From: Rhobite rhobite@gmail.com Reply-To: Rhobite rhobite@gmail.com,English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Reithy is a problem Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 22:02:40 -0500
While I don't know the details of this particular case, I think it does raise the issue of a larger problem on Wikipedia that I've mentioned before. For a while now schemes for "freezing" pages in various stable states have been bandied about on this list. In my opinion one of the reasons this is becoming an issue is because Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanisms are broken, to the extent that editors who repeatedly and deliberatly violate Wikipedia rules (e.g. regarding NPOV, personal attacks, civility, etc.) operate with near impunity. Unless they unambiguously commit outright vandalism, for which they can be blocked, little or nothing is done about them. Request for Comment is a useless quagmire; partisans on each side of the issue line up their votes, and nothing is accomplished. Requests for mediation take weeks or months, with mixed results at best.
However, the worst issue is requests for arbitration. The arbitration process is the only one which actually has any "teeth"; yet it is almost completely disfunctional. Again, not commenting on the merits of the cases, the Avala, Lance6wins, and Rex071404 cases have dragged out for 4 months or more now. The three month old Cantus vs. Guanaco case is still in the Evidence stage! Many other cases are two or three months old, with every indication that they are in for more months of little or no action. "Justice delayed is justice denied."
Frankly, Wikipedia has plenty of trolls on it who would, under any functional system, have been hard banned within a couple of weeks of their arrival. As it is, though, Arbcom only manages to ban, what, two or three users a year? Sysops and bureaucrats have commented to me privately that they ignore all of these mechanisms, since they are almost completely useless. The ultimate outcome is that good editors, not wanting to get into fights, avoid the articles being trolled, and eventually abandon the project. When the administrators of the project have no faith in its processes, and when good editors are being driven away, then these processes need to be fixed.
Jay.
I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it first started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now.
Firstly, there is no need to require a standard of evidence analogous to a criminal court. We're not sending someone to jail, we're attempting to exclude them from our community. I suggested, and still recommend, a standard of evidence analogous to a civil court -- that is, a balance of probabilities rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt.
Secondly, the AC should take a leadership role. The AC was appointed by Jimbo, and now has a number of democratically elected members. It has something approaching a mandate. It should make summary judgements in a single sitting, and not be afraid of controversy. It should do what it thinks is best for the community and make up the rules as it goes along, within the bounds of community norms.
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
The best way to deal with trolls is to unite the community against them, then put up with them until they grow out of it. It only took Michael 18 months. Even adult trolls like 142 eventually get bored and go do something else, but you've got to expect it to take a year or two.
If only trolling was an criminal offence by international treaty...
-- Tim Starling
From: Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 23:58:59 +1100 To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is a problem)
I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it first started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now.
Firstly, there is no need to require a standard of evidence analogous to a criminal court. We're not sending someone to jail, we're attempting to exclude them from our community. I suggested, and still recommend, a standard of evidence analogous to a civil court -- that is, a balance of probabilities rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt.
Actually we are requiring that they conform to our policies upon pain of being excluded if they don't. As most evidence involves edits by identifiable users, the evidence is plain, the question is what to make of it; so it is not standards of proof which are involved but questions of policy.
Secondly, the AC should take a leadership role. The AC was appointed by Jimbo, and now has a number of democratically elected members. It has something approaching a mandate. It should make summary judgements in a single sitting, and not be afraid of controversy. It should do what it thinks is best for the community and make up the rules as it goes along, within the bounds of community norms.
As now constituted, it would be difficult to get us together, prepared (this is important--you have to have looked at the edits before you sit down) for such a procedure. We have acted quickly in a few instances, but in general most arbitrators move relatively slowly. Being elected and not being afraid of controversy is a contradiction. I think we try to do what is best for the community and when there is no explicit rule try to find a way to resolve a dispute within expressed community norms.
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
This was tried at first by one arbitrator but was overruled by the majority. Unless the bulk of the arbitrators differ markedly from the users there is little support for lifetime banning.
The best way to deal with trolls is to unite the community against them, then put up with them until they grow out of it. It only took Michael 18 months. Even adult trolls like 142 eventually get bored and go do something else, but you've got to expect it to take a year or two.
If only trolling was an criminal offence by international treaty...
It proved impossible to ban obvious trolls who advertised it by incorporating troll into their usernames. It was insisted that they should be "judged by their edits" not their username. With respect to uniting the community, when we were smaller that happened, now there are a number of troublesome users that I only become aware of when a request shows up in requests for arbitration.
May I suggest that when a serious matter arises that any user disturbed by it engage in the dispute resolution procedure. Our failures to act in cases which are not before us are to be expected. We do not initiate cases.
Fred
-- Tim Starling
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
From: Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au
Secondly, the AC should take a leadership role. The AC was appointed by Jimbo, and now has a number of democratically elected members. It has something approaching a mandate. It should make summary judgements in a single sitting, and not be afraid of controversy. It should do what it thinks is best for the community and make up the rules as it goes along, within the bounds of community norms.
As now constituted, it would be difficult to get us together, prepared (this is important--you have to have looked at the edits before you sit down) for such a procedure.
Form small subcommittees which are generally online at the same time, and allow them to make decisions alone, subject to review by the full committee.
We have acted quickly in a few instances, but in general most arbitrators move relatively slowly. Being elected and not being afraid of controversy is a contradiction. I think we try to do what is best for the community and when there is no explicit rule try to find a way to resolve a dispute within expressed community norms.
Fair enough.
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
This was tried at first by one arbitrator but was overruled by the majority. Unless the bulk of the arbitrators differ markedly from the users there is little support for lifetime banning.
My post was just my opinion, I didn't say it was realistic. I think it's important that we talk openly about possible solutions, so that people can continue to reassess our options as our circumstances change.
The best way to deal with trolls is to unite the community against them, then put up with them until they grow out of it. It only took Michael 18 months. Even adult trolls like 142 eventually get bored and go do something else, but you've got to expect it to take a year or two.
If only trolling was an criminal offence by international treaty...
It proved impossible to ban obvious trolls who advertised it by incorporating troll into their usernames. It was insisted that they should be "judged by their edits" not their username. With respect to uniting the community, when we were smaller that happened, now there are a number of troublesome users that I only become aware of when a request shows up in requests for arbitration.
The community was never united about anything when I started in October 2002. Maybe you're talking about mid 2001?
There are degrees of unity. There's a difference between a vocal minority and an atmosphere of distrust. Every little bit counts. Unity comes through leadership, it doesn't occur otherwise except by chance.
May I suggest that when a serious matter arises that any user disturbed by it engage in the dispute resolution procedure. Our failures to act in cases which are not before us are to be expected. We do not initiate cases.
All I'm asking for is that every once in a while, we re-evaluate our dogma. You say "we do not initiate cases" as if that settles the matter. I don't know if your rule about not initiating cases is good or bad, I just wish we'd think about it critically every once in a while.
Let me take the negative position. Why not act on cases that are not brought before you? Is this a serious balance to your power? If the 9 of you wanted to abuse your power and bend editorial direction to suit your philosophy, would you have trouble finding a single non-member to bring cases that you secretly ask to be brought? If you are aware of failures, trolls bringing stress and anger to honest contributors and damaging the quality of the encyclopedia, how can you sit by and do nothing in good conscience?
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote
Unity comes through leadership, it doesn't occur otherwise except by chance.
Come now. One could describe the communal efforts of Wikipedians in quite a few ways. My own current version is that the technology is lean and comprehensible, while the 'social facts' are labyrinthine. In any case it's an ant heap.
Charles
I suppose we could ask for users to serve as "prosecutors, a few do now on their own. We don't seem in mind in such cases that the offended parties are not bringing the case but a third party who has marshalled all the offenses together and made a case.
Fred
From: Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 02:10:25 +1100 To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is a problem)
May I suggest that when a serious matter arises that any user disturbed by it engage in the dispute resolution procedure. Our failures to act in cases which are not before us are to be expected. We do not initiate cases.
All I'm asking for is that every once in a while, we re-evaluate our dogma. You say "we do not initiate cases" as if that settles the matter. I don't know if your rule about not initiating cases is good or bad, I just wish we'd think about it critically every once in a while.
Let me take the negative position. Why not act on cases that are not brought before you? Is this a serious balance to your power? If the 9 of you wanted to abuse your power and bend editorial direction to suit your philosophy, would you have trouble finding a single non-member to bring cases that you secretly ask to be brought? If you are aware of failures, trolls bringing stress and anger to honest contributors and damaging the quality of the encyclopedia, how can you sit by and do nothing in good conscience?
-- Tim Starling
On Saturday, November 06, 2004 15:10, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
[Snip]
Our failures to act in cases which are not before us are to be expected. We do not initiate cases.
All I'm asking for is that every once in a while, we re-evaluate our dogma. You say "we do not initiate cases" as if that settles the matter. I don't know if your rule about not initiating cases is good or bad, I just wish we'd think about it critically every once in a while.
Let me take the negative position. Why not act on cases that are not brought before you? Is this a serious balance to your power? If the 9 of you wanted to abuse your power and bend editorial direction to suit your philosophy, would you have trouble finding a single non-member to bring cases that you secretly ask to be brought? If you are aware of failures, trolls bringing stress and anger to honest contributors and damaging the quality of the encyclopedia, how can you sit by and do nothing in good conscience?
Well, firstly, Arbitrators have been known to bring cases before the Committee off their own bat. The point is, in doing so they are acting as editors, not as Arbitrators, and obviously recuse themself from the ensuing case, if any. The main reason that we chose when formulating the policy not to be modelled on a Napoleonic-Code type of 'court', but instead upon a Common-Law one, was that it means that the majority of our efforts are spent judging cases, rather than whether it is in the public interest to proceed with prosecution. It is little fun enough, and certainly not a little depressing, to read through logs of edit wars, personal insults, and the like, that we would wish to burden ourselves with going out searching for such stuff.
If a user's conduct comes to the attention of a Committee member as they go about their normal course of editing, it is probably already past the point where someone could (and should) have brought a case about said user before us -- we are but a dozen of your fellow editors, scant few in the miasma of thousands of editors. We cannot be everywhere, everywhen, and, really, do you think that that would be a useful expenditure of our time, and not somewhat of a waste?
[Snip]
Yours,
--- Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it first started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now. ...
Tim - we are having an election for several ArbCom seats in December. Please run.
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it first started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now. ...
Tim - we are having an election for several ArbCom seats in December. Please run.
He might indeed be good at it, but I suspect that it would dissipate the energies that he puts in at the development level.
Ec
At 11:58 PM 11/6/2004 +1100, Tim Starling wrote:
I think Jay's assessment of our dispute resolution process is quite accurate. I spoke about how I thought the AC should proceed when it first started, but I was ignored. I'll repeat my basic points now.
Firstly, there is no need to require a standard of evidence analogous to a criminal court. We're not sending someone to jail, we're attempting to exclude them from our community. I suggested, and still recommend, a standard of evidence analogous to a civil court -- that is, a balance of probabilities rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt.
Secondly, the AC should take a leadership role. The AC was appointed by Jimbo, and now has a number of democratically elected members. It has something approaching a mandate. It should make summary judgements in a single sitting, and not be afraid of controversy. It should do what it thinks is best for the community and make up the rules as it goes along, within the bounds of community norms.
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
Hear hear! I usually avoid controversy but a little while ago as a sort of experiment (and as a good deed) I grabbed a random page off the top of requests for protection and, after protecting it, I stayed to participate in trying to sort out what the problem was. I figured I could approach the situation without stress since I didn't have any personal investment in the article or indeed much in the way of knowledge about it. Anyway, the situation eventually turned into a request for arbitration, and it took a full month before the arbitration committee voted on whether to accept the case. It's currently sitting in evidence-gathering phase.
The case isn't tremendously complex, it originated in a dispute over the accuracy and NPOVness of two versions of one paragraph that said very similar things and the subsequent accusations of policy violations were confined to just the article's talk page and a survey page I later set up. Perhaps there could be some way to fast-track such cases, a "lower court" with a time limit of a week or two to resolution?
Tim Starling wrote:
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
I think the problem with this is that, if the community had its way, a lot of the best contributors would be banned if they were unpopular. A site in which all unpopular users are banned is not really a wiki. I'm personally quite glad that Wik was not banned the numerous times his case was brought up (until the last time, of course), and wouldn't want things to work otherwise.
Perhaps you have a different type of site in mind?
-Mark
Wik was not banned even in the end except for a short period.
Fred
From: Delirium delirium@hackish.org Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 02:53:16 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is a problem)
Tim Starling wrote:
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
I think the problem with this is that, if the community had its way, a lot of the best contributors would be banned if they were unpopular. A site in which all unpopular users are banned is not really a wiki. I'm personally quite glad that Wik was not banned the numerous times his case was brought up (until the last time, of course), and wouldn't want things to work otherwise.
Perhaps you have a different type of site in mind?
-Mark
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
At 02:53 AM 11/7/2004 -0500, Delirium wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
I think the problem with this is that, if the community had its way, a lot of the best contributors would be banned if they were unpopular.
But this raises a couple of questions. What qualifies someone as being among the "best" contributors, and why are some editors so unpopular?
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so presumably extensive knowledge of various subjects is a good thing to have in contributors. Contributors who know lots of stuff and can write it up well would therefore get a lot of points towards being ranked among the "best". However, Wikipedia is a _collaborative_ encyclopedia. Contributors who are unable to function in a collaborative environment, who pick fights and push their POV and defend "their" articles tooth and nail, lose a lot of points towards being ranked among the "best". I'd go so far as to say it disqualifies them outright, no matter how knowledgeable they are.
Personally, I'd much rather work with a contributor who's good at collaborating within the Wikipedia environment than one who "knows his stuff" about the subject at hand, given a choice of only one or the other. Holes in knowledge are easily filled but dealing with a bad collaborator can be very hard. I think it's not unreasonable to consider unpopularity as an important and relevant factor here, though of course not the only one.
We have had a few relatively competent contributors who in addition to doing good editing themselves were dismissive or insulting to others. Some of those others were vandals, some misguided in their efforts, some simply good editors who incurred the wrath of their betters.
Fred
From: Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 11:42:08 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken dispute resolution mechanisms (was Reithy is a problem)
At 02:53 AM 11/7/2004 -0500, Delirium wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
I think the problem with this is that, if the community had its way, a lot of the best contributors would be banned if they were unpopular.
But this raises a couple of questions. What qualifies someone as being among the "best" contributors, and why are some editors so unpopular?
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so presumably extensive knowledge of various subjects is a good thing to have in contributors. Contributors who know lots of stuff and can write it up well would therefore get a lot of points towards being ranked among the "best". However, Wikipedia is a _collaborative_ encyclopedia. Contributors who are unable to function in a collaborative environment, who pick fights and push their POV and defend "their" articles tooth and nail, lose a lot of points towards being ranked among the "best". I'd go so far as to say it disqualifies them outright, no matter how knowledgeable they are.
Personally, I'd much rather work with a contributor who's good at collaborating within the Wikipedia environment than one who "knows his stuff" about the subject at hand, given a choice of only one or the other. Holes in knowledge are easily filled but dealing with a bad collaborator can be very hard. I think it's not unreasonable to consider unpopularity as an important and relevant factor here, though of course not the only one.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
"Bryan Derksen" wrote
Personally, I'd much rather work with a contributor who's good at collaborating within the Wikipedia environment than one who "knows his stuff" about the subject at hand, given a choice of only one or the other. Holes in knowledge are easily filled but dealing with a bad collaborator can be very hard.
People always do opt for 'easy-going' colleagues. A friend of mine with a successful business career gave me the opinion that the awkward colleague usually was the one who got the job done. It is a truism about voluntary organisations that this is not something that immediately translates.
But ... if it is accepted that WP will become harder to expand usefully, the more that the well-known facts are already covered, then actual experts become increasingly needed. I would find it easy to come up with areas where there seems to be a unique wikipedian who can write authoritatively.
I think it's not unreasonable to consider unpopularity as an important and relevant factor here, though of course not the only one.
Making popularity a high priority is a charmless policy, in my opinion. It is also the 'wrong end of the telescope'; most people respond to a good community atmosphere by becoming good wikizens, and scapegoating a few who don't is a policy of last resort. If Wiki-en has had 100000 signed-in users, it will have attracted quite a number of 1-in-1000 Internet antisocials. Enough to give the 'problem user' prominence, certainly in discussion on this list.
So, I come down more on the side of 'Wikipedia community, heal thyself' than on of the ArbCom bashers. Surely WP has enough momentum, not to be deflected away from a general tolerance, and AssumeGoodFaith _especially_ of the less popular (as usual, matters most when least likely to be applied). I find the 'bad-faith user' a slightly creepy epithet, actually, for what is usually a POV editor.
Charles
At 12:18 PM 11/8/2004 +0000, Charles Matthews wrote:
Making popularity a high priority is a charmless policy, in my opinion. It is also the 'wrong end of the telescope'; most people respond to a good community atmosphere by becoming good wikizens, and scapegoating a few who don't is a policy of last resort. If Wiki-en has had 100000 signed-in users, it will have attracted quite a number of 1-in-1000 Internet antisocials. Enough to give the 'problem user' prominence, certainly in discussion on this list.
Kicking off 0.1% of Wikipedia's users isn't going to significantly reduce the pool of editors, and would reduce the stress for a significant portion of the 99.9% who remain. I don't see what these 1-in-1000 antisocials are contributing to Wikipedia that is worth it to endure the bad atmosphere they generate for everyone else.
"Bryan Derksen" wrote
Kicking off 0.1% of Wikipedia's users isn't going to significantly reduce the pool of editors, and would reduce the stress for a significant portion of the 99.9% who remain. I don't see what these 1-in-1000 antisocials are contributing to Wikipedia that is worth it to endure the bad atmosphere they generate for everyone else.
Well, I think that's the debate really. If it was uncontroversial who they were, and that a surgical removal was possible without splitting the community, they would be banned quite quickly.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote:
"Bryan Derksen" wrote
Kicking off 0.1% of Wikipedia's users isn't going to significantly reduce the pool of editors, and would reduce the stress for a significant portion of the 99.9% who remain. I don't see what these 1-in-1000 antisocials are contributing to Wikipedia that is worth it to endure the bad atmosphere they generate for everyone else.
Well, I think that's the debate really. If it was uncontroversial who they were, and that a surgical removal was possible without splitting the community, they would be banned quite quickly.
I think you're both right. :-)
The "problem user" that concerns us all the most is not the troll or vandal or obvious nutcase. These are taken care of quite quickly with a minimum of fuss.
The problem are the people who are *good* and *bad*, and there are many many types of these, and really all of us has some tendencies in this area. (One of the best decisions I ever made around here was not to edit much myself: I love NPOV in principle, but I'm not sure I would be good at it on topics that I care a lot about!)
If we could unambiguously identify the 0.1% and remove them, yes, we'd have a bit more peace. But in the meantime, we can just cautiously and slowly adjust our policies and procedures more or less tightly, with an eye on kindness, love, justice, and principled action, and seek for a helpful middle ground that we can all mostly support even if we think it goes wrong sometimes.
I don't think anyone can seriously campaign for pure wiki anarchy, nor for a regime of fast-banning by admins anytime there is a dispute of any kind. Neither would be consistent with our goals and values.
So, here we are, eternally talking about what to do. This is not a bad thing, it's just the human condition.
--Jimbo
At 04:28 PM 11/8/2004 +0000, Charles Matthews wrote:
"Bryan Derksen" wrote
Kicking off 0.1% of Wikipedia's users isn't going to significantly reduce the pool of editors, and would reduce the stress for a significant portion of the 99.9% who remain. I don't see what these 1-in-1000 antisocials are contributing to Wikipedia that is worth it to endure the bad atmosphere they generate for everyone else.
Well, I think that's the debate really. If it was uncontroversial who they were, and that a surgical removal was possible without splitting the community, they would be banned quite quickly.
But there doesn't seem to actually _be_ a way to get a quick resolution of even an obvious case. I'm not necessarily talking about bans here, I'd be quite satisfied with an official "what you're doing here on this article is unacceptable, quit it." If arbitration worked quickly then I suspect "weak" rulings wouldn't be a problem because an incorrigible offender would rapidly accumulate a lot of them and the need for stronger measures would then become obvious too.
Basically, my personal complaint with the system is not what decisions it reaches - so far all the ArbCom decisions I've happened to hear about have seemed like reasonable ones. It's the speed with which the system comes to them.
Delirium wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Thirdly, sentences should be much, much harsher. Ban them for life and get it over with. Banning only slows them down anyway, most of them will come back under a different name. But at least the community will be able to unite behind the AC ruling.
I think the problem with this is that, if the community had its way, a lot of the best contributors would be banned if they were unpopular. A site in which all unpopular users are banned is not really a wiki. I'm personally quite glad that Wik was not banned the numerous times his case was brought up (until the last time, of course), and wouldn't want things to work otherwise.
Perhaps you have a different type of site in mind?
I don't really want to diverge into a dicussion of the personality traits of particular users, but Wik was more than just unpopular. He refused discussion and conducted numerous edit wars. According to this mailing list post:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-May/027321.html
he was responsible for the departure of at least two users.
There are more important things than the number of words written on Wikipedia. It also matters that the text written is accurate and written in a neutral point of view. NPOV is acheived through rational discussion and compromise, two things that Wik was extremely bad at.
Another thing that is more important than word count is the mental health of our contributors. Editors should be able to contribute to the site without constant anger and frustration. They shouldn't have to put up with personal attacks.
Wik's point of view was more important to him than the integrity of Wikipedia. This was demonstrated by the fact that when he was finally frustrated, he wrote a script to vandalise Wikipedia and meta. He spent about a week in an arms race with me and the other developers.
I'm thinking of a site where NPOV is valued, rather than just word count. If that's different to the type of site you're thinking of, then so be it.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote:
Wik's point of view was more important to him than the integrity of Wikipedia. This was demonstrated by the fact that when he was finally frustrated, he wrote a script to vandalise Wikipedia and meta. He spent about a week in an arms race with me and the other developers.
I'm thinking of a site where NPOV is valued, rather than just word count. If that's different to the type of site you're thinking of, then so be it.
I agree with this completely.
It's interesting to note that Wik's vandalism spree was a great relief to me in some ways, but it may have short-cutted some advances in our policies to deal with problematic editors.
It was a relief because he was causing a deep rift in the community: he did some good work, and sometimes - as difficult as he was -- he was right on the issue at hand. He fought badly with some really annoying pov warriors, and so forth. There was no consensus as to what to do about him. But when he vandalized the site with a script, the path became clear to everyone: this was just beyond the pale.
Even so, it relieved us of the need to figure out what to do better in cases like that.
--Jimbo
Tim Starling wrote:
I don't really want to diverge into a dicussion of the personality traits of particular users, but Wik was more than just unpopular. He refused discussion and conducted numerous edit wars. According to this mailing list post:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-May/027321.html
he was responsible for the departure of at least two users.
There are more important things than the number of words written on Wikipedia. It also matters that the text written is accurate and written in a neutral point of view. NPOV is acheived through rational discussion and compromise, two things that Wik was extremely bad at.
Another thing that is more important than word count is the mental health of our contributors. Editors should be able to contribute to the site without constant anger and frustration. They shouldn't have to put up with personal attacks.
Wik's point of view was more important to him than the integrity of Wikipedia. This was demonstrated by the fact that when he was finally frustrated, he wrote a script to vandalise Wikipedia and meta. He spent about a week in an arms race with me and the other developers.
I guess there's not a whole lot to say except that I completely disagree with this assessment. In my opinion, Wik was on the correct side in around 95% of the edit wars in which he was involved, and tirelessly pursued a NPOV policy in the face of numerous POV-pushing edit warriors who, in frustration at his relentless opposition, kept resorting to trying to ban him when they couldn't get people to agree with their actual arguments. It's true that in 5% or so of the cases Wik was indeed in the wrong, but this pales in comparison to the amount of POV-pushing he kept at bay.
I'd have to say that I agree with Wik and Adam Carr that in many cases, discussion is simply not worth it. There are too many POV pushers with too much free time on their hands to engage them all in endless discussion. If people are arguing over points that reasonable people can disagree on, fine, but if they're espousing ridiculous views and trying to push some overtly nationalist message, just revert 'em and be done with it.
Certainly Wik wasn't a model citizen, but his opponents are a far bigger problem than he ever was.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
Wik's point of view was more important to him than the integrity of Wikipedia. This was demonstrated by the fact that when he was finally frustrated, he wrote a script to vandalise Wikipedia and meta. He spent about a week in an arms race with me and the other developers.
I guess there's not a whole lot to say except that I completely disagree with this assessment.
You don't think that Wik writing vandal-scripts was unacceptable?
Stan
"Delirium" wrote
If people are arguing over points that reasonable people can disagree on, fine, but if they're espousing ridiculous views and trying to push some overtly nationalist message, just revert 'em and be done with it.
Certainly Wik wasn't a model citizen, but his opponents are a far bigger problem than he ever was.
My experience with Wik: he would just say 'X isn't going to happen', and you knew that he would revert. Even if, as in the case I'm thinking of, I had published academically on the topic. So his modus operandi doomed him, I think.
Charles
Surely there's got to be some distinction here between users who are here to fight, and users who, while they may have some problems relating to other users, are generally good. There's a couple of people I deal with regularly who are immensely rude - but there's no way I'd want them banned, because they write excellent articles.
By the same token, however - it's absolutely insane to give unlimited tolerance to people who aren't just "unpopular", but contribute absolutely nothing to the site, apart from having articles protected and driving good contributors up the wall.
-- ambi
I think the problem with this is that, if the community had its way, a lot of the best contributors would be banned if they were unpopular. A site in which all unpopular users are banned is not really a wiki. I'm personally quite glad that Wik was not banned the numerous times his case was brought up (until the last time, of course), and wouldn't want things to work otherwise.
Perhaps you have a different type of site in mind?
-Mark
--- Rebecca misfitgirl@gmail.com wrote:
Surely there's got to be some distinction here between users who are here to fight, and users who, while they may have some problems relating to other users, are generally good.
The difference is [[Mens rea]], which can be hard to identify and harder to prove.
Ocasionally, however, it is obvious.
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