
Peace.
deeceevoice
> 1) Give up, let him have the Ronald Reagan article to write in his POV
> 2) Protect the article
> 3) Block him
> Can you think of another alternative?
While I agree with Martin Harper that there *were* other alternatives, and I
even tried one myself (qualifying the statement of prosperity as the
opinions of only some, which seems to have stuck), I think this is also a
good place for some type of mini-block. Blocking a newbie like this from
just that single article, or even from all of the article-space, but not the
talk space and user talk space would have been much better. In this case
perhaps it wasn't necessary, but it's quite likely that a new user might not
even find the talk space without a bit of direction.
In this case we had a persistant person who managed to find the mailing list
to discuss the problem, and that's fortunate. But it would be nice if
blocked users could participate on at least a single page so that they had
some sort of public forum to discuss their block.
Finally, I'd like to say that looking at the edits it doesn't appear that
they were made in bad faith. Yes, they could be characterised as POV, and
yes, the situation could have been handled much better by the blocked user.
But the situation could have been handled much better by a number of other
parties too. Remember, no users, including administrators, have the right
to tell other users what to do or not do. Admins should look at
[[Wikipedia:Administrators]] every once in a while, where it says that "
Sysops are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody
else in terms of editorial responsibility." The new user without an account
has just as much of a right to tell a sysop to "please not...whatever" as
the sysop has to tell him or her.
Anthony
Thanks again for the support to those who support me, and also to those
who don't but are dealing with this respectfully (i.e. just about all of
us by now). I didn't know if using this list would be more productive
than my earlier experience, but I'm glad it has been. I'll try to answer
all the points here in another group-response. If I miss your point, it's
only because I forgot it, not because I'm avoiding it-- don't be afraid to
ask again! So, here are some thoughts and specific responses:
Yes, I did see one (1) request in one (1) early edit summary to take it to
the discussion page. I went to the discussion page, and I saw that that
person (Texture) had not added anything. Given that s/he was being
insulting and a liar, I didn't think there was a point in starting what I
thought would be either a monologue or a non-rational exchange; maybe I
should have anyway, I don't know. If nothing else, it would have removed
a gripe against me. If anyone else had started a discussion there, I
certainly would have continued it. I checked the discussion page several
times throughout it all, and never saw any new commentary there.
Stormie said the onus is on me as the contributor to start the discussion.
I disagree. Should every edit be preceded by a discussion? I would think
the onus to start the discussion would be on the person who is the first
to disagree, thereby making it apparent that discussion is needed. (Not
that any party can't start a discussion, of course, but since you
mentioned it....)
Furthermore-- and this is true for any such collaboration, not just
Wikipedia-- a deletion is a more drastic change than an addition, and
requires more of an explanation. To delete something without explanation
is basically censorship; a non-censor's approach would *add* another
viewpoint, or at least reword the existing phrase. So that's another
reason why I think the onus to justify one's actions was on the others,
because they were the deleters. Maybe this isn't Wikipedia practice, but
maybe you can see why a newcomer might think it is.
And no, Stormie, I do not see why "the way [I] went about inserting it"
met with such hostility. I think someone who would react with hostility
to what I did should rethink why they would react that way, IMO. I did
only reasonable things, and I treated everyone involved at least as well
as they treated me.
As I explained earlier, I firmly think that my addition reduced the
POV-ness of what was there before.
As for my violating the 3-revert rule, I saw the others as being more
guilty of that than I was, even if they were three different people. I
was just undoing their unjustified, POV deletions, which seemed a lot more
like vandalism than what I was doing. That's how I saw it, anyway. If
someone HAD warned me about the 3-revert rule, I would have asked why it
was being applied to me and not the others.
Yes, I remember seeing a lot of specific policy violations. I'll try to
make a list in a subsequent email, as requested.
I did call Texture a newbie, even though I could tell he'd been around
longer than that. I called him a newbie because he was acting like one--
misusing the word "vandalism", being insulting, generally non-rational,
etc. How does he expect to be taken seriously? Also, since he dismissed
my edits for being a newbie, I wanted to point out that that approach
doesn't work in an egalitarian collaboration. Does he have any real
experience in that, anyway? He doesn't seem to.
I would like to think that everyone here is acting in good faith, but it's
hard to think that of someone who's being dishonest.
A couple of people seem to think I'm being a stickler for policy. But the
policies I'm talking about are basic-- how to edit a page, how and why to
revert (and when not to), what is blocking policy, etc.-- much of it about
basic ways to get along. From what I've seen, they're actually quite
good, and the system of policies allows the core values of Wikipedia to be
realized (egalitarianism, anyone can add to it, ways of resolving
disputes, various recourses always available, etc.) I only got concerned
with policy when other people started doing things that seemed
unreasonable, so I sought out what was standard practice in the Wikipedia
world. Note this: For newbies, what's written on the policy pages may be
all they have to go on.
Since Timwi wondered, by "double standard" I mean the practice of applying
a set of rules to one set of people, and applying a different set of rules
to another. Most commonly, the last half translates into "acting as if
the rules don't apply to oneself or one's friends." (Maybe we need a
Wikipedia page about it.)
That's all for now. I'll do the policy violations list next, but this has
taken a long time already and I may not get to it tonight. Thanks for
trying to improve the system-- as you know, this is not really about me,
it's about the Wikipedia system.
Cheers,
James
............................................................................
James Marshall james(a)jmarshall.com Berkeley, CA @}-'-,--
"Teach people what you know."
............................................................................
Sorry, I get emails in digest form...I'm sure I'm
"breaking a thread" -- my apologies.
I'd suggest that a couple of things happen. It's my
impression that James deserves an apology, not because
he was treated shamefully, but because we ought to be
a little more welcoming than we were. Sometimes, as
an admin, I have acted too hastily and made a decision
that upset someone. Even where I feel I was
justified, I have done my best to always offer an
apology and an explanation for my actions. I have
never regretted doing this, and have made some
excellent Wiki-friends as a result. I hope Texture
and Oberiko will consider doing so.
I think the community as a whole needs to remember a
forgotten page --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers
When I first came here, we quoted it often. I haven't
seen it mentioned in a long time, and I don't believe
it has been mentioned in this case, where it is so
obviously warranted. If it has been, sorry for
showing late to the party. I think we all, myself
included, could do with a refresher in bite-free
welcomes. Let's make a concerted effort to assume
good faith, and open our arms to new contributors. We
are big, yes, and we have plenty of good editors, but
they are not in such grand supply that we have the
luxury of turning them aside. I have no idea if James
will become one, but I hope very much he will, and
that we can encourage others who arrive here, that
they too may become positive additions here.
That's my two cents,
James R. (Jwrosenzweig, as though that wasn't apparent)
__________________________________
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James Marshall wrote:
> Stormie's post just came through-- Stormie, don't misrepresent it. Some of
> your post is answered above, but for what isn't: I did not ignore the
> comments on my talk page, though I didn't see the last one before I was
> banned.
Fair enough, the last warning from Oberiko was indeed the clearest statement
that what was needed was a discussion on the talk page. It's a shame that
that wasn't spelled out more clearly earlier in the piece.
> The first ones were insults toward me, and my response to Texture was
> firmly-worded, but hardly a "mischievous attack"-- it was modeled on what
> Texture said to me, to illustrate the symmetry of the situation.
I probably spoke too hastily there. It just seems that we get frequent
posts to this mailing list from people who claim to have just discovered
Wikipedia, made their very first contribution.. and been unfairly banned.
Yet they quote chapter and verse from various policy pages to try to
produce some technicality according to which they were unjustly treated.
Needless to say, this gets a bit wearing, and thus the first thought that
came to my mind when I read your post to Texture was "god, another banned
troll returning anonymously to stir up more trouble". Especially when you
start talking about the 3 Revert Rule and your reverts not really being
reverts because they were reverts of reversions, etc.
If you are genuinely a new user, I apologize for this suggestion
unreservedly. I jumped to conclusions concerning you due to the actions
of others.
> In any case, he avoided answering my points and merely repeated his
> usual "vandalism" mantra. As for my not discussing it, it was Texture,
> Oberiko, and Jiang who seemed to not want to discuss it.
I have to say, as the person trying to change the status quo on an
established article in what proved to be a controversial fashion, the onus
is on you to start the discussion and justify your change.
Texture and Oberiko both asked you to discuss the matter on the talk page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Ronald_Reagan&diff=4235469&oldid…http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:24.4.202.208&diff=0&ol…
> Further still, what I added was less POV than what those others wanted.
> Why aren't you applying your complaints to the others? Double standards,
> maybe?
Not at all. I actually agree with your edits. But there is a right way to
go about things (which leads to a quality article that everyone can approve
of) and a wrong way (which leads to chaos and the same edits being endlessly
reverted and re-inserted).
Look, this has all been needlessly unpleasant, but I hope you can understand
WHY your edits met with hostility, even from people who DON'T disagree with
your content, just the way you went about inserting it.
As the rest of this message showed, you clearly have some good stuff to
contribute to this: I suggest you take that, stick it on [[Talk:Ronald
Reagan]], and have at it! I think you'll find quite a number of Wikipedia
editors who share your views and would be happy to try to thrash out a more
balanced section on Reagan's "period of prosperity".
What would be really helpful is some figures concerning wealth distribution
to put those "GDP grew, inflation dropped" claims into perspective.. reckon
you can rustle them up?
I trust that if you do so, everyone involved will treat your contributions
with good faith.
Any chance we can put this behind us and move forwards?
Cheers!
David...
Timwi wrote:
> >
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Ronald_Reagan&diff=4235469&oldid…
> >
> > 14 edits before this all devolved into blocking, Texture said, in an
> > edit summary, "please discuss on talk page".
>
> That was 18 hours before James added the bit that started it all. I
> don't think James was expected to notice it or feel addressed by it.
Oh, I'm not putting that forward as a claim that everyone has behaved in
an exemplary fashion, by any means. Just wanted you to know that one
person had tried to ask him in an edit summary to discuss things.
Also, it wasn't "18 hours before James added the bit that started it all".
It was is response to his third addition of controversial text. This
summary was attached to a reversion of his edit, which he must have
noticed since he re-inserted his text straight afterwards! :-)
Cheers!
David...
Timwi wrote:
> What nobody has tried, although I would have thought it was obvious, was
> to ask him *in edit summaries* (he obviously looked at those) to discuss
> things on the article's talk page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Ronald_Reagan&diff=4235469&oldid…
14 edits before this all devolved into blocking, Texture said, in an edit
summary, "please discuss on talk page".
Cheers!
David...
> This anon user was clearly displaying his intent to continually revert an article, without
> ever discussing it, and ignore all attempts to converse with him on the issue.
This anon user was clearly displaying his intent to justify his addition in edit summaries,
and in responding to the edit summary of Jiang, for example. "All attempts" apparently
didn't extend to such obvious places as [[Talk:Ronald Reagan]]. [[User
talk:24.4.202.208]] is short and mostly threats.
> As far as I can see, there's only 3 possibilities:
> 1) Give up, let him have the Ronald Reagan article to write in his POV
> 2) Protect the article
> 3) Block him
> Can you think of another alternative?
Several.
1) Discuss. Drop a note on the Talk page. Refer to that note in the edit summary of your
revert (ie "revert - see Talk page for rationale"), since you know he's reading edit
summaries.
2) Leave it a day, or a week, or a month. The phrase "at least for the wealthy" in an
article on Reagan is hardly disastrous, and won't bring Wikipedia into disrepute. A
pause for reflection may have unexpected benefits for both sides.
3) Compromise. Find a wording that satisfies both of you.
4) Research. Find some statistics demonstrating the economic fortunes of various
socio-economic classes under Reagan. Add a new section to the article on the subject.
5) Clarify. Replace the woolly and misleading sentence being criticised by the anon user
with something specific and factual. Eg: "GDP under Reagan increased by 13%".
6) Delete. Just delete the whole sentence, for now.
Some of these will require some actual work, I'm afraid. Better article at the end of the
day, though - and if you can satisfy both you and the anon user, you've just increased
the degree to which the article is written from a neutral point of view. Something to aim
for.
-Martin
The edit I saw qualified a POV statement making it less POV.
Original statement: Yet, President Reagan's tenure marked a time of
economic prosperity for the United States.
Modified statement: Yet, President Reagan's tenure marked a time of economic
prosperity for the United States, at least for the wealthy.
Both statements are POV.
Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: Rick <giantsrick13(a)yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:50:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Violation of blocking policy by user "40277"
To: james(a)jmarshall.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
Your addition was POV. Please see Wikipedia's policy on [[Neutral point of
view]].
RickK (who was not involved in this dispute)
Timwi wrote:
(1) The reasons Rick already mentioned.
(2) WikiMoney didn't work either.
(3) People will start doing certain things (e.g. make loads of trivial
edits to the article namespace) *just* to get (one of) these
awards,
and then genuinely think they are entitled to (one of) these
awards.
(4) Community recognition works best when it is not measurable. I can
say with certainty that Anthere is more popular on Wikipedia than a
vandal, but I can't rank her with other people. If she were awarded
a "Wikipedia peace prize" and, say, Angela wasn't, then this would
create an artificial (and deceptive) ranking between them.
My thoughts:
(1) The competitive will always be with us. They will always vie for all
the prizes. That does not mean we should stop giving them. It will be
very difficult to compete for the "Least Competitive Wikipedian" award.
And the more prizes the merrier. It is very nearly as easy to fool
adults as it is to fool children, and even when knowingly fooled, both
adults and children still value the recognition, except for the
occasional curmudgeon who is offended by any recognition of any sort.
(2) WikiMoney was patent nonsense. It served as a medium of exchange
for, um, well, errrrr...help me out here. Because "red" didn't work
doesn't mean "47" won't either, if I'm not making too dense a point.
(3) It's not hard to spot trivial edits by those who (like me) check
edits, and I'm sure it will be no harder for those who count them.
People who make a zillion trivial edits with the expectation of a pat on
the back need a reality check more than a reward. My guess is that a
goodly percentage of them will fall under topic (1), and know perfectly
well what they're doing, and why they should get a poke in the butt with
a sharp stick instead of a lovely PDF they can print & hang.
(4) Always. This month's number is "3". We deem three people worthy for
nicest Wikipedia:Faces faces. The fuzzy bunny award goes back to its
perpetual holder, Anthere.
(5) It is always easier to not say something nice than to say something
nice. It is always easier to not reward than to reward. It is always
almost as much fun when someone you like gets recognition as when you do
yourself. We are a community, so let's reward each other just for being
here. I give you all the Participant of the Month Award for taking the
time to be on the mailing list and not just an editor. You rock!!
Denni
--
"The difference between extra-marital sex and extra marital sex is not
to be sneezed at." --George Will, on hyphen use
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