Well, no, that's not what I did. But I was tetchy. I have had more than enough of WR sympathisers. That site is a nest of vipers right now, and they are proving highly successful in twisting our people to do their bidding, as we saw in the recent Alkivar arbitration.
I am of the view that being a good Wikipedia is, at this time, fundamentally incompatible with playing any active part on Wikipedia
Well, if the self-admission of tetchiness implies a regret, that's fine-- we can leave it at that. If not, well, these sorts of problems are going to recur indefinitely.
I understand your frustration when you say "I've had more than enough of WR sympathizers". I, as I've said, have had more than enough of conversations of the form:
A: "I have a valid point, question, or concern." B: "That's nice. But I heard you once edited this site I have a running feud with, so I'm just going to insult you and ignore your comments."
We've seen too many of these conversations, and we, as a community, are going to have to find the maturity to move beyond them. -- Anyway-- if your general estimation of WR contributors is low, that's fine. But like any stereotype, you have a problem if you choose the stereotyp over when you can't accept evidence to the contrary (i.e. DanT has obeyed our policies, but he's definitely a viper also, and doesn't deserve civility).
Point being-- in your response to Dan T, you didn't address his points, you just harped on his affiliations, and (presumably falsely) claimed he was affiliated with Awbry. Ya shouldn't have, and more importantly, you shouldn't in the future, end of story.
Anyway, I don't mean to run on. I know you know all this-- I think you were quoting NPA months before I ever heard the word Wikipedia. Normally I wouldn't say anything, but your comment was yet another example of a behavior problem we've been struggling with, and one you personally have been struggling with. so I thought I would chime in just to give us all one more opportunity to learn --- I'll go now. :)
Alec
On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 06:30:21 -0500, "Alec Conroy" alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
Well, if the self-admission of tetchiness implies a regret, that's fine-- we can leave it at that.
You can leave it as whatever you like, I have no regrets about being mightily pissed off with Jon Awbrey's disruption (or Barber's or Bagley's) and having absolutely no patience whatsoever with anybody expressing support for banned abusers. Time for people to decide where their loyalties lie. Mine lie with Wikipedia, not with banned abusers of Wikipedia.
Guy (JzG)
On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 06:30:21 -0500, "Alec Conroy" alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
Point being-- in your response to Dan T, you didn't address his points, you just harped on his affiliations, and (presumably falsely) claimed he was affiliated with Awbry. Ya shouldn't have, and more importantly, you shouldn't in the future, end of story.
No, what happened was:
* A self-admitted sockpuppet posted an essay on a subject Awbrey obsessed about as part of his POV-pushing campaign, and on which several tenacious POV-pushers have also spoken, because after all if we'd only recognise their "expertise" instead of those pesky reliable sources, the world would be put to rights.
* I posted a light-hearted "oh noes" comment and went off to investigate.
* Dan reckons that this is evidence that Wikipedia is fundamentally flawed.
* I don't.
I think it's about as simple as that. Dan has said many times that he thinks people on WR make valid points - and they might, in the way a stopped clock is right twice a day - but I have spent a lot of time tracking down the ban-evading sockpuppets of these people, trying to undo the effects of their harassment and abuse, and generally cleaning up the sewage they leave behind.
I think users that stand with one foot in the sewer will, as a result, leave shitty footmarks on Wikipedia. They should get their foot out of the sewer, at least until the next rainstorm cleans it out.
In the case of Awbrey, the reason he was banned was because whatever he said, no matter how superficially reasonable, came down to "and this is why you should accept my original research rather than what the sources say". He was given months and months to reform or learn to play nice, and he obdurately refused to do so. After he was banned he carried on posting here in the same style until he was banned from here as well.
So in this case, as with Jonathan Barber (JB196), if it genuinely is Awbrey then long experience shows that the banhammer is the right approach. Revert, block, ignore.
This is probably not, as it turns out, Awbrey. It is some other sockmaster. I await developments. But I do have a suggestion for whoever it is: they should stand up and be counted. It is very very hard to take at face value the special pleading of someone whose past history we cannot evaluate. The increasing use of single-purpose sockpuppet accounts to stir controversy is something that really needs to stop.
I think that's probably more than enough on this subject.
Guy (JzG)