From: Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk> Date: Nov 27, 2007 1:18 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Missed Opportunities to have avoided the Durova Case To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>

And why, then, did we think it quite alright to set up a bastard child to wpcyberstalking, wpinvestigations-1? This little list I know quite a lot about - I've seen some truly bizarre and quite terrifying conversations, including some posts that make you wonder how on earth something like the block of !! didn't happen a lot earlier. Sockpuppet paranoia, investigation obsession, weird suggestions for the CUs galore - it's got the lot, baby. In fact, Thatcher summed this wretched list up very nicely: "...unhelpful and possible dangerous development. Blocks and such should be discussed and documented on Wiki whenever possible. In extraordinary circumstances evidence may need to be kept private, but those cases should be dealt with by Arbcom, who were elected for that purpose, rather than a group of self-selected investigators who may lack proper perspective."

Wikipedia is not a MMORG for SlimVirgin to play webmaster to.

Please note that I have no reason to doubt SlimVirgin's statement that she did not participate in the Investigations list. It appears that Durova's email about !! was sent to the Cyberstalking list as an example of "here's how to spot a WR troll," and not as "Here is a troll I would like to block." Under the circumstances, I can't fault the members of the list for not saying "Whoa!" I have seen several recipients of the email express regret that they did not do so, but not reading one's mail is not an actionable offense.

As I stated, an Investigations list is an unfortunate development because it amounts to a group of people who believe in Bigfoot all looking for evidence that Bigfoot exists. And, even assuming Durova is correct that trolls from Wikipedia Review are infiltrating Wikipedia using a particular pattern of credibility-building edits, that pattern looks the same as an old user starting over, or possibly even a new user who is particularly quick to grasp community conventions. Which is why I believe blocks should be justified by on-wiki evidence and behavior, not private evidence and anticipated behavior.

However, the Cyberstalking list was started with the best intentions and I hope it is doing some good. It is important to separate the medium from the message. A poorly-judged block is is the responsibility of the blocker, regardless of whether it was discussed on a private mailing list, IRC, or by carrier pigeon. An insular environment can contribute to poor judgement (and I can name a hundred real-world examples, from the Bush administration to the University of Delaware's ideological purity program for freshmen) which is why insular environments are potentially dangerous. But ultimately the responsibility lies with the individual, and beating up on other participants in the mailing list serves no purpose whatsoever.

Thatcher131