G'day Joe,
Didn't David Gerard just ask today what should be
done about IRC?
Boggles the mind that people aren't responsible for any and all words spoken
in there or actions that spawn from there. I.e., if people told the blocking
admin, "Blocking Jeff would be good," in any wording, who did it ought to be
named. Why get a free pass? Note it on their permanent record on-wiki as
individuals of dubious judgement.
I, too, would like to know who these morons advising Zsinj[0] are. I
don't see that it's IRC's fault, however.
A block after discussing with fellow admins on IRC is no different from
a block after discussing with fellow admins on IM, the telephone, or
IRL. There are admins out there who live nearby to one another; there's
even a few who live together. If Admin X and Admin Y, a married couple,
want to ask each others' advice on a perceived problem user, does
Wikipedia have to take control of their marriage in order to prevent
IRC-type abuse?
There are three problems here. The first is obvious: a
bowel-clenchingly stupid block has been perpetrated. The second is not
so obvious: there were, apparently, a bunch of other admins willing to
advise Zsinj that such a block would be a Good Thing. The third? We
don't actually know who the admins are.
None of these problems are exclusive to IRC. None of these problems
will be solved if we get rid of IRC, or strenuously police it. And,
finally, none of these problems are guaranteed to occur on IRC.
#wikipedia-en-admins doesn't cause people to behave idiotically, or
refuse to take responsibility for their own actions[1]. We shouldn't
remove or limit a valuable tool simply because somebody was too bloody
stupid to use it properly.
Those IRC channels need to be either fully public and
logged, with all
Wikipedia policies applied to them, or disowned from the project, cast off
into a no-man's land, and removed from references on-wiki.
Billy Joel is a good singer, eh? Some of his music's a bit
middle-of-the-road, but when he's hot, he's hot. *And* he's witty as
anything. Ever see that live video of one of his concerts in late
2001/early 2002? The phrase "fan-fucking-tastic" just doesn't quite
capture the magic.
This isn't really one of his better songs, though:
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
[0] I'd also be interested to know if Zsinj really is one of the
far-too-God-damned-many "CVU admins" around, or if it's just a
coincidence ...
[1] Guns don't kill ducks, ducks kill ducks.
Cheers,
--
Mark Gallagher
"'Yes, sir,' said Jeeves in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten
in the leg by a personal friend."
- P G Wodehouse, /Carry On, Jeeves/