"David Gerard" wrote
>Time to
> write some harsher content rules, then start over with no-one joined
> until they expressly join.
>
> Thoughts?
Dividing the informative messages from the policy discussions would be really quite good. Doesn't deal with the signal-to-noise in the policy discussions, though.
Would a proper forum help take the strain? I suppose this might not work, but in a sense if any thread gets beyond half a dozen postings it deserves the forum treatment. That could be enforced? Almost all threads go downhill fast.
Charles
PS David - you have to find out from Geoff Burling who the five decent posters are ... there's your reboot seedcorn.
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From: Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Featured editors?
On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:41:12 -0500, "Alec Conroy"
<alecmconroy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> >How many times have I seen "This change was supported by <Enemy of
the
>> >Project _____>." as a justification to revert good-faith users in a
>> >content dispute. How many times have I hard "You're probably in
>> >league with <Enemy of the Project ____>" slung as a personal attack
>> >without one shred of evidence? How many times do the names of the
>> >Enemies of the Project get mentioned to support some argument?
>> I have no idea. How many times have you heard it? And how many of
>> those times were from people who mattered in circumstances that
>> mattered?
>Too many...
>Way too many.
Diffs would be good....
>> >The banned are banned. Just as we shouldn't consider their view to
>> >change the encyclopedia in ways they would like, so we shouldn't
use
>> >their views to justify changing the encyclopedia in ways they would
>> >dislike.
>> And who's suggesting we do that? Specific examples, please.
>Anyone who's suggesting that the consideration of an Banned User's
>views matters.
>So, for a specific example, which I promise I really wasn't TRYING to
>dredge up-- let's take your ANI post when you indefblocked
>PrivateMusings. You listed one of his disputed edits as:
> and HERE SUPPORTING AN EARLIER REVERT BY A JON AWBREY SOCK.
Yup, repeating edits made by sockpuppets of banned users is a
problem. But then, a lot of what PM did was a problem.
Unsurprisingly, I guess, since the sock was registered exclusively
to troll^wcontribute to a contentious debate without any comeback on
the (limited) history of the main account.
But you're missing a vital point here: PM was never banned. I
blocked one account and made it perfectly clear that I would quietly
lift any autoblocks. All he had to do was go on editing with the
main account.
Here's the edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Black_%28professor%29&diff…
And it's a misrepresentation of that often misrepresented policy,
WP:NOTCENSORED, which is not at all about supporting links (such as
linking a blog as the supporting reference for the Really Vital Fact
that the subject has... a blog). It's about explicitly content, and
content which religious and other groups don't like.
I will say, in fairness, that I generally interpret edit summaries
including "BLATANT CENSORSHIP" (sic) as an indication of an editor
on a mission. In this case that diagnosis turned out to be spot on,
of course.
So: I blocked a self-admitted sock for edit warring over a
gratuitous link to the theory being actively peddled by banned user
Judd Bagley and banned user Daniel Brandt, brought to the attention
of the blogger by either one of them or a fellow member of their web
forum, in a revert war precipitated by a sockpuppet of banned user
Jon Awbrey.
But of course the problem here could not *possibly* be mad
conspiracy theories, attempts to undermine admins by banned users
with a grudge, rampant sockpuppetry by banned users, sockpuppet
accounts registered just to stir controversy - no, it *must* be
admin abuse and censorship, because Wikipedia always censors
dissent, right?. How foolish of me not to realise.
Oh, wait, back to the original question: do you think I was
suggesting changing the encyclopaedia in a way that Awbrey would or
would not like? Think again. My involvement with Awbrey is
strictly limited to playing whack-a-mole with the contents of his
sock drawer and undoing the resultant collateral damage. If you
could persuade him to just go away and leave us alone I can promise
you that I will never give him another thought, ever.
>Now, if I understadn things, PM has already told you his identity.
>you knew he was a longstanding, good-faith editor, not a jon awbrey
>sock. So what did it matter if a Jon Awbrey sock had made a similar
>edit. Jon Awbrey doesn't get to affect us anymore. You knew PM was
>a good-faith editor in a content dispute. You weren't blocking him
>for being a Awbrey sock. Why invoke Awbrey?
No, he was not a long-standing good-faith editor, he was an editor
with a fairly limited and not at all spotless history, including a
fair bit of controversial editing of controversial content and at
least two other accounts, both equally limited in history. And
three arbitrators agreed that this was not an appropriate use of an
alternate account.
Why invoke Awbrey? Because Awbrey started the whole mess.
>Well, you did it because, of course, we all hat Awbrey. It gets us
>emotional. It subtly implies that PM and Awbry were in league--
>although of course, you knew they weren't. It makes us angry that an
>Enemy of the Project is screwing up our articles again! And it
>makes us want to say Yes! Whatever you say! Just get Awbrey out of
>here! If we are band of villagers, Awbry is a word that makes us
>grab our torches and our pitchforks.
I'm amazed! You can read minds! Hopefully more accurately than you
can judge intent in editing, since you've already apologised once
for completely misjudging a removal of mine, asserting it was a
misplaced BADSITES removal when actually it was precisely as stated:
removal of an offsite comment by a banned user, as it happens
inserted by a sockpuppet of another banned user.
see, we keep coming back to this business of banned users. I find
myself wondering why I have to spend so much time and effort
defending myself from ill-founded allegations, when the real problem
appears to me, as an admittedly interested party, to be the
steadfast refusal of a small coterie of banned users to leave us the
hell alone?
See, the reason they do it is blindingly obvious: attention whoring.
They love the drama. Me, I'd be much happier if people just looked
at the facts, nodded and moved on. But each go-round we have a
whole new group of people who demand that their every tiny curiosity
be satisfied - and if we keep long term abuse pages, then we're
glorifying vandalism. Me, I've performed courtesy blanking or
deletion on a number of long-term abuse related pages, to help
people disappear with dignity. Guess what? I get shit for that as
well. Seems like I can't win.
>> >In the infamous Attack Sites
>> >case, two of our own arbitors voted that "Not mentioning the Banned
>> >Attackers" was more important than "Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia",
and
>> >that mentions or links should be stricken from the encyclopedia,
even
>> >at the cost to the project itself.
>> Who would those people be? Names, please.
>Fred and Flonight voted for BADSITES under the name "salt the earth".
>And since I think they were the first two to vote, it was positively
>chilling to watch, because I realized that they and I weren't working
>on the same project at all, and I didn't know if Wikipedia was what I
>wanted it to be or what they wanted it to be. It turned out okay, but
>i'm was very very happy when it did.
But there, you;re making value judgments about other people's
motives. I would say that if you asked me who was more committed to
the project, Fred Bauder and FloNight or you and Pirvatemusings and
Dan Tobias, I'm awful sorry but I'm afraid Fred and Syney would get
my vote every time. No contest. Not because they support removal
of links to offsite harassment, but because they have contributed a
vast amount to this encyclopaedia and handled any amount of abuse as
arbitrators.
What you *haven't* done is cite any example of anyone who has
advocated not mentioning banned attackers as being more important
than the encyclopaedia. I think I can say with very close to 100%
confidence that Fred and Sydney were motivated by absolute concern
for the integrity of the encyclopaedia. Who's suggesting that not
mentioning banned attackers is *more important than the
encyclopaedia* - your premise, you provide the examples please.
>Incidentally, that's part of why your (Jzg) claim to having gotten
>three arbcom members to endorse your indefblock of private musings
>doesn't impress me. Arbcom turned out to be way more diverse than I
>realize. Turns out, if you ask, you can get two arbiters to vote to
>overturn WP:NPOV, and potentially one arbiter to redirect Enemies of
>the Project's biographies to Clown. <sigh>
Please cite which two arbitrators would vote to overturn NPOV. Diffs
are necessary for this, I think.
>See, I couldn't disagree more. People need to consider something,
>mull it over, discuss it over-- they don't just need to be told the
>right answer. That's the wiki process for you-- there's much talking
>involved. If you don't want to have your behavior subjected to
>good-faith oversight, ya ought not be in the game, I'm afraid. 9
>times out of 10, everybody will conclude that that everything was
>fine.
So you say. Me, I call that pointless drama. An anonymous editor
(with trolling edits) comes along to push a mad theory originating
with a known COI spammer aiming to undermine Wikipedia for his own
commercial ends. Hmmmmm. How long should "people" need to discuss
that do you think? Five seconds? Ten maybe?
The person who did most to prolong that debate skimped on their
research to the point of not actually bothering to even read the
talk page of one of the people he was accusing, on which page there
was, prominently displayed, an thorough and compelling refutation.
Guess you missed that part?
>Police departments often have mandatory review every time an officer
>fires a weapon. You fire your weapon, the first they they do is take
>your weapon away, put you on administrative duty, and let everybody
>take a good hard look at what you did. There will be hard questions.
>It may seem adversarial. Almost always, they'll pat you on the back
>at the end of the day, give you weapon back, and tell you ya did
>right. But the review IS a good thing. Even when it turns out
>nobody did a thing wrong, the review is good.
What you are asking for is to invoke that process every time a
long-term jailbird walks into the station-house and says "hey, that
guy who arrested me, he pulled a weapon! Better investigate him!"
and then runs off.
Oh, and for your analogy to work, the review would have to be
conducted with a peanut gallery full of all the other ne'er do
well's that officer ever arrested, charged or had jailed. We'd have
to let the jailed ones use an assumed identity, too, so that people
don't feel their heckling is tainted in any way.
Anyway, this is making me angry, and that's not going to help
anyone, so I'm stopping there. Do be sure to check out the ongoing
threads in respect of Jehochman and Durova and see if you can find
*any credible evidence whatsoever* to support the accusations.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
...
tl;dr
---------------------------------
Be a better pen pal. Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how.
Once up a time there was a man named Jimbo King who liked American
football more then anything else in the world. He liked it so much
that he created a town for him and anybody else who loved football. He
named the town "Maddenville" and it was open to anybody who liked to
play football, watch football, or even just talk about football.
So people started to move into the town and leagues and teams were
formed for people of all ages. For playing the game, Jimbo set a few
basic rules as "pillar rules" such as "the game will be played on a
field of 100 yards with a regulation football, the games will be
divided into 4 quarters of 15 minutes, 7 points for a touchdown, 3
points for a field goal, and a few others. Only the minimum needed to
keep the game "football". All the other rules were decided by
consensus.
For the first few years everything worked fine. One league or another
had games everyday and the townspeople set up websites, forums, and
blogs for talking about the games and to agree upon the rules.
Sometimes there were disagreements over rules like how many downs the
offence had to move 10 yards or the definition of a forward pass but
all these were eventually settled by consensus and there was joy in
Maddenville.
One day a stranger named "Casey" moved into town who had some new
ideas about how to play football. He thought it should be played on a
diamond shaped field with teams of 9 players who would take turns
hitting a little white ball with a wooden bat and try to run around
the bases to score. He presented his ideas in the forums and the other
townspeople politely told him that what he was proposing was not
"football" and therefore would violate the pillar rules. However,
Casey was a very stubborn man and wouldn't take "no" for an answer so
he kept on proposing his ideas in the forums.
At first the townspeople remained civil about this and tried their
best to convince Casey that his game wasn't "football" but he kept on
insisting that the game should be played his way. He would claim that
many other townspeople agreed with him and supported him in email but
were afraid to speak up because they didn't want to be banished by the
"footcabal" which he claimed was a group consisting of Jimbo King and
a few of his "cronies".
His next move was to create a "cardboard consensus". He made cardboard
figures of people and set them up at the fields during the games. They
all had looping tape players that made them chant "BAT AND BALL" over
and over again. He then created blogs and forum accounts for all his
cardboard figures and had them all post support for his ideas.
However, this all failed to convince the townspeople that he had a
consensus and he eventually was banished after he was caught with a
bulldozer trying to plow diamonds into the football fields.
However, the banishment only enraged Casey and he vowed revenge on the
town. First he set up a website called "Maddenville Review" and he
used this to attack Jimbo King and many other townspeople. Then other
strangers started to show up with their own ideas on how to play
football. One claimed that football should be played on an indoor
court with teams of 5 trying to throw a big brown ball into a high
netted hoop. Another claimed that football should be played by trying
to kick a big white ball into a rectangular net because that's how the
rest of the world plays it. All these strangers had their own
"cardboard consensus" and bulldozers and it got to the point that the
townspeople were spending more and more time arguing with the
newcomers and their cardboard figures and repairing the damage done
with their bulldozers and less time playing football. No longer was
there joy in Maddenville.
a couple of small responses;
Re : William - I respect your judgment and will try and put things
more neutrally. I admit that I am losing some faith that a sensible
point can be made without many editors immediately flinging insults,
but that's no reason not to try......
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_di_Stefano Fred B has said
"Don't link to sources which imply information we lack a good source
for"
and has deleted the talk page containing heaps of reliable sources
(like US Court Doc.s, The Times etc.).
That concerns me.
Re : Steve...
>Looks like more clowining to me. Are you planning to contribute something
>productive to this list, or should we moderate you?
>Steve
>_______________________________________________
I don't wish to be moderated - please don't.
best,
PM
geni wrote
> On 15/11/2007, charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com
> <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > Another Pakistani last night, this time a religious scholar. Speedy tag mostly because it >was all upper case, claiming "patent nonsense". (Patent illiteracy.) As soon as I took that >down, a PROD went up claiming nothing there to salvage.
> Have you checked to see if it is a copyvio? such articles tend to be
> so POV that we would be better off starting from scratch in any case.
Not a copyvio in any obvious way - I think when the spelling of English is improvised, you can guess that there might possibly be an Urdu original, but not one in English.
We are talking about [[Syed Faiz-ul Hassan Shah]], which obviously still has problems. On-topic, because one of the sons went into politics; and the systemic bias thing is quite subtle here, for a couple of reasons. First, in the sphere of Pakistani politics it is the more Western-facing politicians who get the coverage (e.g. Imran Khan, on teh front page of The Independent today); we are quite likely to neglect the more Islamic politicians, and that is just bad for our coverage. Secondly, it becomes clear working with the incoming material from the subcontinent that there are the constant issues (POV, verifiability, and WP:NOT indiscriminate family history). But, OTOH, what people write is very much a reflection of what actually matters on the ground. If we simply cut that off at the knees, WP will be the worse for it.
Charles
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On 15 Nov 2007 at 05:41:07 -0500, "Alec Conroy"
<alecmconroy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Flameviper Velifang <theflameysnake(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Alec wrote:
> > > You listed one of his disputed edits as:
> > > and HERE SUPPORTING AN EARLIER REVERT BY A JON AWBREY SOCK.
> >
> > Yup, repeating edits made by sockpuppets of banned users is a
> > problem.
>
> No-- it's really not. That's a logical fallacy as has been discussed.
> Not all banned user edits are bad ones-- they're smart enough to make
> good ones from time to time, just to mix it up.
Yep... and, as the WR person who posted here last night said (his
blog posting is interesting reading), it's quite possible that there
are "socks of banned users" on *both* sides of a contentious dispute,
as in fact there was in this case. Yes, that's right... the blog
link was re-added by a trolling sockpuppet of a banned user... but
the blog link was also *deleted* by a trolling sockpuppet of a
different banned user, and the two banned users were in collusion
with one another on this, trying to stir up drama, and they
succeeded. The only solution to this sort of thing is to calmly and
rationally decide the issue of whether the link should be there or
not, without regard to which version happens to agree with some
banned user.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Delirium wrote
> I'd propose that people should be *very* careful about speedy-tagging
> people and things from countries they're not from, especially
> non-English-speaking countries, unless they're either obvious crap (i.e.
> an autobiography by a high school student) or the person has first done
> some research to establish that the thing is not notable even in that
> country---keeping in mind that the fact that a German person is not
> well-known _in the US_ is not a valid reason for speedy deletion.
Right. Even Anglospheric stuff is sent to be speedied (women's refuges in New Zealand, domestic violence charities in Australia, health organisations in Ontario) under vague pretexts such as promotion. There are a few Twinkle users who are particularly thoughtless. Having spent some hours now watching CAT:CSD, the word "triage" (not mine) seems to fit quite well. I got into this discussion for haing been vocal about the matter, but it does appear to be a real, live issue with direct impact on the encyclopedia.
Another Pakistani last night, this time a religious scholar. Speedy tag mostly because it was all upper case, claiming "patent nonsense". (Patent illiteracy.) As soon as I took that down, a PROD went up claiming nothing there to salvage.
Charles
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> >
> > There problem we do have is much much smaller, and relates more to
> > incivility and NPA than to the banning policy. It involves not
> > seriously believing people to BE a banned user, but sort of loosely
> > tossing around the accusations of a vague sort of link to banned
> > users. "Supporting" the banned user. "Agreeing with" the banned
> > user. "Friends with" the banned user. "Your buddy" the banned user.
>
>
> Such statements often have a bit more behind them than the people who make
> them are at liberty to disclose openly.
Oh Lordy, Durova-- that's true, there are cases like that but it's an
incredibly dangerous direction. Secret claims the accused person
can't rebut. Secret claims that can't be discussed in public. And as
you imply, "doube secret" evidence-- where not only is the specific
content of the evidence secret, but even the existence of such
evidence might be secret (or at least unknown).
*******
More than 90% of the material I draw upon is already public information for
anyone on the planet who has an Internet connection and the smarts to find
it. Nobody took me by the hand and showed me how to parse it. Nobody
delivers it to me on a silver platter.
Delving through that material takes hard work, and the fruits of that labor
have stood up to repeated scrutiny from the Committee and from numerous
senior editors who hold a variety of Wikipedian philosophies. It would take
a vast conspiracy to cover up the situation, if the problems I identified
weren't actually valid.
To the maximum extent feasible I actually do share that evidence. If my
intent had been to pursue some Star Chamber miscarriage of justice you
wouldn't even know I had a hand in the Alkivar case and I certainly wouldn't
have circulated the bulk of my evidence to nearly every Wikipedian who
requested it. I am probably freer with this material than I ought to be.
It makes a mockery of WP:AGF to disregard the track records of both parties
and presume such statements are baseless until proven valid in full view of
sockpuppeteers who would then exploit the information to become better
sockpuppeteers.
Armchair theorizing is quick, easy, and pleasant; actual gumshoe work is
slow, difficult, and painful. Walk a few miles in those moccasins.
-Durova
Up on slashdot:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/13/0356203
Referencing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ydorb/khobar-copyvio
On first glance, the claim appears valid; User Ydorb wrote the material in
question before the book came out, there's a clear copying of the material,
etc.
Ydorb says he's public-domained most of his contributions, but rightly
points out that other WP contributors were involved in the apparently
plagarized version, and that the WP GFDL sharing license would require
attribution anyways.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com