Re: "I don't feel 172 is reliable in regards to contentious issues"
Why? Are you able to offer any evidence from my user history that I have insisted on the contribution of material that is inaccurate? If so, I'd appreciate it if you brought it to my attention, as I emphatically oppose the addition of dubious content on Wikipedia.
That's what I do. How would you like it if I made that claim about you on the mailing list? To take this on the mailing list with no basis for making this claim, in a context that knowingly will diminish a user's credibility among a wide readership to me is the most debasing form of attack there is. These kinds of statements might be superficially "civil" in tone, but they're the remarks that truly do the most to spread mistrust and animosity among Wikipedia users.
When I make off the cuff remarks on talk pages, they're brushed off and dismissed, as they should be. But the remarks that truly impugn a user's credibility and integrity aren't. But perhaps that was your point.
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It is mostly a matter of emphasis, of consistently editing articles to give a positive spin to totalitarian leftist political organizations. Admitting atrocities, but downplaying them is a tactic, the strategy is to present leftist totalitarianism in the most favorable light possible.
Thus a naive reader is mislead by what appears to be an objective "academic" stance but is in fact just clever presentation of a distinct point of view. That the majority of the historians in the academic community support this view adds a figleaf. But on Wikipedia, everyone is free to edit any article, including those who are "politically incorrect".
Fred
From: "Abe Sokolov" abesokolov@hotmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2004 11:26:38 +0000 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Response to Jack Lynch
Re: "I don't feel 172 is reliable in regards to contentious issues"
Why? Are you able to offer any evidence from my user history that I have insisted on the contribution of material that is inaccurate? If so, I'd appreciate it if you brought it to my attention, as I emphatically oppose the addition of dubious content on Wikipedia.
Would that were true. But should you step on the toes of certain editors, you would be auto-reverted over and over again if you even tried to so much as change a comma, and the person doing all the reverting would be allowed to get away with it without so much as a slap on the wrist because "they're a valuable contributor."
RickK
Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote: But on Wikipedia, everyone is free to edit any article, including those who are "politically incorrect".
Fred
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Not true. Wik, who is quite popular and generally considered a valuable contributor, is in a world of hurt, to the point we will be lucky to get him back after the latest slap on the wrist. The point is, consistent aggressiveness will eventually break so many "rules" that even the most conservative arbitrators will feel moved to support some remedy. Wik is also a good example of why is not a good practice to decide on your own that certain other editors are not worth paying attention to. It was the dummies and outcasts that dragged him down, folks he didn't think it worthwhile to discuss controversies with. His free pass didn't.
Fred
From: Rick giantsrick13@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 11:22:08 -0700 (PDT) To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Response to Jack Lynch
Would that were true. But should you step on the toes of certain editors, you would be auto-reverted over and over again if you even tried to so much as change a comma, and the person doing all the reverting would be allowed to get away with it without so much as a slap on the wrist because "they're a valuable contributor."
RickK
Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote: But on Wikipedia, everyone is free to edit any article, including those who are "politically incorrect".
Fred
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I respect what the Arbitration Committee is trying to do, but I have a distinct lack of respect about the way they're going about it.
User JRR Trollkien (who, it is increasingly clear, is either a reincarnation of a previously permanently-banned user, or so close to him as not to make a difference) was blocked by an administrator before he had made 20 edits. He has now racked up 1500, which will someday have to be gone through, each one, in an effort to remove the introduced crap, due in large part to the fact that it has taken:
a) over a month to even get the Arbitration Committee to accept this case; b) two months and counting while it's been sitting in Arbitration Committee being mulled over; c) at least a month of which was caused by some sort of crazy departure from the case itself ("JRR Trollkien is an offensive name". Where did that come from? Why was that even put forth?)
The end effect of the Arbitration Committee so far is that virtually no users have been blocked (with the notable exception of Wik, who should have been blocked almost a *year* ago anyway). It would be an understatement to say that I'm not pleased with current affairs. Several other valuable users have left because of this.
The end effect is that serious contributors are leaving this place to let the rest of us play with the trolls. All due to an apparent distinct inability to use common sense.
--- John Robinson john@freeq.com wrote:
I respect what the Arbitration Committee is trying to do, but I have a distinct lack of respect about the way they're going about it.
User JRR Trollkien (who, it is increasingly clear, is either a reincarnation of a previously permanently-banned user, or so close to him as not to make a difference) was blocked by an administrator before he had made 20 edits. He has now racked up 1500, which will someday have to be gone through, each one, in an effort to remove the introduced crap, due in large part to the fact that it has taken:
a) over a month to even get the Arbitration Committee to accept this case; b) two months and counting while it's been sitting in Arbitration Committee being mulled over; c) at least a month of which was caused by some sort of crazy departure from the case itself ("JRR Trollkien is an offensive name". Where did that come from? Why was that even put forth?)
Yes, this case is taking too long. I already voted on this case a month ago and still await votes by the other members of the AC.
The end effect of the Arbitration Committee so far is that virtually no users have been blocked (with the notable exception of Wik, who should have been blocked almost a *year* ago anyway). It would be an understatement to say that I'm not pleased with current affairs.
Check your facts before making ad hominen statements - K? By my estimation in the last 6 months the AC has issued more user bans than Jimbo did two years before that (when re-incarnations are not counted).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Completed_re...
The end effect is that serious contributors are leaving this place to let the rest of us play with the trolls. All due to an apparent distinct inability to use common sense.>
Are you volunteering to be a member of the AC? It's a great job - you get to spend hours researching a case to try to come up with a fair ruling and end up getting cursed at by both sides of the dispute and blamed for the downfall of the whole project. Not to mention the lovely time we have arguing over what the best remedies are for a case.
Oh what great fun! Please join us!!
But seriously, I think that the AC needs to be tripled in size and also serve as an appeals board for non-vandalism temp-blocks by our hopefully soon-to-be-deputized admins who will hopefully be given the authority to enforce our policies soon (IMO, it would have to take 3 non-AC member admins to do such a block and a quorum of the AC to decide to extend or suspend the block for the duration of the arbitration).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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in the last 6 months the AC has issued more user bans than Jimbo did two years before that
Indeed. Most of them for a symbolic 24 hours. This is fine for regular contributors who occasionally go off the deep end, but that's not what most of the cases have involved. Wik's ban is over now, the only reason he's still gone is because he left on his own. Meanwhile Gohde and "Irismeister" are still up to their old tricks, exactly as before arbitration.
Are you volunteering to be a member of the AC?
No, I am saying that the concept of an AC has been tried, and does not work. I don't consider this to be the fault of the AC or any of the members of it, rather a problem with overall structure, confusion with regard to the amount of authority it holds, etc.
3 non-AC member admins to do such a block
This is a good idea, we've had five already in Trollkien's case, for example. As with all good ideas, though, it never seems to get implemented (didn't we first see this proposal months ago?).
What would he be banned for exactly? Are there specific edits or problems? If so it should be possible either to fix it, or go through the normal procedure. Mark
3 non-AC member admins to do such a block
This is a good idea, we've had five already in Trollkien's case, for example. As with all good ideas, though, it never seems to get implemented (didn't we first see this proposal months ago?).
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What would he be banned for exactly? Are there specific edits or problems?
Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/JRR_Trollkie...
If so it should be possible either to fix it, or go through the normal procedure.
Oh there's a normal procedure, that actually works? I must have missed that; what is it?
What would he be banned for exactly? Are there specific edits or problems? If so it should be possible either to fix it, or go through the normal procedure. Mark
3 non-AC member admins to do such a block
This is a good idea, we've had five already in Trollkien's case, for example. As with all good ideas, though, it never seems to get implemented (didn't we first see this proposal months ago?).
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Yes, I've looked, it's pretty incoherent, and there is little that I think could be considered grounds for excluding someone, especially since other remedies don't seem to have been tried. This case was brought straight to arbitration without the previous steps that the guidelines recommend. Mark
--- John Robinson john@freeq.com wrote:
What would he be banned for exactly? Are there specific edits or problems?
Have a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/JRR_Trollkie...
If so it should be possible either to fix it, or go
through the normal
procedure.
Oh there's a normal procedure, that actually works? I must have missed that; what is it?
What would he be banned for exactly? Are there specific edits or problems? If so it should be possible either to fix it, or go through the normal procedure. Mark
3 non-AC member admins to do such a block
This is a good idea, we've had five already in Trollkien's case, for example. As with all good ideas, though, it never seems
to
get implemented (didn't we first see this proposal months ago?).
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John Robinson wrote:
in the last 6 months the AC has issued more user bans than Jimbo did two years before that
Indeed. Most of them for a symbolic 24 hours. This is fine for regular contributors who occasionally go off the deep end, but that's not what most of the cases have involved. Wik's ban is over now, the only reason he's still gone is because he left on his own. Meanwhile Gohde and "Irismeister" are still up to their old tricks, exactly as before arbitration.
Are you volunteering to be a member of the AC?
No, I am saying that the concept of an AC has been tried, and does not work. I don't consider this to be the fault of the AC or any of the members of it, rather a problem with overall structure, confusion with regard to the amount of authority it holds, etc.
I acknowledge John's concern.
It is true that the AC has banned more people than Jimbo, but it is also true that there are many more trolls now than just 6 months ago. So far as I can remember, there has always been at least 1 problematic user at any point, but now, all the time, they are several.
So, I am not sure the comparison is relevant. Perhaps one of the reason Jimbo gave us the hand to do that, was precisely because it was requiring him more and more time.
-----
One issue is time. As you said, AC conclusion is often a very short time of banning. When this time is over, the game is on again. May I suggest that decisions taken by AC are two steps ones ?
Say a case is considered by AC After a while, AC admits there is an issue, and that it is worth doing something, say banning for 1 week. The AC is important here, because we trust they make fair decisions, after they studied the case thoroughly
Could not the AC take 2 decisions at the same time ? * first, immediate banning for perhaps 1 week * second, additional decision already taken for "repetition of issue". After the banning time is over, if the user starts being problematic, and is reported by xx contributors (perhaps 5 ?), the AC immediately release the second decision (perhaps 1 month banning). - Either it is applied on the spot (that means that within ONE day 5 contributors could report and the user be banned again). - Or the second decision (taken by AC perhaps 2 weeks sooner during initial arbitration) is voted by contributors (agree, disagree, no opinion) during a few days. if there is general agreement, the AC second decision is applied.
-----
Second issue is transparency. I am sure people are worried and get nervous, because they do not know enough what is going on during the AC
-----
Third point is evolution. I think there will be no go back in time. Structurally speaking, Wikipedia will have more and more trolls as it grows and develops and gets famous, and AS USERS BECOME MORE AND MORE PROTECTIVE TOWARD ITS CONTENT.
I think some trolling cases would have less impact if people just gave it less attention.
(belle définition du trollisme d'ailleurs...)
--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
One issue is time. As you said, AC conclusion is often a very short time of banning. When this time is over, the game is on again. May I suggest that decisions taken by AC are two steps ones ?
That is why we have started to issue enforcement rulings that place users under a type of probation after their initial ban. With Wik, it was the possibility of a month ban if we determined he violated the terms of his probation (some of which is for an indefinite term).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik2/Decided...
Say a case is considered by AC After a while, AC admits there is an issue, and that it is worth doing something, say banning for 1 week. The AC is important here, because we trust they make fair decisions, after they studied the case thoroughly
Could not the AC take 2 decisions at the same time ?
- first, immediate banning for perhaps 1 week
- second, additional decision already taken for "repetition of issue".
After the banning time is over, if the user starts being problematic, and is reported by xx contributors (perhaps 5 ?), the AC immediately release the second decision (perhaps 1 month banning).
- Either it is applied on the spot (that means that within ONE day 5
contributors could report and the user be banned again).
- Or the second decision (taken by AC perhaps 2 weeks sooner during
initial arbitration) is voted by contributors (agree, disagree, no opinion) during a few days. if there is general agreement, the AC second decision is applied.
That is almost exactly what we have done with Wik2, except the month banning is at the discretion of the AC.
-- mav
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Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
One issue is time. As you said, AC conclusion is often a very short time of banning. When this time is over, the game is on again. May I suggest that decisions taken by AC are two steps ones ?
That is why we have started to issue enforcement rulings that place users under a type of probation after their initial ban. With Wik, it was the possibility of a month ban if we determined he violated the terms of his probation (some of which is for an indefinite term).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik2/Decided...
great
Say a case is considered by AC After a while, AC admits there is an issue, and that it is worth doing something, say banning for 1 week. The AC is important here, because we trust they make fair decisions, after they studied the case thoroughly
Could not the AC take 2 decisions at the same time ?
- first, immediate banning for perhaps 1 week
- second, additional decision already taken for "repetition of issue".
After the banning time is over, if the user starts being problematic, and is reported by xx contributors (perhaps 5 ?), the AC immediately release the second decision (perhaps 1 month banning).
- Either it is applied on the spot (that means that within ONE day 5
contributors could report and the user be banned again).
- Or the second decision (taken by AC perhaps 2 weeks sooner during
initial arbitration) is voted by contributors (agree, disagree, no opinion) during a few days. if there is general agreement, the AC second decision is applied.
That is almost exactly what we have done with Wik2, except the month banning is at the discretion of the AC.
-- mav
but then... does that mean that editors will have to wait again for the AC to decide over this ? Or may it be quickly done if necessary ?
Is there a risk there of a bottleneck ?
--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
but then... does that mean that editors will have to wait again for the AC to decide over this ? Or may it be quickly done if necessary ?
Is there a risk there of a bottleneck ?
When power like this is placed into the hands of just a few people, then yes. If we still had quickpolls then then some of that power would be better distributed. That said, I think that the AC should decide this question now so that a decision is ready when Wik comes back. If we answer in the affirmative, then at that point Wik would be banned for a month.
What we need is a whole system to deal with issues like this. A single committee is simply not enough on its own.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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--- John Robinson john@freeq.com wrote:
in the last 6 months the AC has issued more user bans than Jimbo did two
years
before that
Indeed. Most of them for a symbolic 24 hours.
Wrong again:
Decided on 11th Februry 2004 that Mr-Natural-Health would be banned from editing for 30 days (i.e., until 12 Mar 2004).
Decided on 11th March 2004 that Plautus satire is to be banned for one year, up to and including March 11, 2005.
Decided on 15th March 2004 that Wik would have a three month probation during which he may be temp-banned in certain circumstances.
Decided on 31st March 2004 that Irismeister would be banned from editing all pages for ten days, and banned from editing Iridology indefinitely.
Decided on 25th April 2004 to instruct Anthony with regards to his VfD edits, and refer other issues to mediation.
/Paul Vogel - Decided on 10 May 2004 to ban Vogel for one year.
Decided at /Wik2/Decided on 21 May 2004 that Wik shall be banned for one week and be subject to a month ban after he returns if he fails to abide by the AC's conduct rulings. Cantus and Nico shall be banned for one day for using sockpuppets.
Maybe you are using some oddball form of math to reach your "most cases" statement, but I see only two users who received anything that could be called "symbolic 24 hour" bans.
This is fine for regular contributors who occasionally go off the deep end, but that's not what most of the cases have involved.
You obviously have either not read those cases, and/or are confusing the AC with the quickpoll process. Again, do your homework before you criticize.
Wik's ban is over now, the only reason he's still gone is because he left on his own.
And as soon as he comes back the AC will decide whether or not his breaking of the terms of his week ban is enough to warrent the imposition of the month ban we already provided for in the enforcement section. I for one will vote to impose the month ban.
It is fairly obvious to me that you have not even read the ruling.
Meanwhile Gohde and "Irismeister" are still up to their old tricks, exactly as before arbitration.
I do think that the AC made a mistake in not placing MrNH and Irismeister on long term probations. But those were two early cases.
Are you volunteering to be a member of the AC?
No, I am saying that the concept of an AC has been tried, and does not work.
That is because you are mistakingly thinking of the AC as a police force. We are not and do not have the ability to control the immediate actions of others - we can only provide punishments for past actions and also say what to do if users break the terms of their probations.
Cases against users take time to develop and take time to decide. Granted some cases are taking too long, but we need more committee members (one of our members has never voted in a single case and another left).
I don't consider this to be the fault of the AC or any of the members of it, rather a problem with overall structure, confusion with regard to the amount of authority it holds, etc.
Our current situation is this: We have judges but no policeman. The judicial process is supposed to be a bit slow, while police can use probable cause to arrest people on the spot. While we have the former, we do not have the latter (except in cases of obvious vandalism). So the system is only half built and should not be expected to work right yet.
3 non-AC member admins to do such a block
This is a good idea, we've had five already in Trollkien's case, for example. As with all good ideas, though, it never seems to get implemented (didn't we first see this proposal months ago?).
I believe either one of the developers (Tim maybe?) or I proposed it a while ago. IIRC some experimental code was created for it but the idea didn't seem to resonate and was dropped. If you think that idea is a good one, then support it. Hopefully others will also think it is a good idea and also support it.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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John Robinson wrote:
User JRR Trollkien (who, it is increasingly clear, is either a reincarnation of a previously permanently-banned user, or so close to him as not to make a difference) was blocked by an administrator before he had made 20 edits. He has now racked up 1500, which will someday have to be gone through, each one, in an effort to remove the introduced crap, due in large part to the fact that it has taken:
If you feel that crap needs to be edited out from these 1500 articles, why do you need to wait for the arbitration committee to do anything. Crap is crap, whether or not the contributor is banned.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
John Robinson wrote:
User JRR Trollkien (who, it is increasingly clear, is either a reincarnation of a previously permanently-banned user, or so close to him as not to make a difference) was blocked by an administrator before he had made 20 edits. He has now racked up 1500, which will someday have to be gone through, each one, in an effort to remove the introduced crap, due in large part to the fact that it has taken:
If you feel that crap needs to be edited out from these 1500 articles, why do you need to wait for the arbitration committee to do anything. Crap is crap, whether or not the contributor is banned.
Ec
I'd like to mention that fortunately, all these 1500 articles edits are not crap. Remove the crap John, but let the regular edits please.
My fault, but it seemed a simple way to deal with it. The person running JRR Trollkin always choses a name that says, "I'm I troll; I dare you to ban me". Not terribly sophisticated. It seemed a simple way to deal with the troll movement (probably only one person) as a whole.
We bogged down on the notion that a person could chose a "troll" name and still be a useful and responsible contributor. Which is true in theory, but someone who innocently did that would probably also be willing to select a name that did not include "troll" without a fuss.
Fred
From: John Robinson john@freeq.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 23:16:17 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Ban policy
c) at least a month of which was caused by some sort of crazy departure from the case itself ("JRR Trollkien is an offensive name". Where did that come from? Why was that even put forth?)
Ban him or not on the merits of his edits. If he is adding crap, revert it, if he keeps introducing it, ban him for it. The name is an irrelevant distraction from the important thing, which is "Are his edits contributing towards building an encyclopdia". Mark
--- John Robinson john@freeq.com wrote:
I respect what the Arbitration Committee is trying to do, but I have a distinct lack of respect about the way they're going about it.
User JRR Trollkien (who, it is increasingly clear, is either a reincarnation of a previously permanently-banned user, or so close to him as not to make a difference) was blocked by an administrator before he had made 20 edits. He has now racked up 1500, which will someday have to be gone through, each one, in an effort to remove the introduced crap, due in large part to the fact that it has taken:
a) over a month to even get the Arbitration Committee to accept this case; b) two months and counting while it's been sitting in Arbitration Committee being mulled over; c) at least a month of which was caused by some sort of crazy departure from the case itself ("JRR Trollkien is an offensive name". Where did that come from? Why was that even put forth?)
The end effect of the Arbitration Committee so far is that virtually no users have been blocked (with the notable exception of Wik, who should have been blocked almost a *year* ago anyway). It would be an understatement to say that I'm not pleased with current affairs. Several other valuable users have left because of this.
The end effect is that serious contributors are leaving this place to let the rest of us play with the trolls. All due to an apparent distinct inability to use common sense.>
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John Robinson wrote:
User JRR Trollkien [...] was blocked by an administrator before he had made 20 edits. [...] c) at least a month of which was caused by some sort of crazy departure from the case itself ("JRR Trollkien is an offensive name". Where did that come from? Why was that even put forth?)
The reason for the discussion of the username is that the initial block was justified on the basis of his username, along the lines of "the name JRR Trollkien is obviously implying he is a troll and therefore should be banned". The discussion was therefore whether this was a legitimate reason to ban a user. Content did not enter into it, as he was banned before anybody even had a chance to complain about his content. Subsequently, some content complaints have also emerged, but there is far from consensus on the matter.
I'd suggest your frustration may stem from the fact that you take a particular viewpoint on who ought to edit Wikipedia that not everyone here does. Wik, for example, has quite a few people calling for him to be banned, but also quite a few people who do not think he ought to be banned. In many cases both sides are equally at fault (many of the people Wik has been in edit wars with could just as easily be ban candidates themselves), so unless we are simply going to be banning lots of people left and right, it takes some time to sort out the few cases in which there is absolutely no option but to ban people. I also don't respect the "good contributors have left because of Wik" argument either. That's a temper-tantrum sort of "people didn't do what I wanted so I'm going home!!" thing, and I don't think we can let that sort of thing influence Wikipedia decisions. For what it's worth, good contributors would also leave if we banned Wik, and far more would leave if we were regularly banning people, especially people in relatively borderline cases.
-Mark