On Dec 10, 2007 8:47 AM, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 9, 2007 4:20 AM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/8/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I am glad to see Alec laying his cards on the table here.
Ouch! Well, I don't know how to take this, per se, other than to apologize for inadvertant toe-stepping. Granted, I wasn't unaware that some toes were getting tender, but I didn't realize what large and influencial toes they were.
-- Reading you email, I get the feeling like you feel like this whole issue was manufacture by malcontents-- but really, all I and other concerned editors have done is reeped the seeds of confusion sown by Durova's own words.
Durova was quite clear that she had consulted with other "sleuths" and that she had received "enthusiastic" endorsements. I didn't concoct the theory that there was extensive collaboration-- Durova cited that collaboration to justify her actions. When it turned out that whatever group had collaborated in the !! was, essentially, smoking crack, I honestly thought I could help the project out by asking pointed questions to try to determine who the amorphous assortment was.
Similarly, I didn't create the idea of a 'list, the existence of which is unknown', I just quoted Durova. Whether it was an email list, a Wikipedia list, a Wikia list, or what-- that I have never known. I honestly thought it would be useful to the project to know what forum was involved, and I thought it would be helpful to ask pointed questions on that subject.
Again, when I suggested the list had been used to collaborate, again, I'm just quoting what Durova herself seems to confirm. PrivateMusings asked if there has been any off-wiki collaboration, Durova cites PM's query as evidence that "they" don't know about the list. You needed be of any conspiratorial bent to somehow suspect that, in Durova's mind at least, some "list they don't know exists" is connected to "off-wiki collaboration". Durova's the one who privately answered PM's query by referring to the list-- not me.
Look at it from my point of view, Jimbo. In the leaked "secret evidence" email, Durova certainly 'appears' to have claimed there is some list, somewhere, that was secret, that was being used for collaboration.
I mean, we can all agree that is how things certain appear from an outside vantage point, right? That's what all the fuss is about.
The problem was not that you assumed the cyberstalking list had been used to co-ordinate the block, but the fact that for days you loudly insisted that it *had* been used to do just that, despite multiple statements to the contrary by multiple members of the list. The first time you insisted SHOW ME THE E-MAILS was not disruptive, but when you did it again and again, day after day, you were effectively saying, over and over again, that these people were lying. To use your metaphor, "toes were tender" not because you stepped on them by accident once, but because you kept jumping up and down on them after their owners politely asked you to stop. Stop calling people liars, stop inventing fantasies about their actions that have no relation to the reality they know, and they will stop being "tender".
Jay, I can only suppose you've stopped reading Alec's emails, which is fine - I'm sure a lot of people have. Unfortunately, you haven't stopped replying to them. He quite clearly laid out the sequence of what was initially obscured and then leaked/clarified; you ignored it magisterially. Your caricature of his behaviour is unhelpful, misleading and inappropriate, and I suggest you stop it now. If you don't have anything useful to contribute to the discussion, remain silent, as most of us have been doing. Alec has moved well beyond claiming that there was any discussion on-list, which was what was specifically denied. We all did that, weeks ago now. It is a pity you haven't stopped denying it.
My main concern in all this (which I think is echoed elsewhere clearly and loudly) is that people have been taking 'on-wiki' actions without the appropriate level of 'on-wiki' discussion. I think we would all agree that a group (say 4 or 5) of 'senior' editors forming opinions privately, and then each taking action in the matter at hand at the very least is behaviour which probably requires great care to avoid becoming problematic.
Why do you keep repeating these things as if they're facts? Do you think it helps the tenor of the conversation to continually post unproven (and, in fact, repudiated) allegations, and then claim that they represent a "problematic" issue about which "great care" must be taken?
This, for example, has not, as far as I know, been repudiated; either in the case of !!'s block or in the case of PM's block. In fact, in the case of PM's block, it was quite clearly confirmed. (Jimbo says there was no discussion of Miltopia's block off-wiki in advance.) Your repeated conflation of Alec's carefully worded statement with "no discussion on the list" is problematic.
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