This is the end of my involvement with Wikipedia.
I just wanted to give one final email to let you all know. If you want to email me privately, that's fine, but I won't be bothering with the en-l mailing list anymore, which was my last tie to a once-great project.
I do not take this action lightly. Hanging up my admin hat was one of the harder things I've ever done, because I used to believe in wikipedia.
However, three things on this list the past couple weeks have convinced me that Wikipedia is no longer worth it.
The first is Jimbo's rampant bad faith. He sent me a couple emails, and requested diffs for items I had question on. Since sending him the diffs, however, he has done precisely jack shit, and has not bothered to respond to my emails to him requesting a simple update on the matters at hand.
The second is the fact that, in every debate I have seen, the egomaniacs and power-mad jerks are in control, and every reasonable suggestion or suggestion that they start being reasonable is instead shouted down by a chorus of "I'm right and you're not" or dismissive arrogance. I'm not going to mention a specific name, you know damn well who you are.
The third is this below. I brought up a specific instance, because I was concerned about it.
What was the response from the clearly abusive administrator in question?
Step 1 - he indef-blocked and then in his emails since, claims that his reasons are different than the reason he indef-blocked. Step 2 - he had the talk page of a user locked for "abusing the unblock template" when in fact, all the user had done is revert abusive removal of said template. Step 3 - Sensing that his argument was weak, he all of a sudden came up with the idea of finding a troll who was from the same city, in this case "Enviroknot." And lo and behold, as soon as he said "Enviroknot", people stopped bothering with the thread and stopped bothering to pay any attention to his rampant abuses including ignoring AGF, BITE, and just being a general dickwad to non-admin users.
Now I've always thought the "Enviroknot" case was weak, ever since the first time I read it. But to actually say that out loud in Shittopedia these days is heresy, apparently. So I kept my mouth shut.
I don't care anymore. This is the kind of abusive crap that goes on every day that I was talking about, but none of you did shit; instead, you backed up your buddies in adminship. That's the kind of arrogant crap that has made this project no longer worth my time.
Jimbo, by your silence, you've proven that you don't really give a shit about making a good encyclopedia anymore.
Parker Peters, signing off.
On 10/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Responses inline:
On 10/6/06, Nacon Kantari naconk@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I've been watching this for a while, so I guess it's time for my side of the story.
(apologies as this was copied from a chat transcript) He was originally blocked as an IP editor for making personal attacks in
edit summaries
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Front_organization&diff=prev&a... Then created an account to bypass 3RR http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Front_organization&diff=775878...
was blocked and came on IRC contesting the block said that he didn't know who the IP editor was I did a /whois and it was the same IP as the IP editing the article [15:53] * Joins: NoLongerScieno (n=Mike@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available> next weekend, he tried the same thing as [[User:XVidMan]] [19:47] * Parts: XVidman (n=Xvid@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available (both are same)> [18:16] * Joins: ScienoSitter (n=James@cpe-70-114 -*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available (different)>
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enviroknot, this indef-blocked editor edits through houston roadrunner IP addresses. This is what led me to block all of the accounts as obvious sockpuppets of [[User:Enviroknot]]. Granted, I may have been in error with the block messages, but I fully stand by the blocks.
In the first place: none of the accounts did you block as a "sockpuppet of [[User:Enviroknot]]." Rather, as I check, you've blocked NoLongerScieno indefinitely for "name..", Inshaneee blocked Xvidme first as a "sockpuppet of Blainetologist" and then you reblocked as a "sockpuppet of NoLongerScieno", and you've blocked ScienoSitter with a reason of " (vandalism-only accou{nt)" with a tag on the userpage claiming it's a sockpuppet of NoLongerScieno.
From looking at the user talk page, I see at least two incidents where you, the blocking admin, removed an unblock request template from the user's page. I don't care what your excuses are, I don't care what your explanation is: THAT was out of line, as was OmicronPersei8's removal of the unblock template.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ScienoSitter&action=...
Now, if you're going to bring up the name "Enviroknot", as David Gerard did earlier, I've been doing a little research back into the history. Since I don't have access to the "secret evidence" side of CheckUser, I've only been able to go by the contributions list, and I've yet to find a diff from the Enviroknot account that breaks our rules, save for removing templates from the userpage.
For that matter, I think the hoarding of "evidence" like this is bad. Houston's a huge city. Roadrunner, like it or not, appears to be their bigggest ISP, or at least one of the top 2 (SBC/Yahoo appear to be the other; Roadrunner's cable modem, SBC is DSL, so they probably have plenty of markets where only one or the other is available). It'd be like if we were to take Cox Cable or AOL and declare "X vandal always has an IP from Cox, therefore all new users from Cox are sockpuppets."
But that's the sort of problem we get, and it directly conflicts with AGF and Be Bold too.
Now that you're on the defensive, you're completely willing to try to attach the name "Enviroknot" to this based on IP address, even though from every supposed "Enviroknot sock" I've been able to hunt down, there isn't an edit on Scientology or even a reference to it to be found?
This may be incivil of me, but I think your belated accusation and attempt to link that case to yours are very Bad Faith.
I also have a problem with your being the blocking admin in the first place, since you were clearly by the page history spending your time edit warring with these accounts.
As an ancillary topic, I see that the page for [[User:Enviroknot]] has had the ban almost indefinitely extended (all the way through May now), but there's a severe lack of diffs or any reason for the extensions, either on the user page or on the affected arbcom page. The last one to have anything close to proper notation is one from Demi, which states that [[User:ForgetNever]] (who was editing on the arabs and anti-semitism page) is a sockpuppet of KaintheScion as established by CheckUser... except that as I understand how CU works, it shouldn't give any result of the sort for the difference in time between when the accounts were killed and created respectively.
The previous "extension", placed by Anonymous Editor (who I'll note seems to have been involved in edit warring in the past, on the same contentious topics) merely bumps it in March with no linking and no reporting whatsoever.
The last properly recorded "extension" according to the arbcom discussion page is to August 1, 2006. The last one up until Demi's which shows any notation whatsoever is by DMcdevit, who put a link to his discussion diff with Jayjg into the comment, but didn't bother to report it anywhere else.
Mirv's "addition" of "information" in question shows no evidence linking a supposed sockpuppet, has no information notated to the arbcom filing as to who the supposed sockpuppet was, and is damning in that we're again hoarding up evidence to attack any new editor.
I can't tell if they're a sock, but unless there is some other secret function of CheckUser going on we're not being told about, then the only "match" is to a huge ISP in a huge city, editing on a similar topic, and that dubious "match" is being used to push continual extensions to a block in a case that I can't say for sure was even a sockpuppet to start with.
That's very poor form, people.
Also, Parker Peters, if you are IRC user pakaran, we did have a discussion
about this. If not, my apologies.
No, I'm not. But I did watch your discussion with the person as they came in. Civility is important. Even when you think someone is acting in bad faith, even if you think you are right, you need to be civil.
Your conduct was as far from civil as possible.
Parker