stevertigo. Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:11:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
I dont know what else to say. Either we have a culture which respects NPOV or we do not.
We don't. We have policies and guidelines... but the admins who close AFDs don't read them, and if they do they don't act on them. We have a deletion process that is deliberately opaque and awkward to prevent people from using it and getting the idea that deleting anything from WIkipedia is a good thing.
We also have large chunks of Wikipedia with hardly any editors applying the basic rules of Wikipedia. These areas are controlled by organised groups who make Wiki-life extremely difficult for anyone who tries to clean it up. Editors with the best intentions but without the stomach for a fight try their best and end up being driven off after being reported for vandalism or 3RR violations, or just being wiki-stalked and hassled on any article they edit.
To clean up these areas, any legitimate editor has to have the patience of a saint and an encylopedic (heh) knowledge of the Wikipedia rules system. He's got to be able to put up with the most extreme provocation and obvious bad faith... all the while smiling sweetly and assuming good faith while dozens of sock-puppets play stupid games. He's got to have the support of a group of editors, or a tame admin, to help him out too.
Naturally, most editors don't have this. So the way Wikipedia is set up right now, under the auspices of welcoming newbies, is a vandal paradise that treats legitimate editors as an endless renewable resource. it uses them up and throws them away by giving them little or no support and instead it defends the rights of vandals to edit. It even makes the finding out of who is socking up a tedious and officious process... just for that extra kick in the teeth for legitimate editors who do play by the rules and are faced with those who don't.
In summary, the system is broken. But you won't get any sense on this mailing list, because most of the people here don't actually edit Wikipedia these days. They just pontificate and have faith in some mystical power of the Wiki.
On 6/22/06, Cobb sealclubbingfun@googlemail.com wrote:
In summary, the system is broken. But you won't get any sense on this mailing list, because most of the people here don't actually edit Wikipedia these days. They just pontificate and have faith in some mystical power of the Wiki. _______________________________________________
Excuse me? I know editcount doesn't mean everything. But I would hate counting the editcount of regular posters on this mailing list. Even if only counting (main) edits.
Garion
Cobb - what is your Wikipedia username, by the way? I'd be curious to look over the contributions that led you to these conclusions. In any case, getting down to brass tacks...
On Jun 22, 2006, at 2:33 PM, Cobb wrote:
stevertigo. Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:11:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
I dont know what else to say. Either we have a culture which respects NPOV or we do not.
We don't. We have policies and guidelines... but the admins who close AFDs don't read them, and if they do they don't act on them.
Some of them do, some of them don't. Please *do* point out specific examples where they did not, and we'll work on fixing them. Unless you list the vast majority of AfDs, (and we agree that they were closed in violation of our policies and guidelines), your claim is unsupported. Sorry.
We have a deletion process that is deliberately opaque and awkward to prevent people from using it and getting the idea that deleting anything from WIkipedia is a good thing.
Wait - editing an article and removing a paragraph is now "opaque and awkward"? Hasn't seemed so to me... Oh, you were talking about deletion in the sense of "hiding from public view all the revisions under a given page title". Yes, in most cases this is a deliberately awkward and deliberative process - it's generally *good* to make it non-trivial to hide things from the public. Transparency and all that. None of this should seriously impact fixing biased or otherwise bad articles, as far as I can see.
We also have large chunks of Wikipedia with hardly any editors applying the basic rules of Wikipedia.
I agree, although I think most of the editors on those areas: 1) Think they are following Wikipedia polices and guidelines, but are mistaken. 2) *Do* follow some of the guidelines, but miss on others.
These areas are controlled by organised groups who make Wiki-life extremely difficult for anyone who tries to clean it up.
Also agree. Of course, large chunks of Wikipedia are controlled by groups of editors who *are* following policy and guidelines, and who make Wiki-life extremely difficult for anyone who tries to mess the articles in that area up. We have much of both. The bad ones are bad, and are a shame and a problem. The good ones are a credit to us, and a Good Thing. The problem is determining the difference, which is nowhere as easy as you seem to think.
Editors with the best intentions but without the stomach for a fight try their best and end up being driven off after being reported for vandalism or 3RR violations, or just being wiki-stalked and hassled on any article they edit.
You bet. And editors with the worst intentions (or good intentions but unable to usefully contribute) are also regularly driven off after being reported for vandalism or 3RR violations, or just being wiki-stalked and hassled on any article they edit. Again, the bad ones are a crying shame, and the good ones are a benefit and a critical help. And, it's non-trivial to distinguish them.
To clean up these areas, any legitimate editor has to have the patience of a saint and an encylopedic (heh) knowledge of the Wikipedia rules system. He's got to be able to put up with the most extreme provocation and obvious bad faith... all the while smiling sweetly and assuming good faith while dozens of sock-puppets play stupid games. He's got to have the support of a group of editors, or a tame admin, to help him out too.
You got it! This is exactly what it's like being one of our more active editors on controversial topics. And you are entirely correct, it's really hard.
Naturally, most editors don't have this.
Luckily, Wikipedia also has vast fields of articles where hardly anybody edits, and people who don't want such fights can happily and productively improve our articles in those areas. Also, as I mentioned above, we have a number of areas that are well-patrolled by non-nutballs who *do* follow our polices and guidelines, and editors who don't want to fight can also toil in those areas, and leave the work of defending the articles against crazies to others.
So the way Wikipedia is set up right now, under the auspices of welcoming newbies, is a vandal paradise that treats legitimate editors as an endless renewable resource.
Well, considering that many vandalistic edits get fixed in minutes, and many more disruptive users are shown the door eventually (using the methods you so clearly stated above, along with ArbCom rulings), I think the term "paradise" is a little exaggerated, but as for legitimate editors being an endless renewable resource - some of the work (like what you mentioned above) *is hard* - expecting people to do it for a while, then take a (sometimes permanent) break is hardly unreasonable. We appreciate their work for as long as they can do it, wish them well when they feel they no longer can, and are ready to welcome them back (possibly under a new name) whenever they are willing to return.
it uses them up and throws them away by giving them little or no support
Hm. Not sure exactly what you mean by "support", but good editors are certainly able to avail themselves of a large number of tools in editing, and defending articles against less-good editors. These include the ones you mentioned above, and others: reversion, user_talk pages, RfCs, the Village Pump, the Mediation group, the Arbitration Committee, the mailing lists, and a large body of advice (i.e. the guidelines and essays in the Wikipedia namespace).
and instead it defends the rights of vandals to edit.
How does it do that? We do take as a fundamental principle that anyone should be able to edit unless we already know they intend to damage the project, but we also are quite quick and willing to stop obvious mis-use of editing, and (more slowly and deliberately, i.e. through the ArbCom) subtle mis-use of editing. Examples, please?
It even makes the finding out of who is socking up a tedious and officious process... just for that extra kick in the teeth for legitimate editors who do play by the rules and are faced with those who don't.
Finding out who is "socking up" (nice phrase) is *a hard problem*. It's not obvious, and it's not simple. The current process is an attempt to balance a number of opposing factors - privacy of good users vs sock puppeting by bad users being the main one. It's hardly a perfect solution, and if you have some specific suggestions, please do post them.
In summary, the system is broken.
As I hope I pointed out above, all the evidences you gave for the system being "broken" are also evidence for the system working precisely as designed. Undoubtably, the wiki has seriously broken spots - it also has seriously great spots. If you have specific suggestions about how to improve the broken spots without damaging the working ones, we'd love to hear them.
But you won't get any sense on this mailing list,
You won't? In my reading of the list, we get a a post claiming the "system is broken" about once a day on average. That doesn't sound much like not "get[ing] any sense of this". Your message (and the one you were responding to) are examples. Or did you mean that such messages generally don't get a rousing round of - "absolutely right", "good for you", "I've thought that for a long time", and the like in response? That's not a "sense", that's "agreement"; if you meant that, I agree - unsurprisingly, most of the people who bother to wade through the many posts on this list do so because they believe Wikipedia to be working, and want to help. This would be true whether Wikipedia was really doing absolutely wonderfully or entirely terribly. Don't use replies on the mailing list to get a gage of public opinion of Wikipedia. If you didn't realize that already, now you know.
because most of the people here don't actually edit Wikipedia these days. They just pontificate and have faith in some mystical power of the Wiki.
This has been responded to earlier; your facts are simply wrong. Have a nice day.
Thanks for the message, Jesse Weinstein
G'day Cobb,
stevertigo. Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:11:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
I dont know what else to say. Either we have a culture which respects NPOV or we do not.
We don't. We have policies and guidelines... but the admins who close AFDs don't read them, and if they do they don't act on them. We have a deletion process that is deliberately opaque and awkward to prevent people from using it and getting the idea that deleting anything from WIkipedia is a good thing.
Utter bollocks. The vast majority of complaints about those of us who close AfDs come from people who wouldn't know policy if they tripped over it. "He didn't count votes! Make him count votes!"
We also have large chunks of Wikipedia with hardly any editors applying the basic rules of Wikipedia. These areas are controlled by organised groups who make Wiki-life extremely difficult for anyone who tries to clean it up. Editors with the best intentions but without the stomach for a fight try their best and end up being driven off after being reported for vandalism or 3RR violations, or just being wiki-stalked and hassled on any article they edit.
Oh, yes? I assume you have an example at the ready, because surely no-one would have the gall to pull a statement like that out of their arse with no proof of it being true.
To clean up these areas, any legitimate editor has to have the patience of a saint and an encylopedic (heh) knowledge of the Wikipedia rules system. He's got to be able to put up with the most extreme provocation and obvious bad faith... all the while smiling sweetly and assuming good faith while dozens of sock-puppets play stupid games. He's got to have the support of a group of editors, or a tame admin, to help him out too.
Most Wikipedians find that the support of other editors is trivial to achieve, if they're willing to treat their fellow Wikipedians with respect. If it was not, we would not have thousands of editors who have been here for months, years.
As for knowledge of the Wikipedia rules, that's rot, too. Knowing how to behave appropriately in a collaborative environment is useful (hint: don't be a dick), and having respect for our core principles, like neutrality and respect for copyright, even more so. Wikipedia has too many rules, true, but you can get by quite happily without them if you just use common sense and keep in mind our principles.
I suspect, from what (admittedly little) I've seen from you, that you have neither the backing of policy nor common sense when you ride out on your high horse desperate to delete someone else's hard work. Despite this minor issue, which others would consider crippling, you still insist on stamping your foot and complaining that you never get your own way. And as for "consensus building", well, it's a beautiful dream, but you actually have to talk to people (as opposed to ranting at them for being too stupid to agree with you).
Naturally, most editors don't have this. So the way Wikipedia is set up right now, under the auspices of welcoming newbies, is a vandal paradise that treats legitimate editors as an endless renewable resource. it uses them up and throws them away by giving them little or no support and instead it defends the rights of vandals to edit. It even makes the finding out of who is socking up a tedious and officious process... just for that extra kick in the teeth for legitimate editors who do play by the rules and are faced with those who don't.
Given the state of your earlier paragraphs, I'm rather surprised to find this one makes a modicum of sense.
I don't think we're too supportive of vandals or trolls. We have a tendency to give some trolls more time than they deserve if they're clever enough to take up wiki-lawyering, but that's a by-product of the Process Wonk faction on Wikipedia. We *are*, however, guilty --- very guilty indeed --- of taking good editors for granted. It *is* important not to go biting newbies and generally being bureaucratic dicks for fear of them turning out to be "vandals", but we shouldn't do that at the expense of good editors. There's no reason, however, for that to be an either-or proposition; any time legitimate editors are treated poorly for the sake of deliberately harmful editors, it's basically a stuff-up. We aren't forced to choose between a newbie who could potentially be a good editor, and current good editors; and when we do, we're making a Mistake, regardless of which side we take.
As for the time it takes to run a checkuser, well, there are certain people who consider privacy important. Crazy, I know. What, do they have something to hide? All right-thinking, red-blooded human beings owe it to themselves --- and us, damn it! --- to look under the beds of these people immediately, in case a Commie is hiding there.
In summary, the system is broken. But you won't get any sense on this mailing list, because most of the people here don't actually edit Wikipedia these days. They just pontificate and have faith in some mystical power of the Wiki.
True, dat. It's left to people like you, the brave reformers fighting the good fight against us crusty old bureaucrats to try to pull Wikipedia out of its death spiral. Cobblers---sorry, I mean Cobb---we, who are about to die, salute you!