It's really quite simple. Science is mostly something that can be
described in an objective manner while stuff like US presidential
elections, Palestine and the Khmer Rouge for example open up different
emotions in people on either side of the attached arguments. Some
think of the Palestinians as freedom fighters others think of them as
a bunch terrorists and unless some miracle happens, people will always
disagree on such contentious issues.
Secondly, adminship has nothing to do with being left- or right wing
or being a capitalist. Everyone gets their chance to speak up about a
nomination and the main arguments to make someone an admin are based
on their interpersonal and editing skills and not their political
viewpoints.
Admins need to be involved in controversial issues simply because
that's what their delete, revert and protect buttons were made for in
the first place.
The fact that Jimmy Wales is actually taking the time to write a
message to the mailing list about this and express his views should be
an indicator things are getting out of hand and the atmosphere is
growing increasingly hostile.
I think we should write a page on [[Wikipedia:How to deal with getting
blocked]] and clearly note how complaining of admin abuse is NOT the
first line of action. People hardly ever contact the blocking admin
first to clarify the situation. Admins are people to and like anyone
even they can make mistakes.
--Mgm
On 7/8/05, Ruy Lopez <ruy.lopez(a)mail.com> wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Skyring wrote:
Then try to forget that you are well-regarded and
experienced here and
you have a great deal of power. Put yourself in the shoes of a new
editor doing what they see as the right thing and encountering
statements like this one: "I will revert you twice a day, for the rest
of history if needs be. Plus I have more allies than you, so your
attempts to restalinise this article must fail."
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AKhmer_Rouge&diff=14835…
But in this case, this response was absolutely valid. Ruy Lopez was
engaging in an ongoing campaign of vandalism of the article, and letting
him know that we're more patient than he is, is exactly the right thing
to do.
A fellow user informed me that Wales called me a vandal on this mailing list, which he
believed was unfair, so I came to the archive of this list to see what was said, and now I
am responding.
If I would say I'm surprised Wales has weighed in the way he did on this matter, I
would be lying. I have seen the way he has treated even admins like Secretlondon. I have
seen how only admins like 172 get their adminship removed. Not to mention all of the
users who have not become admins (not like anyone who falls on the side of the political
spectrum that Secretlondon or 172 does could ever become an admin nowadays). Or that many
of Wikipedia's (in my mind) best contributors have signed up for the project to
counter systemic bias from the English language userbase, something I won't go into
detail about here, but that so many people who at least I respect have joined it says
something to me.
Or perhaps I'll just come out and say it: those who are politically pro-labor,
anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, what is sometimes called the left, are, I
wouldn't even say marginalized on Wikipedia, but attacked. Those who are anti-labor,
pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist, or what is sometimes called the right, are given
adminship, made bureaucrats and whatnot.
And why wouldn't it be so? Wales himself is a capitalist, and an American. What
kind of encyclopedia would one expect to result from the structure put in place by an
American millionaire after all the money he made on pornography and whatnot? Wales
sometimes feels he has to position himself above the fray, but the history is clear.
Meaning his actions, such as the attack on Secretlondon, not his noting how he was
enthralled with Ayn Rand as a student and that sort of thing, although I'll consider
those sorts of things as circumstantial evidence.
I must dive into a tangent for people reading this and thinking, "wait, all admins
are not right-wing zealots, I have seen plenty of reasonable ones". I agree, that is
not what I am saying. So let me jump off into my tangent on this subject.
At the top of Wikipedia's front page are listed the master categories: Culture,
Geography, History, Life, Mathematics, Science, Society, Technology. I think Wikipedia
does a great job on some of these master categories, especially science and mathematics.
I think Wikipedia does an awful job on some of these master categories, such as history
and society. I should also say I am not alone in this opinion, I have heard it expressed
many times by others, that the articles tending towards the science/math end are great,
while the ones tending towards the history/society end are horrible. This is not even a
"left wing" view, I have heard it expressed by many "right wing"
users. I use [[quantum mechanics]] (which is in a subcategory of the science master
category) as an example of an article Wikipedia is good at. Wikipedia is a cooperative
enterprise, and most people editing that page are there to help and cooperate with one
another, many of whom know what they are talking about, which is why the article is so
good. At the other end of the spectrum, we have articles like [[Khmer Rouge]] (which
I'll get back to), or [[Palestine]] (which I don't edit, but which everyone is
unhappy with, pro-Palestinian and Zionist), or [[John Kerry]], especially during the
presidential race. In fact, I recall an article about Wikipedia about how the John Kerry
and George Bush articles were junk before the elections, and thus it was a negative
article about Wikipedia. Anyhow, clearly, some admins originally were good users who
edited mostly the science and mathematics articles, or perhaps the technology and
geography articles. They were promoted to admins and still focus on these categories.
They are apolitical, and good admins. So no, I am not saying all admins are biased and
right wing. In fact, I would say the majority aren't.
What I am saying is there are users, some who become admins (or don't) who
concentrate on the more controversial master categories like history and society. And now
is when I start pointing fingers. Because Wales insults even admins like Secretlondon who
concentrate on this. Admins like 172 get de-opped in what I feel is a sneaky manner,
while other admins (meaning the ones focused on the more controversial articles) get away
with murder. These are admins, who I felt were some of the few admins who stuck up for
people of a more "left" persuasion on Wikipedia. But they are de-admined,
attacked off Wikipedia by it's high mucky-muck and so forth (although after months of
being gone, Secretlondon has started to contribute again, thankfully). I have been on
Wikipedia for a long time and this is very clear to me.
Heaven help a user of such a persuasion who is not an admin. Especially if s/he is new,
and is, what I consider to be trying to be baited into a trap. Wales has countenanced
what he calls Carr being "difficult", what I call being insulting and rude. So
new users of a certain persuasion are baited - Carr insults them, they insult back, maybe
no one tells them about the 3RR rule, and pretty soon they are blocked, in arbitration and
whatnot. When I see this baiting going on - baiting towards the trap of blocks,
arbitration etc., I tell the new user being baited to follow the rules, don't violate
3RR, don't insult users, even if they like Carr are insulting you but Wales allows
their "difficult" behavior and so forth.
In fact, it's obvious what a nutty mix we have here. Wales is someone who has made
millions on pornography. Ed Poor is a moonie, with typical moonie ideas. Adam Carr is a
former Maoist, and now is as fanatically anti-communist as surely as he was probably
fanatically communist. And so on and so forth, this is the cast and crew being dealt
with. And Carr loves to throw mud at me and say I'm some kind of fanatical communist
or something. I mean it's a laugh - he is someone who was in a Maoist cult, people
like Ed Poor are still in weird cults, yet I'm the fanatic because I try to make
Carr's language on edits POV.
Carr recently edited [[Semyon Budyonny]] changing "Budyonny...was an ally of Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin" to "Budyonny...was a crony of Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin". I reverted it back to the former version, my first edit ever on the
article. Carr reverted it back and now the page is locked. Who is the vandal here? Who
is being difficult?
Frankly, on some level I have given up on Wikipedia ever having decent history and
society pages. If Carr wants to go through all the articles, calling people cronies and
whatnot, that's fine by me, I'm sure the Encarta people are laughing their heads
off. I'm not here to kiss Jimbo's ass as so many on this list do, I could really
give a damn what the Ayn Rand-reading porn magnate thinks. I edit Wikipedia from time to
time, but I do more work on other wiki encyclopedias. I know Wikipedia is hopeless on the
history and society categories. Which wiki encyclopedia will overtake Wikipedia for these
fields? Demopedia? Dkosopedia? Perhaps something more radical - Anarchopedia, Red Wiki,
Infoshop's Openwiki?
I should also note that according to the Wikipedia legend, people having "left"
or "right" opinions doesn't matter as long as they are NPOV, don't
violate 3RR, discuss changes, don't insult other users and all of that. I myself see
this as one of focus more than anything. I created [[No Gun Ri]] in April, which not only
was not started yet but had no links to it. So now the article exists, about a My Lai
type massacre by US troops during the Korean war. As I said, I see this as emphasis: this
incident did not exist in Wikipedia history until I inserted it, although we have
hundreds, thousands of pages on anything any left-wing "regime" ever did wrong.
Of course, as soon as I wrote the article it was descended on by people trying to cast
doubt on whether it ever happened, apologizing for the US etc. If I tried to do even a
little of that for an article on China or Cuba, Adam Carr would be screaming I'm a
fanatical communist, an apologist for genocide and so forth while Wales would stand by
clapping.
As I said before: I think Wikipedia has a bright future in the science/mathematics master
categories where everyone is cooperating (and isn't Wikipedia essentially a
cooperative enterprise) and headed off the cliff long ago on the history and society
master categories. In fact, most of the original articles for the history of countries
was FUNDED BY THE US ARMY. Virtually all of those not from US government funding were
written by the US State Department. Yes. Go back and look at the original articles for
all "History of so-and-so-country". I'll use Cuba as an example. Not that
the US army or Bush's State Department can't write an objective history of Cuba,
I'm sure the US government can easily put aside the fact that it almost had a nuclear
war over Cuba in the 1960's or is currently trying to overthrow, or at elast undermine
Cuba. Anyhow, let's take a look, shall we?
February 2002, [[History of Cuba]]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Cuba&oldid=52927
One sentence esays "On May 20, 1902, the United States granted Cuba its
independence, but retained the right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and
stability under the Platt Amendment." Well, isn't that magnanimous, the US is no
nice it agreed to risk the lives of its brave young men to "preserve Cuban
independence and stability". Anyhow, where did this come from? Let's take a
look at this current US State Department Background note on Cuba:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2886.htm
"On May 20, 1902, the United States granted Cuba its independence but retained the
right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and stability in accordance with the
Platt Amendment."
The current article doesn't have this sentence, because all mention of the
Spanish-American war ever taken place has been removed. Which says a lot about Wikipedia
in the history/society categories. But plenty of the US State Department language is
still in the current article, and this State Department and US army stuff permeates the
entire encyclopedia. And the only changes to it is people like Adam Carr coming in and
calling various modern Cuban bureaucrats things like cronies.
So as I mentioned before - I think Wikipedia will continue to be good in the science/math
master categories and horrible in the history/society master categories. Wikipedia is
also decent in other master categories, depending. The four middle categories between
science/math and history/society vary - technology is pretty good, while the
"life" master category is almost as far down in the abyss as the history/society
one. And as I said before, I am sure that for the history, society, life categories,
people flee to wiki encyclopedia's that do not have real vandals and trolls like Trey
Stone (who has been blocked 8 times since his arbitration started, but is still
vandalizing - really vandalizing, despite porn magnate Wales's insults towards me).
Wiki encyclopedias like Demopedia and Dkosopedia - or even more radical ones like
Anarchopedia, Red Wiki and Infoshop's Openwiki. I suggest people check these wikis
out, and contribute original material, or public domain English articles (not ones funded
by the US army though, please), or translations from encyclopedias in the public domain -
there are some very good public domain encyclopedias out there, and I don't mean
Encyclopedia Britannica circa the early 20th century. Why be frustrated here on Wikipedia
when you can actually cooperate in a friendly environment with people writing a
encyclopedia of articles pertaining to categories like history, society, life and whatnot?
I have. It will lower your "wiki-stress" level.
I should note I am not telling people to leave Wikipedia, or not to contribute to it. I
think the science and math master categories are great. But the history and society
categories are hopeless. These categories are already ruled by right-wing kooks on
Wikipedia, and always will be, but if you are at an RK or Trey Stone level of fanaticism,
perhaps you should check out another right wing nutcases wiki encyclopedia -
wikinfo.org.
As far as those who feel close to the workers movements, or who don't go to
Pentecostal churches to here preachers railing about how the faggots are taking over
America which will lead to the destruction of society, Demopedia and Dkosopedia are out
there, as are some more radical ones.
In fact, perhaps this is something everyone would be happy to see. What would your level
of stress be if RK and Trey Stone went to
wikinfo.org or wherever, and the Shornes and
whatnot all went to Demopedia/Dkosopedia or perhaps Red Wiki or something? I mean,
let's face it, there will NEVER be cooperation on the Palestine page. Ever.
What's going to fix it, a wiki version of the "peace process" like the one
that supposedly has gone on since 1967 in Israel? With Sharon building new settlements,
calling that a peace process is like saying the American slaughter of Indians since 1776
has ben a peace process. But I shall not get into that - just like I don't much edit
the Palestine Israel pages on Wikipedia.
As far as the Khmer Rouge page, I won't go much into that either. The change I have
been trying to make for months is minor, and of course, accurate. First of all, there is
no organization that ever called itself "Khmer Rouge", which is French for
"Red Khmers". It is sort of like calling the Communist Party USA "Red
Jews" or "Red Anglo-Saxons". It's just an insulting propaganda term,
like Viet Cong was. But even if we accept the Communist Party of Cambodia/Kampuchea be
called Khmer Rouge, it becomes ridiculous in this article. The political coalition the
Khmer Rouge is in, FUNK, is called...Khmer Rouge. It would be like calling the Uniti
nell'Ulivo (United under the olive tree) coalition in Italy, Democratici di Sinistra
(Left Democrats). Many parties are in Uniti nell'Ulivo so calling the coalition
Democratici di Sinistra would be ridiculous, but FUNK is called Khmer Rouge in the
article. That is the least ridiculous incidentally, the government, GRUNK, is called
Khmer Rouge as well. That would be like calling the US government the Republican party.
Which is ridiculous, the Republicans are in control of the federal government, tempered by
the Senate filibuster, but the Republican party is not the same thing as the US
government. In the case of Cambodia it is even more ridiculous - the US president is a
Republican, but GRUNK was run by the former prince of Cambodia, Sihanouk, who was not in
the Khmer Rouge. Then we get to the army which is again called - the Khmer Rouge. It
would be like calling the US army the Republican party, since the Republican party is in
charge.
I should point out that this is not just a view shared by me, and not even by left-wing
or liberal writers on Cambodia like Noam Chomsky or Michael Vickery. Even the US army
funded study of Cambodia conceeds all of this. I should also note that Trey Stone,
another person who accuses me of being an apologist for genocide or whatever, has been
busy making rationalizations for why the US government began supporting the Khmer Rouge in
1979. He says they were in a coalition - with Sihanouk, and this made it OK. Which gets
us into another loop, in the 1975 Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk coalition, Adam Carr and Trey
Stone are fanatical about erasing Sihanouk from the coalition, after 1979, they are
fanatical about erasing the Khmer Rouge from the same damned KR/Sihanouk coalition.
My interest in Cambodia comes from Noam Chomsky, who incidentally has been averse to
communism since the 1930s when he felt the communists betrayed the Spanish republic. He
wrote some comments about American news coverage and the type of hysteria the US got into
when it lost in Vietnam - hysteria about massacres in Cambodia, congressional hearings
over POWs who the Vietnamese were still secretly holding for some reason. In fact,
there's a law that the POW/MIA flag has to fly over all federal buildings at least
once a year, on which is a photo of an American soldier the Vietnamese are still holding
for some reason. Well, I don't want to get into a psychological evaluation of
self-admitted former Maoists like Adam Carr or the other people. I just want a rational,
logical Khmer Rouge article. I give up on other articles, but not this one - I am proving
a point. Anyone who is not a hysterically fanatic anti-communist can see how hysteria has
gripped this article, and has been winning. I see it more as a lesson on how Wikipedia
does not work for the history master category. In fact, even if everyone not currently in
arbitration decided to be perfectly reasonable about this article, Trey Stone when he is
not on one of his eight blocks since he went into arbitration months ago would just come
in and muck it up. It is a testament to how Wikipedia is a complete failure. And I will
continue making my very logical, reasonable and historical edits in the face of the
fanaticism that is against me. And as I said before, even if everyone else is being
reasonable, in-arbitration Trey Stone is not being, so that is what I am arrayed against.
But of course, Adam Carr is being completely unreasonable as well. I would have to get
past these two fanatics to even consider if anyone else is being unfair. And as I said
before, all efforts have been made to drive the 172's of Wikipedia off, so it is an
often lonely battle on this page. Poison letters to the Secretlondon's, sneaky
admin-removals of the 172s have done their job. I have no allies on the page, while the
"difficult" Adam Carr's are countenanced by Jimbo Wales himself, the Trey
Stones revert repeatedly as his ArbCom case drags on forever, and of course, Ayn-Rand
reading porn magnate Jimbo Wales calls me a vandal for making the very reasonable change I
mentioned earlier.
Please look at the revert war from the time period of that Adam Carr comment, read my
earlier comments here (or on the Khmer Rouge discussion page) and see for yourself. This
edit war went on between me and Adam Carr (and Trey Stone) from May until a few days ago,
when with this still unresolved, when CJK came in and began making, what else, more
pro-US/anti-KR changes, so then the edit war became the old one plus the new CJK one. For
example, CJK said he never heard of the US food aid program to Cambodia - "Ruy goes
on to say that 'international food aid' was keeping them alive. I have never heard
of this 'food aid' from ANYWHERE ELSE, so Ruy should give a source for that as
well." Since my edits never go through, and no one else ever sources, I barely see
the point of giving a reference for this, but I dig up a New York Times article mentioning
it anyway. And note - Cambodia is a subject I know a bit about, and CJK admits he is
completely ignorant of things such as the food aid program. So we have someone who knows
quite a bit about this subject (me), and people who know little about it like CJK making
edits reverting me. After I give the source, CJK does not accept it because he says
"I think the U.S. gave food aid to the Lon Nol Army, but not civilians".
Amazing! CJK says he never heard of this program, but as soon as I source it all of a
sudden he "thinks" he knows where the food went! How did he go from knowing
nothing, to all of a sudden not only knowing about it, but how it was distributed? So of
course he doesn't accept my changes. And of course, if he actually read the article,
he would see the food was going to civilians. This is what I have to deal with.
So to those of you not coming to this list to kiss the ass of Ayn Rand reading porn
magnate Jimbo Wales - check out the Khmer Rouge article as my personal example of how
Wikipedia does not work for the history (or society) master category. And check out
Demopedia, Dkosopedia and the other wiki's I mentioned so we can build a good,
cooperative wiki for historical and political articles without having to deal with the
RK's and Trey Stones. The RK's and Trey Stones can go to right-wing nut Fred
Bauder's
wikinfo.org. And if you like Wikipedia for it's articles in the master
categories of science, mathematics and technology - well, I think Wikipedia is good in
those areas as well. But for history/society it is a lost cause, and I suggest at least
trying out these other places before you get frustrated and leave, as so many have done.
These alternative wiki's are all growing, and in a few months they'll reach a
level of critical mass. So check them out.
Ruy
--
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