Greetings all,
I'm not a member of the mailing list, because whenever I look at it I
usually find something that drives me completely insane, but I do
occasionally browse it, and this thread has angered me enough to come out of
hiding. Both the general state of RfA, which I instinctively avoid but
which is a monstrously horrific place; and the character of Geni's replies
have made me hopping mad.
So first thing's first, I am one of the numerous "paper admins" towards whom
Geni is so condescending. I almost never block anyone, I don't frequent the
administrators' noticeboard very often, I rarely protect or unprotect
pages. Here's what I use my admin powers for:
I occasionally do rollback reverts. I delete pages when I move redirects.
I recently fixed a cut and paste move that I doubt is on many people's
watchlists (it had survived as is for months). I will occasionally look at
deleted edits, and it's definitely useful to know when a page has been
speedy deleted in a location that has a clearly notable subject. I move
pages around a fair amount - I would become really, really annoyed if I
didn't have that power.
So, I don't use admin powers very much, and when I do, it's for mostly
uncontroversial things. I don't think I've ever faced much in the way of
complaints about my use of admin powers. I've certainly never gone to
arbitration, and I can't think of any instances where I've been RfCed or
anything like that. I was made an admin some three years ago. I'm fairly
certain that if I resigned my adminship and requested adminship anew, on the
basis of my use of admin powers, I would not be regranted them.
Point is this - what harm does it do if there's a lot of administrators like
me? It seems like the current RfA process is essentially designed to
prevent people from getting adminship unless they promise that they're going
to use their Admin powers a lot to "fight vandalism," and jump through a
bunch of hoops. But isn't it good to have reasonably reliable, restrained
(in terms of admin powers) people who can do simple things like delete
redirects to clear way for moves?
Beyond that, how on earth does answering 50 to 60 random questions proposed
by a bunch of tiresome busybodies help anybody judge who will be a good
admin? Obviously, the project is gigantic now, and people can't be expected
to be familiar with every editor. Glancing at the current RfA, Elonka was
the only user currently up who I'd ever heard of before. But the thing that
should come out of this is that people should only vote when they actually
have personal familiarity with the particular editor. Quantitative
judgments based on things like number of edits in different domains, and
ass-kissing answers to a bunch of questions, provide just about no useful
information on whether somebody is a good, not insane, editor. All that
should really be required to be an administrator is that you're relatively
reliable and not insane. Once you have demonstrated to a sufficient number
of people *who have actually worked on articles with you* that you are
reasonably reliable and not insane, you should get to be an admin. People
who have never encountered you before should abstain. This is, so far as I
remember, what generally happened back in those lovely days when I was
chosen as an admin, and when I used to actually read RfA. I would vote if
somebody I knew was up, and not vote if I'd never come across the person
before. Now it seems as though everybody voting is basically a RfA junkey,
who spends a great deal of their wikipedia time getting people to jump
through hoops for their amusement. What possible good is being achieved by
this?
The whole system is a horrifying bureaucratic nightmare. And, no, this is
not what one has to look forward if one is an admin. I avoid bureaucratic
nightmares as much as I possibly can, which is "a great deal." Whenever I
get involved in a bureaucratic nightmare, it is because I choose to do so.
And yet, I'm fairly sure my being an admin is at least of some small use to
wikipedia. Why shouldn't people be allowed to be an admin if a) they want
to; b) they are not crazy; and c) they have been around long enough to show
a decent number of people they aren't crazy? Adminship is still officially
"no big deal," but it is clearly "no big deal" in some sense where the "no
big deal" is attained through a nightmarish bureaucratic process. How can
anybody defend this ridiculousness?
Best to all,
John
I have a couple of persistent problem users on my watchlist at the
moment, both of whom persistently obfuscate the titles of articles
they created and which have since been deleted, in an attempt to keep
their shenanigans off the Google results for the subjects (Ecopave and
Patrick Buri for the interested).
Is there any merit in requesting a change so that user and project
space are excluded from the Google indexing? What about
deleted-protected?
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
Plenty of recent tough discussion and editing over at [[Wikipedia:Conflict of interest]]. The page is now properly organised, with the remnants as its past as the 'vanity editing' guideline being dealt with piecemeal.
I think the guidelines on COI are going to become very prominent, looking ahead. I have started an essay: it's at
[[User:Charles Matthews/Conflict of interest]].
Please use the Talk page there to add comment.
Charles
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Stephen Streater wrote
> If this project becomes boring,
> interesting people won't contribute.
>
> There is a general distrust of dynamism,
> and this is a cultural flaw here which I am
> happy to do my bit to neutralise.
There is something to this. We still need 'be bold!'. There are probably still substantial areas of content to open up, and the pioneers need something less plodding than just mumbling policy as a mantra.
Charles
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> From: SPUI <drspui(a)gmail.com>
>
> I just posted an email I got from FDOT that confirms what their
> data shows:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:State_Road_913_%28Florida%
> 29#SQUIDWARD.21
> The IP claims that this is original research and won't accept it;
> is he
> correct?
Well, yes, technically it is.
Sending something to your email inbox is not a "publication," and
there's no direct way for me to access your email inbox.
Now, personally I've used email queries to get facts straight, and
have sometimes quoted these emails (with permission) on talk pages.
For example, it wasn't too clear from published sources whether the
Babson Globe on the Babson College campus in Needham does or does not
rotate _as of 2006_, and I queried Babson to resolve the ambiguity; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Talk:Babson_College#Phrasing_claim_for_the_Babson_Globe
This has held up mostly because not many people care deeply about the
fact, and other editors have been willing to accept this. It wouldn't
hold up against an editor that seriously challenged it.
Hi everyone,
to those I've known at Wikipedia and worked well with, thanks for the good
times. I used to believe in Wikipedia. It was worth a lot to me, it was fun,
it was good to work on articles.
But I'm quitting. It's sad to say, I know, and even sadder that due to my
reasons for quitting, I can't trust leaving a goodbye message on my user
page or mailing from my normal account. But for the things I am about to
say, I know that several admins and possibly those higher up in the project
would ban me just for saying it. I know this message may never reach this
list either, but I'm at least going to try. I'm doing it this way because
someday, I might want to come back, and I'd like to be able to come back
under the same username I left.
I'm quitting wikipedia because I don't like what I've seen too many admins
become. Self-righteous, arrogant, self-centered, conceited... jerks.
I've seen too many admins who believe that our civility policies only apply
to the normal editors. Too many admins whose first course is to insult a new
user in order to see if they get a "reaction" so that they can spank the new
user for talking back to an admin.
I've seen too many admins block accounts for infinite duration on flimsy
evidence or mere whim.
I've seen admins block accounts with the reason of "name..", and then block
another account for the reason that it was a "suspected sockpuppet" - of the
offensive username block.
I've seen more accusations thrown around of someone being a "sockpuppet" of
another user. Time and again, I looked through the edits, and I didn't see
it. Instead, what I saw were users who were systematically hounded until
they finally broke down and broke the civility rules, and then as an
afterthought someone came up and said "oh, it doesn't matter, they were a
sockpuppet of X anyways", thereby removing all culpability on the part of
the abusive users who had spent time hounding and abusing the newbie to the
point of cussing or vandalizing.
I've seen the way accusations of "sockpuppet" have become a way of life in
content disputes, and I've see how the admins on wikipedia do absolutely
nothing about it. Too many despicable pov warriors spend their time accusing
anyone they disagree with on one article or another of being a "sockpuppet",
and never does a CheckUser come back innocent. The one time I ever saw CU
come back inconclusive, the admin blocked them for being a sockpuppet
anyways, claiming they had "proof" in the form of edit summaries, which is
to say that the user was editing on the same article where the admin's
friends had previously harassed someone.
I saw a thread earlier today which I thought was monstrous - a user whose
talk page was locked for "unblock template abuse", whose only crime or
"abuse" of the template was removing the template after the blocking admin
consistently and maliciously removed it. This thread was stopped by the
assertion of David Gerard that the person who started the thread was
"Enviroknot." I don't give a damn who started the thread, if the question is
valid, the question is valid. I looked at the user in question, and I see
plenty of problems with the way it was handled, and at least two admins who
deserve at the least a stern censure and at the most, de-adminning for
abusive behavior. We NEED users to bring these problems up. We NEED to cull
the herd of abusive administrators.
But there's no way in hell I can say that with my normal username, because
David's terms are clear: the usage of the term "sockpuppet" stops all
rational discussion, and anyone disagreeing with David gets banned.
Anyone who says that there are abusive administrators out there, or speaks
out against a specific one they've had a run-in with? The cry of "Rouge
Admin lololol lets see how can I pwn this noob today, take that and stop
annoying the admins" is the cry that goes out, not "that sounds serious,
I'll take a look."
We are too arrogant. I've seen Jimbo use the excuse of "well troll X doesn't
like it so they are doing right" or "well you must be correct because the
wikipediareview crowd doesn't like you" as a way to justify bad behavior in
the wikimedia IRC room and even on this list. I've seen countless times
where good users are attacked for speaking up and saying this same thing:
We, the overwhelming number of admins on the project, are too arrogant. Too
self-centered.
We spend too much time "defending" wikipedia and not enough time bringing
new users into the fold, being polite, being nice. Teaching them about
policies, about the manual of style. Editing alongside them. Admins are
supposed to be "just another editor with a few extra buttons", but too many
admins today get drunk on that power. They insist that normal editors are
"beneath" them, that they should be able to own articles and give their
friends a hand up when content disputes arise. If you're friends with an
admin, rest assured that your buddies will call someone a name, get one
called back, and then ask you to punish the other guy for "incivility." And
you'll do it, too, without a moment's hesitation, simply because you have
the power to do it.
I've sat in the IRC channel watching a user come in to ask for help only to
be rebuffed, attacked, insulted, and finally booted because "no new user
could ever find the IRC chat room, they are obviously a sockpuppet of some
disruptive user." I sat by silently because I knew if I spoke out, they'd
just boot me too for being "disruptive."
And you know what? I'm tired of it. Our articles are suffering because even
the good edits of supposed "sockpuppets" are being reverted by
overly-zealous admins who believe that they have to hunt for every edit made
by someone they think is banned - even if it's just a typo fix - and revert
it. Yes, I have watched this in action. I have watched admins put obvious
page-tagging edits like an insertion of "joe is a fag" back because the user
who reverted the vandalism was someone deemed a "sockpuppet" by our
completely erroneous and pointless system.
The Wiki is broken. It's not the vandals who broke it. Those we could
handle. It's not the edit warriors who broke it. Those we can handle.
WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up jerks.
We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting full
of ourselves.
And every one of the admins on wikipedia, myself included, has been guilty
of it at one point. Some are more guilty than others. Some are jerks 100% of
the time. Some have become so obsessed with their pet sockpuppet, be it
Enviroknot, Freestylefrappe, Willy on Wheels, Entmoots, Pigsonthewing,
JarlaxleArtemis, Karmafist, Lir, PoolGuy, or whatever else their pet
sockpuppet of the week is that they are no longer useful.
Some never should have passed RFA to start with. Some deliberately gamed the
system and pulled support from a specific interest group to get passed, then
turned around and started immediately abusing their power to help the
interest group and haven't stopped since. Some are likely sockpuppets of
serial edit warriors.
Some are just insane.
And some of us just are human, and fail to appreciate that, and fall victim
to power tripping behavior. I think that the admin behavior which made this
list moderation-default falls under that. But that's another of those things
that is "not up for discussion."
Too many things are not open for discussion. Too many of the verboten topics
center around people who are on power trips, or were at the time they took
some action. Too many times admins seeking to consolidate their power bases
or trading favors with other admins have stood up for improper, abusive
behavior.
So, I'm out. As long as the cult of adminship reigns here, wikipedia's not
going to improve. New articles may come and edits might be made eventually,
but the state of wikipedia, our accuracy, our reliability, WILL fail as long
as admins are allowed to champion abusive users or be abusive themselves and
simply get away with it time and again, rubber stamped by secret evidence
and higher-ups who are more interested in their own power than making a
better encyclopedia.
Jimbo, this might as well be an open letter to you too. None of the rest of
these spineless yes-men will ever say these things to your face. Hell, I
couldn't at the last meetup, because I was so afraid that you or Danny or
one of the other high-ups would note down my username and ban me. That's the
atmosphere you've cultivated.
Peace out.
> From: SPUI <drspui(a)gmail.com>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:State_Road_913_%28Florida%
> 29#A_bulletproof_argument...
> Am I right or is the IP right? Do commercially-produced maps that show
> an unsigned designation continuing along a causeway trump
> Department of
> Transportation sources?
Why does either source need to "trump" the other?
Why not note the discrepancy in the article and give the sources for
each of the two contradictory descriptions?