On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:36:14 -0500, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: slimvirgin@gmail.com
It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate complaints for fear that they too would be penalised <snip>
Theresa Knott said:
Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? . .
.
I am not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear.
I was reluctant to bring the case against the LaRouche editor Herschelkrustofsky because of uncertainty about arbcom attitudes. Herschel was operating a couple of sockpuppets and for months the three user accounts engaged in absurd POV editing and original research, as well as trying to goad editors into making personal attacks. I couldn't prove they were sockpuppets, and twice asked a developer for help but got no response, so I couldn't bring a case. They started attacking me in November, and I managed to last several weeks of daily snide remarks and POV editing, when I finally broke down and called one of them a "toxic troll" twice within half an hour, the only time I had said anything that could be called a personal attack. The context was that, after days of negotiation with Herschel to have an NPOV tag taken down, we finally reached an agreement, took down the tag, and then one of his sockpuppets put it straight back up again. Hence my troll comment. Herschel was pleased as punch that I'd finally weakened and he went straight to the arbcom page and asked for a penalty against me. Fred Bauder responded by saying that if I ever showed up at the arbcom, I'd be banned for a day or two at least. This, without having seen any evidence or asking for my side of the story. That definitely made me reluctant to bring a case, though I did in the end.
In January, I asked David Gerard for help regarding my sockpuppet suspicion. He was able to get a developer to check the accounts, and it was confirmed that they appeared to be sockpuppets, so I took the case to the new, recently elected arbcom. In the course of it, Herschel complained about my toxic-troll comment on an arbcom talk page. He submitted no evidence on the evidence page, and provided no diffs, but the arbcom took his comment as evidence and found the diffs for him. I didn't know they would do this, and hadn't prepared a defense. I wasn't penalized but I was formally warned.
When the proposed decision against Herschel was being written up, Fred also made a couple of remarks about the need to deal with "the POV warriors on the other side," and named one editor, but he said warriors plural, so I assume he also meant me and/or one of the other editors. This meant we had to spend more time submitting defenses for ourselves. Fred provided no evidence of POV-pushing on our part, no examples, diffs, nothing, so we didn't even know what we were defending ourselves against.
These were minor things, but they were annoying, because several editors had spent a lot of time dealing with Herschel for eight months, and we were doing it for Wikipedia, not for our own benefit. None of us had personal POVs that we were pushing, except a desire for accuracy. Keeping him and the two other accounts at bay was hard work, as was putting up with his constant snide remarks, and then putting the arbcom case together; yet it felt as though we were on trial too.
If we'd had an editorial review committee, editors could have gone there about his original-research and NPOV violations when he first turned up in May, without having to wait for sockpuppet checks or for him to violate other conduct-related policies.
I should add to this, however, that I'm grateful to the arbcom for the decisions they reached in the end, as they managed to stop his activities here completely.
Sarah
I'm glad Sarah was brave enough to speak out; this e-mail perfectly illustrates the problem. And Sarah is not a POV warrior with a grudge against Larouche, but someone who was reluctantly drawn into an obvious mess created by a Larouch acolyte.
But as Sarah said "These were minor things, but they were annoying"
Let's keep things in perspective. Should we really change the way the AC works to avoid annoying minor gripes.
Quoting Sarah again
"I should add to this, however, that I'm grateful to the arbcom for the decisions they reached in the end, as they managed to stop his activities here completely."
Is it really worth hindering the AC from trying get rid of trolls, POV pushers, out and out lunatics etc in order to avoid causing such little greviences?
I'm not saying everything is perfect. But I think the alternatives being suggested at the moment will be worse, not better.
Theresa
Jay.
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