>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ray Saintonge [mailto:saintonge@telus.net]
>Sent: Friday, July 6, 2007 03:50 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkk site link policy
>
>Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>If you chose to be roadkill, so be it. I consider it a minor matter. That so much ink was wasted on the issue has little or nothing to do with you. Just keep on editing and enjoy contributing.
>>
>>We must not only support our productive contributors and administrators, our workers, we must also make it plain that doing so is a priority. Protecting the "right" to link to critical posts on external websites, is pretty low on the list of priorities. However, let''s assume you are a good editor and you can assume we are trying our best and had nothing against you personally and go from there.
>>
>It IS a minor matter, but for the fact that a small gang of obsessives
>wants to flex its muscles by insisting on its right to impose discipline
>on anyone who links to a site they don't like, and then support their
>actions with the utterly spurious excuse that it somehow protects
>people. If you want these users to assume that you are trying your
>best, you must also assume that they are trying their best, and be
>willing to treat them as equals. If you choose to block someone solely
>for linking to such sites it's you, not them, that is making it a
>personal issue, smarmy consolings notwithstanding.
>
>You must know by now that very few of us will even think of linkig to
>such sites, not even those of us who see such hard-line attitudes as a
>form of bullying. Had you chosen a more pragmatic approach, the
>arguments would have ceased long ago. People with a legitimate reason
>for making such links would sleep peacefully; thoe who link with
>attitude would face the wrath of the whole community. Those who make
>such links out of bad faith are unlikely to confine thier activity to
>only one single act of bad faith.
>
>Ec
I hope you make a choice to support our productive editors and administrators and do what is needful to protect them from harassment by external sites. I know it is frustrating and offensive to be forced to do what you would do voluntarily and with insight.
If a naive editor got caught up in a major controversy that is a shame. However, the bold pronouncements that the "vague" arbitration remedy was void and the ignoring of warnings argue for a disingenuous breaching experiment. A ban is open to such theater. The alternative is to open the site to drama, a move which would not have a happy outcome.
A dull site, devoted to work on the encyclopedia will serve our readers and productive contributors better.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: The Mangoe [mailto:the.mangoe@gmail.com]
>Sent: Friday, July 6, 2007 06:24 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkk site link policy
>
>On 7/5/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
>> Simply saying no doesn't work. The role of Essjay and how he assumed it is of internal
>> value to us. We may legitimately engage in research concerning the incident. As a
>> source for an encyclopedia article, however, it's not acceptable. As to censorship, we
>> have always been limited to verifiable information from reliable published sources.
>
>If you insist on trotting out rudely mechanical reiteration of rote
>principle, I must equally insist on equally rote application of them.
>How do you know where the reporter of a free paper in Vancouver got
>his story? The cite doesn't even give a name for the author; the paper
>has no online archives that I can see. It's fairly likely that the
>paper's source is in fact that very thread. And while I'm at it,
>what's your grounds for doubting that the"Daniel Brandt" in that
>thread is not the real person?
>
>Perhaps it is better to cite an Officially Published Source-- though I
>think "24 Hours Vancouver" is a pretty poor excuse for same. Surely we
>can find better. But the claim that Brandt's entries there are so
>unreliable as to forbid linkage is specious. And as for "internal
>value", there's no distinction between internal value for participants
>in Wikipedia and external value to people who want to understand its
>processes.They are the same.
No they are not. Why not start a page: [[Wikipedia;Essjay incident]] and do some original research. I'm curious too. He suddenly appeared on the arbitrator's private mailing list. He was not an arbitrator. I didn't know who he was. Just how did he accomplish this. Are we just suckers for what someone says his qualifications and biography are? His work was never that bad, but always seemed pretty generic. Who promoted him and why to positions of trust?
As to sources for an article, of course WR was used. Any researcher will use WR archives. I post on WR myself. His account is him. I've never known them to monkey with their archives.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: The Mangoe [mailto:the.mangoe@gmail.com]
>Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2007 08:28 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkk site link policy
>
>On 7/5/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
>> This is acceptable as research into a Wikipedia event for our own purposes.
>> It has no place in any article as original research.
>
>Um, no. Simply citing an original source is not in itself original
>research, and in any case it can be (and really ought to be0 linked to
>as an external link. Anyway, whatever happened to "Wikipedia is not
>censored"? People should understand that links to external sites may
>lead them to less-than-pleasant reading experiences.
>
>I had not come across this thread before, but it seems to me that
>linking to it does improve the encyclopedia, in article space no less.
>The risk of people wandering off and finding the other (supposedly
>inaccurate) revelations of identity seems overstated in comparison;
>indeed, the thread really doesn't give any indication they are even
>there, as far as I can tell (except for the link to DB's "hivemind"
>pages, which at any given time may or may not be there).
Simply saying no doesn't work. The role of Essjay and how he assumed it is of internal value to us. We may legitimately engage in research concerning the incident. As a source for an encyclopedia article, however, it's not acceptable. As to censorship, we have always been limited to verifiable information from reliable published sources.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: James Farrar [mailto:james.farrar@gmail.com]
>Sent: Monday, July 2, 2007 07:50 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkkkk site link policy
>
>On 03/07/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >-----Original Message-----
>> >From: James Farrar [mailto:james.farrar@gmail.com]
>> >Sent: Monday, July 2, 2007 04:45 PM
>> >To: 'English Wikipedia'
>> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkk site link policy
>> >
>> >On 02/07/07, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Information you have approved for publication in the New York Times is
>> >> not "private information".
>> >
>> >Define "private information".
>> >
>> >If you're referring to the linking of real names to account names
>> >without authorisation by the person in question, this mailing list has
>> >been guilty of that at times. This would then make wikimedia.org
>> >unlinkable.
>> >
>> >The Mongo ruling is a blunt instrument. It's not surprising it's
>> >hurting the encyclopedia.
>>
>> It's a righteous decision applied to ED. Attempting to generalize it into a policy, whether by friend or foe, is troublesome.
>
>The problem is, the way the decision is framed does not necessarily
>specifically apply to ED.
>
>Principles (3): "Links to attack sites may be removed by any user;
>such removals are exempt from 3RR. Deliberately linking to an attack
>site may be grounds for blocking."
>
>This is clearly not specific to ED.
>
>Now, ED is specifically mentioned in Remedies (1) and Enforcement, so
>it seems clear to me that ArbCom's intent was that the ruling shold
>apply only to ED; however, it's equally clear that certain individuals
>are keen to exploit the general nature of Principles (3), despite the
>reception that [[WP:BADSITES]] got from the community at large.
You got it. BADSITES was nothing but provocation. An attempt to overturn the policy it supposedly supported by generalizing.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: John Lee [mailto:johnleemk@gmail.com]
>Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2007 10:20 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkk site link policy
>
>On 7/6/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 7/5/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan(a)tobias.name> wrote:
>> > On 5 Jul 2007 at 21:19:57 +0000, "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Referring to an active remedy as "vague statements" is essentially a
>> > > declaration that she was free to ignore them. A mistake as they remain
>> > > valid, although there is some doubt they apply to this particular
>> > > edit.
>> >
>> > Well, "Ignore All Rules" is an active policy, as is "Be Bold". And you
>> state yourself that
>> > ArbCom doesn't make policy, and at times appear to believe that the
>> ArbCom ruling in
>> > question doesn't apply to what she did in this case (though you seem to
>> change your mind on
>> > this as often as the weather changes where I live in South Florida).
>> >
>> Dan, what you see as Fred changing his mind is in fact him expressing
>> a nuanced view that balances the different concerns. It's perfectly
>> coherent and very much welcomed.
>
>
>While I agree that Fred's recent statements on the issue have been a breath
>of fresh air, I would not exactly call them "coherent" considering they flat
>out contradict Fred's previous statements (which imply that the MONGO ruling
>applies not only to ED but to other sites), but at the same time deny that
>there is any such inconsistency. It seems to me as if Fred has not
>completely made up his mind yet.
>
>Johnleemk
Astute observation. It took quite a while for the insight develop that protecting our productive editors and administrators from harassment has a higher priority than keeping critics happy. Our productive editors and administrators are our "workers" and keeping them content, happy, and free from harassment has the highest priority. Protecting and encouraging legitimate criticism comes not far behind though.
Fred
jayjg wrote
> No, the point was that if an admin doesn't behave well when it's
> absolutely essential that they do so, it's likely that they'll behave
> even worse when they aren't under the microscope. Please don't troll.
Great. An invitation to make all our elections a pillory, just so we can be sure people are made of the right stuff. The psychology is completely naff, too. Most people are much happier out of the spotlight.
Charles
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On 5 Jul 2007 at 21:19:57 +0000, "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
> Referring to an active remedy as "vague statements" is essentially a
> declaration that she was free to ignore them. A mistake as they remain
> valid, although there is some doubt they apply to this particular
> edit.
Well, "Ignore All Rules" is an active policy, as is "Be Bold". And you state yourself that
ArbCom doesn't make policy, and at times appear to believe that the ArbCom ruling in
question doesn't apply to what she did in this case (though you seem to change your mind on
this as often as the weather changes where I live in South Florida).
Dan
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Daniel R. Tobias [mailto:dan@tobias.name]
>Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2007 08:28 PM
>To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkk site link policy
>
>On 5 Jul 2007 at 21:19:57 +0000, "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
>
>> Referring to an active remedy as "vague statements" is essentially a
>> declaration that she was free to ignore them. A mistake as they remain
>> valid, although there is some doubt they apply to this particular
>> edit.
>
>Well, "Ignore All Rules" is an active policy, as is "Be Bold". And you state yourself that
>ArbCom doesn't make policy, and at times appear to believe that the ArbCom ruling in
>question doesn't apply to what she did in this case (though you seem to change your mind on
>this as often as the weather changes where I live in South Florida).
A grave defect associated with thinking about the matter. I'm real sure we don't want to beat her up about it, though.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: The Mangoe [mailto:the.mangoe@gmail.com]
>Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2007 08:01 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattack site link policy
>
>On 7/5/07, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> KM's edit summary n inserting the links was "vague ArbCom statements
>> from 8 months ago aren't policy. that ArbCom case pertained to ED and
>> the links were being used for harassment. this link is genuinely
>> informative."
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essjay_controversy&diff=next&oldi…
>> and on examining what was inserted, no confidential or abusive
>> material was linked to.
>
>Well, it's convenient that they could find another source without
>having to link to the WR thread, but it also seems that the thread is
>a better source, in spite of the snarky commentary within it. Those
>with any strength of stomach would find it an excellent transcript of
>the issue, and it really ought to be linked to, particularly since it
>most closely documents Brandt's inquiries.
This is acceptable as research into a Wikipedia event for our own purposes. It has no place in any article as original research.
Fred