From: Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Featured editors?
On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:41:12 -0500, "Alec Conroy" alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
How many times have I seen "This change was supported by <Enemy of
the
Project _____>." as a justification to revert good-faith users in a content dispute. How many times have I hard "You're probably in league with <Enemy of the Project ____>" slung as a personal attack without one shred of evidence? How many times do the names of the Enemies of the Project get mentioned to support some argument?
I have no idea. How many times have you heard it? And how many of those times were from people who mattered in circumstances that mattered?
Too many... Way too many.
Diffs would be good....
The banned are banned. Just as we shouldn't consider their view to change the encyclopedia in ways they would like, so we shouldn't
use
their views to justify changing the encyclopedia in ways they would dislike.
And who's suggesting we do that? Specific examples, please.
Anyone who's suggesting that the consideration of an Banned User's views matters. So, for a specific example, which I promise I really wasn't TRYING to dredge up-- let's take your ANI post when you indefblocked PrivateMusings. You listed one of his disputed edits as: and HERE SUPPORTING AN EARLIER REVERT BY A JON AWBREY SOCK.
Yup, repeating edits made by sockpuppets of banned users is a problem. But then, a lot of what PM did was a problem. Unsurprisingly, I guess, since the sock was registered exclusively to troll^wcontribute to a contentious debate without any comeback on the (limited) history of the main account.
But you're missing a vital point here: PM was never banned. I blocked one account and made it perfectly clear that I would quietly lift any autoblocks. All he had to do was go on editing with the main account.
Here's the edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Black_%28professor%29&d...
And it's a misrepresentation of that often misrepresented policy, WP:NOTCENSORED, which is not at all about supporting links (such as linking a blog as the supporting reference for the Really Vital Fact that the subject has... a blog). It's about explicitly content, and content which religious and other groups don't like.
I will say, in fairness, that I generally interpret edit summaries including "BLATANT CENSORSHIP" (sic) as an indication of an editor on a mission. In this case that diagnosis turned out to be spot on, of course.
So: I blocked a self-admitted sock for edit warring over a gratuitous link to the theory being actively peddled by banned user Judd Bagley and banned user Daniel Brandt, brought to the attention of the blogger by either one of them or a fellow member of their web forum, in a revert war precipitated by a sockpuppet of banned user Jon Awbrey.
But of course the problem here could not *possibly* be mad conspiracy theories, attempts to undermine admins by banned users with a grudge, rampant sockpuppetry by banned users, sockpuppet accounts registered just to stir controversy - no, it *must* be admin abuse and censorship, because Wikipedia always censors dissent, right?. How foolish of me not to realise.
Oh, wait, back to the original question: do you think I was suggesting changing the encyclopaedia in a way that Awbrey would or would not like? Think again. My involvement with Awbrey is strictly limited to playing whack-a-mole with the contents of his sock drawer and undoing the resultant collateral damage. If you could persuade him to just go away and leave us alone I can promise you that I will never give him another thought, ever.
Now, if I understadn things, PM has already told you his identity. you knew he was a longstanding, good-faith editor, not a jon awbrey sock. So what did it matter if a Jon Awbrey sock had made a similar edit. Jon Awbrey doesn't get to affect us anymore. You knew PM was a good-faith editor in a content dispute. You weren't blocking him for being a Awbrey sock. Why invoke Awbrey?
No, he was not a long-standing good-faith editor, he was an editor with a fairly limited and not at all spotless history, including a fair bit of controversial editing of controversial content and at least two other accounts, both equally limited in history. And three arbitrators agreed that this was not an appropriate use of an alternate account.
Why invoke Awbrey? Because Awbrey started the whole mess.
Well, you did it because, of course, we all hat Awbrey. It gets us emotional. It subtly implies that PM and Awbry were in league-- although of course, you knew they weren't. It makes us angry that an Enemy of the Project is screwing up our articles again! And it makes us want to say Yes! Whatever you say! Just get Awbrey out of here! If we are band of villagers, Awbry is a word that makes us grab our torches and our pitchforks.
I'm amazed! You can read minds! Hopefully more accurately than you can judge intent in editing, since you've already apologised once for completely misjudging a removal of mine, asserting it was a misplaced BADSITES removal when actually it was precisely as stated: removal of an offsite comment by a banned user, as it happens inserted by a sockpuppet of another banned user.
see, we keep coming back to this business of banned users. I find myself wondering why I have to spend so much time and effort defending myself from ill-founded allegations, when the real problem appears to me, as an admittedly interested party, to be the steadfast refusal of a small coterie of banned users to leave us the hell alone?
See, the reason they do it is blindingly obvious: attention whoring. They love the drama. Me, I'd be much happier if people just looked at the facts, nodded and moved on. But each go-round we have a whole new group of people who demand that their every tiny curiosity be satisfied - and if we keep long term abuse pages, then we're glorifying vandalism. Me, I've performed courtesy blanking or deletion on a number of long-term abuse related pages, to help people disappear with dignity. Guess what? I get shit for that as well. Seems like I can't win.
In the infamous Attack Sites case, two of our own arbitors voted that "Not mentioning the Banned Attackers" was more important than "Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia",
and
that mentions or links should be stricken from the encyclopedia,
even
at the cost to the project itself.
Who would those people be? Names, please.
Fred and Flonight voted for BADSITES under the name "salt the earth". And since I think they were the first two to vote, it was positively chilling to watch, because I realized that they and I weren't working on the same project at all, and I didn't know if Wikipedia was what I wanted it to be or what they wanted it to be. It turned out okay, but i'm was very very happy when it did.
But there, you;re making value judgments about other people's motives. I would say that if you asked me who was more committed to the project, Fred Bauder and FloNight or you and Pirvatemusings and Dan Tobias, I'm awful sorry but I'm afraid Fred and Syney would get my vote every time. No contest. Not because they support removal of links to offsite harassment, but because they have contributed a vast amount to this encyclopaedia and handled any amount of abuse as arbitrators.
What you *haven't* done is cite any example of anyone who has advocated not mentioning banned attackers as being more important than the encyclopaedia. I think I can say with very close to 100% confidence that Fred and Sydney were motivated by absolute concern for the integrity of the encyclopaedia. Who's suggesting that not mentioning banned attackers is *more important than the encyclopaedia* - your premise, you provide the examples please.
Incidentally, that's part of why your (Jzg) claim to having gotten three arbcom members to endorse your indefblock of private musings doesn't impress me. Arbcom turned out to be way more diverse than I realize. Turns out, if you ask, you can get two arbiters to vote to overturn WP:NPOV, and potentially one arbiter to redirect Enemies of the Project's biographies to Clown. <sigh>
Please cite which two arbitrators would vote to overturn NPOV. Diffs are necessary for this, I think.
See, I couldn't disagree more. People need to consider something, mull it over, discuss it over-- they don't just need to be told the right answer. That's the wiki process for you-- there's much talking involved. If you don't want to have your behavior subjected to good-faith oversight, ya ought not be in the game, I'm afraid. 9 times out of 10, everybody will conclude that that everything was fine.
So you say. Me, I call that pointless drama. An anonymous editor (with trolling edits) comes along to push a mad theory originating with a known COI spammer aiming to undermine Wikipedia for his own commercial ends. Hmmmmm. How long should "people" need to discuss that do you think? Five seconds? Ten maybe?
The person who did most to prolong that debate skimped on their research to the point of not actually bothering to even read the talk page of one of the people he was accusing, on which page there was, prominently displayed, an thorough and compelling refutation.
Guess you missed that part?
Police departments often have mandatory review every time an officer fires a weapon. You fire your weapon, the first they they do is take your weapon away, put you on administrative duty, and let everybody take a good hard look at what you did. There will be hard questions. It may seem adversarial. Almost always, they'll pat you on the back at the end of the day, give you weapon back, and tell you ya did right. But the review IS a good thing. Even when it turns out nobody did a thing wrong, the review is good.
What you are asking for is to invoke that process every time a long-term jailbird walks into the station-house and says "hey, that guy who arrested me, he pulled a weapon! Better investigate him!" and then runs off.
Oh, and for your analogy to work, the review would have to be conducted with a peanut gallery full of all the other ne'er do well's that officer ever arrested, charged or had jailed. We'd have to let the jailed ones use an assumed identity, too, so that people don't feel their heckling is tainted in any way.
Anyway, this is making me angry, and that's not going to help anyone, so I'm stopping there. Do be sure to check out the ongoing threads in respect of Jehochman and Durova and see if you can find *any credible evidence whatsoever* to support the accusations.
Guy (JzG)
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:28:15 -0800 (PST), Flameviper Velifang theflameysnake@yahoo.com wrote:
tl;dr
jg; dgaf.
Guy (JzG)
Flameviper Velifang theflameysnake@yahoo.com wrote:
Alec wrote:
You listed one of his disputed edits as: and HERE SUPPORTING AN EARLIER REVERT BY A JON AWBREY SOCK.
Yup, repeating edits made by sockpuppets of banned users is a problem.
No-- it's really not. That's a logical fallacy as has been discussed. Not all banned user edits are bad ones-- they're smart enough to make good ones from time to time, just to mix it up.
When considering an edit made by a good-faith editor, where the banned user stands on the content dispute has absolutely zero weight, one way or the other. By quoting Awbry's action, just you empower him with the ability to further influence our content.
I will say, in fairness, that I generally interpret edit summaries including "BLATANT CENSORSHIP" (sic) as an indication of an editor on a mission.
But remember-- it was a revert of vandalistic deletion by a banned sockpuppet, and it was a revert made with the support of consensus on talk, after similar consensuses elsewhere. That's was what was so sadly ironic about the whole PM block-- he was block for reverting a banned sockpuppet and for trying to protect his privacy, in the midst of a debate about how we should fight against banned sock puppets and try to protect peoples privacy.
Anyway, I don't mean to hash that over too much. Ulimately, the world decided your block should be overturned, but didn't hold the block against ya.
Fred and Flonight voted for BADSITES under the name "salt the earth". And since I think they were the first two to vote, it was positively chilling to watch, because I realized that they and I weren't working on the same project at all, and I didn't know if Wikipedia was what I wanted it to be or what they wanted it to be. It turned out okay, but i'm was very very happy when it did.
But there, you;re making value judgments about other people's motives.
Well, I'm not tryin to judge their motives per se. They were doing their best to improve the project just like everybody else. They aren't nefarious, they aren't acting in bad faith, they aren't out to do anything wrong-- they just envision a very different project than the one I envision, and I very much wanted my vision to be the one that ultimately came into being.
What you *haven't* done is cite any example of anyone who has advocated not mentioning banned attackers as being more important than the encyclopaedia.
Well, it depends on what you mean by "The Encyclopedia". We can take the ED article as a hypothetical. Let's suppose ED is/will be notable-- what would be best for encyclopedia-- to cover it or to exclude it.
To me, an encyclopedia that has a good entry on ANY topic is better than an identical encyclopedia which is the same in every way but lacks that article. And, for me, that works on ANY topic you can imagine-- from "neonazi theories of racial superiority" to "How people construct a pipe bomb". A good entry is better than no entry, no matter what the topic.
But to other people, the encyclopedia is more like a village-- and for them, the "best" encyclopedia is one which omits some information that would, despite being good articles, would be highly hurtful the members of the community.
Both at very valid points of view-- and who is to say what is right? So with all the intense arguing, let me step back and say I do recognized that Wikipedia just faced a VERY intense, very difficult decision, and both sides of it had valid points, and were 100% trying to make the universe the best place it can be.
Ultimately, from a polysci point of view, BADSITES was really about whether Wikipedia was going to be molded in the style of the US or in the style of Europe. The First Amendment is really an incredibly radical statement, and in France and Germany, there is no First Amendment, because they feel Hate Speech is so odious, it can't be allowed. The US has its Neonazis, but a NeoNazi speech would be a crime in Germany.
So, there you go-- the whole BADSITES debate as replayed on the scene of World Politics. Fred and Flonight voted for a European Style deletion of hate-links, and everyone else went with an American-style "hate speech is tolerated". Neither side is evil, but on that issue, I'm proud to be in america, and I wouldn't want to wake up one day and find out I've been living on the other side of the pond.
Incidentally, that's part of why your (Jzg) claim to having gotten three arbcom members to endorse your indefblock of private musings doesn't impress me. Arbcom turned out to be way more diverse than I realize. Turns out, if you ask, you can get two arbiters to vote to overturn WP:NPOV, and potentially one arbiter to redirect Enemies of the Project's biographies to Clown. <sigh>
Please cite which two arbitrators would vote to overturn NPOV. Diffs are necessary for this, I think.
Again, this is MY conception of NPOV-- what I'll term ALEC:NPOV. NPOV, as I understand it, simply doesn't allow us to delete attack site links from our articles, period. In my mind, it really was that clear-- one or the other had to go-- either BADSITES would win out, or NPOV would win out, but they couldn't live together.
Of course, Fred had his own interpretation of NPOV, FRED:NPOV that DID allow Damnatio memoriae. How he reconciled this with the policy currently enshrined in WP:NPOV I don't know, but I'm sure he did. Maybe he thought of it as "Almost neutral POV" or "Usually Neutral except in a very few cases POV", or maybe he really didn't think there was even a conflict between the to at all. (And nothing special about fred here-- this same question could go to anyone who supported his proposed decision).
But for me, yeah-- it really was that serious, and that two arbiters against actually was kinda creepy.
See, I couldn't disagree more. People need to consider something, mull it over, discuss it over-- they don't just need to be told the right answer. [...]
So you say. Me, I call that pointless drama. [...[ How long should "people" need to discuss that do you think? Five seconds? Ten maybe?
If they're acting in good faith, they get to discuss it as long as they want! That's the way forums work.
Discussion is not an act of violence. They weren't assaulting Durova, they were discussing an allegation made against her. Take the bad faith users and block them, then let the good faith users discuss as long as they feel necessary. It works-- I swear.
Swooping in on a conversation between good-faith users and telling them to stop talking, and all you did is up the temperature and increase the volume-- you won't solve their pre-existing concerns, and you'll add new concerns on top of it.
Now, if you don't care what they think about you or Durova, well, swooping in and stopping an in-progress discussion is a fine thing to do. But it's horribly unwise. The prosecution making the false allegations against Durova had already had it's chance to present it case--- shutting the discussion down midway would only have stopped people from exonerating her, and it would have contributed to a feeling of suppression, and left a lingering suspicion about her.
Trying to forcibly shut down in-progress discussions (among good-faith editors) about admin misbehavior is a HORRIBLE idea. A discussion is like a high voltage laser containment system-- simply trying to turn off would be like dropping a bomb on the discussion. Widespread suppression of stupid claims is how those claims wind up gettting Slashdotted.
Police departments often have mandatory review every time an officer fires a weapon. You fire your weapon, the first they they do is take your weapon away, put you on administrative duty, and let everybody take a good hard look at what you did. There will be hard questions. It may seem adversarial. Almost always, they'll pat you on the back at the end of the day, give you weapon back, and tell you ya did right. But the review IS a good thing. Even when it turns out nobody did a thing wrong, the review is good.
What you are asking for is to invoke that process every time a long-term jailbird walks into the station-house and says "hey, that guy who arrested me, he pulled a weapon! Better investigate him!" and then runs off.
I'm not saying that the investigation of groundless accusations is always a good thing, but once such an investigation by good faith editors is underway, the only realistic option you have is to let it run it's course. We can hope people will be more saavy and vigilent in being skeptical about claims from those who have no edit history. But if good faith editors do consider it worth looking into, the only option you have is to allow them.
So, to use the police review board analogy--- hopefully they wouldn't start a review process based on just ANY old jailbird's claims-- but once a review board is convened, your only option is to make your case and hope it's over soon. Getting your buddies to running into the board room, promise the people that nothing wrong happened, and then at gunpoint ordering the reviewing officers to stop the review immediately and burn the transcripts-- that's NOT going to help the situation one iota.
Alec
On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:41:07 -0500, "Alec Conroy" alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
Yup, repeating edits made by sockpuppets of banned users is a problem.
No-- it's really not. That's a logical fallacy as has been discussed. Not all banned user edits are bad ones-- they're smart enough to make good ones from time to time, just to mix it up.
Yes-it really is. Precisely *because* of that.
We do not recognise the concept of being "a little bit banned". We use editing restrictions and parole for that.
What I do see here, though, is an issue that might be fixable.
There are two types of response I get when I do something that someone thinks is wrong:
(1) I think that was wrong, would you mind taking another look?
(2) How dare you abuse your administrative powers in this way, I demand that you undo this immediately and apologise profusely.
I bet you can guess which is more likely to work.
I bet you can guess which is more likely to be used by single-purpose accounts and sockpuppets of banned users.
Now intellectually I *know* I should treat both responses the same way, but I am not that kind of person, and I don't think very many people are that kind of person.
Here's another problem situation. An article has a recurrent problem leading to numerous complaints, including from legal teams. Every time someone adds the same problem material, in good faith, it has to be removed. We might say: please do not reinsert this material, we have had detailed discussion of it before, legal complaints have been made. That kind of thing. Responses are generally of one of two classes:
(1) Oh, OK. But I have something that might be new information, can we discuss this?
(2) Prove it, and I'm going to put the material back in until you've proved it to my satisfaction, and I'm going to complain everywhere I can think of about this abuse of powers and suppression of THE TRUTH.
Which of these is more likely to work, and which to cause drama?
Sure, I am not very trusting of banned users. Especially those who systematically attempt to evade their bans. But some users are not very trusting of our long-standing editors, either. People seem to forget that in Wikipedia, "admin" is synonymous with "long-standing user" more than with cop, moderator or nazi.
Here's another problem: We get a lot of complaints of "admin abuse", most of which turn out to be baseless. And some of them turn out to be malicious, as the one in question was. That doesn't mean that everyone who supports the complaint is malicious, only that malicious people are manipulating us. What do *you* think is a good way of dealing with that? I think advising them to email ArbCom is a way forward.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/15/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
There are two types of response I get when I do something that someone thinks is wrong:
(1) I think that was wrong, would you mind taking another look?
(2) How dare you abuse your administrative powers in this way, I demand that you undo this immediately and apologise profusely.
...
Now intellectually I *know* I should treat both responses the same way, but I am not that kind of person, and I don't think very many people are that kind of person.
Guy (JzG)
-- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
Guy, I know that many other admins are that kind of person, especially among the newer ones. In the real world too, those who can listen to 2) and not get upset over it are the ones with a chance of getting some degree of co-operation and possibly reform.
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:01:36 -0500, "David Goodman" dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
There are two types of response I get when I do something that someone thinks is wrong: (1) I think that was wrong, would you mind taking another look? (2) How dare you abuse your administrative powers in this way, I demand that you undo this immediately and apologise profusely. Now intellectually I *know* I should treat both responses the same way, but I am not that kind of person, and I don't think very many people are that kind of person.
Guy, I know that many other admins are that kind of person, especially among the newer ones. In the real world too, those who can listen to 2) and not get upset over it are the ones with a chance of getting some degree of co-operation and possibly reform.
Sure. And they are also the ones who get canonised, because give anyone enough of (2) and they will usually also lose patience.
Guy (JzG)
On WP it does not require sainthood, only keeping the project and its problems in proper perspective--and awareness of the extent to which web communications conduces to unintended abruptness. I think we have enough people on WP that can manage it; I don't think any person would now pass RfA if anything in their history indicated they couldn't cope with that. If one loses the ability, one needs a wikibreak.
On 11/15/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:01:36 -0500, "David Goodman" dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
There are two types of response I get when I do something that someone thinks is wrong: (1) I think that was wrong, would you mind taking another look? (2) How dare you abuse your administrative powers in this way, I demand that you undo this immediately and apologise profusely. Now intellectually I *know* I should treat both responses the same way, but I am not that kind of person, and I don't think very many people are that kind of person.
Guy, I know that many other admins are that kind of person, especially among the newer ones. In the real world too, those who can listen to 2) and not get upset over it are the ones with a chance of getting some degree of co-operation and possibly reform.
Sure. And they are also the ones who get canonised, because give anyone enough of (2) and they will usually also lose patience.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
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On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:00:35 -0500, "David Goodman" dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
On WP it does not require sainthood, only keeping the project and its problems in proper perspective--and awareness of the extent to which web communications conduces to unintended abruptness. I think we have enough people on WP that can manage it; I don't think any person would now pass RfA if anything in their history indicated they couldn't cope with that. If one loses the ability, one needs a wikibreak.
A recent promotion happened despite a history of poor response to trolling being identified in the debate. I don't think that is unusual.
Guy (JzG)
On 15/11/2007, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
talk, after similar consensuses elsewhere. That's was what was so sadly ironic about the whole PM block-- he was block for reverting a banned sockpuppet and for trying to protect his privacy, in the midst of a debate about how we should fight against banned sock puppets and try to protect peoples privacy.
No, PrivateMusings was blocked for sockpuppetry with apparent intent to pump up the drama - lying about his other accounts' activities and so forth. That's *not* what the few tolerated uses of multiple accounts are for.
Well, it depends on what you mean by "The Encyclopedia". We can take the ED article as a hypothetical. Let's suppose ED is/will be notable-- what would be best for encyclopedia-- to cover it or to exclude it.
This is a red herring. If ED were notable outside its own mind, it would have an article with good sourcing.
- d.
On 11/15/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 15/11/2007, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
Well, it depends on what you mean by "The Encyclopedia". We can take the ED article as a hypothetical. Let's suppose ED is/will be notable-- what would be best for encyclopedia-- to cover it or to exclude it.
This is a red herring. If ED were notable outside its own mind, it would have an article with good sourcing.
Okay, I 100% agree. It wasn't so long ago that it was seriously suggested ED wouldn't have an article even if it WAS notable and DID haven't good sourcing. That in the light of day, even asking the question seems like a red herring is actually a very good sign. There shouldn't be a question about how we'd handle ED if, somehow, it were notable-- we'd handle it by writing a well-sourced article about it.
Alec