At 02:17 PM 5/31/2010, David Gerard wrote:

Abd has been beaten around the head by the arbcom on several occasions, and so has an understandably negative view of power structures on Wikipedia in general - since it couldn't possibly be the case that he was ever actually wrong or anything.

My views of the Wikipedia power structure were expressed long before I appeared before ArbComm. I've been a major party for two cases only. The first was filed by Jehochman, beating me to it by maybe an hour or two, I was ready to file. My case was about admin recusal failure, and ArbComm confirmed it. That case was practically a complete "victory" for my position. Later, one finding, very mild, was interpreted as some kind of reprimand, though it was actually an instruction to more rapidly escalate dispute resolution. So, next time, that's exactly what I did.

The next case I filed, and was also over admin recusal failure. This time, I was personally involved (I'd been neutral in the first case, actually, though I later developed a point of view contrary to that of the administrator. My POV wasn't relevant to the charge of recusal failure.) Again, ArbComm quite confirmed the complaint.

I was very aware from the beginning that by taking on administrative abuse, I was risking topic bans and my account. The surprise, actually, was that it didn't happen the first time. But that case had been so open-and-shut and uncomplicated that the "cabal" mostly stayed away, even though they had actively participated in the preceding RfC/JzG 3. That, right there, was a clue: the RfC was narrowly filed, as well, simply showing article and other topic involvement, then use of tools for blacklisting, blocking, and deleting. But 2/3 of editors commenting supported, instead of a confirmation of the problem, that Abd should be banned.

2/3 of editors supported a position that was blatantly against policy and the ensuing ArbComm decision.

But with the next case, the cabal was very much aware of the danger, and the case wasn't as clear. They knew that if they could claim that I was a tendentious editor, dispruptive, etc., they could at least get me topic banned. They piled in, and my originally compact evidence spun out of control, trying to respond. At the beginning, actually, it looked like they'd failed, the first arb to review evidence and opine was so favorable to my position that I thought that, again, I'd dodged the bullent. But then, quite rapidly, it reversed, that arbitrator was basically ignored, and entirely new proposals were made, basically reprimanding me for a series of asserted offences, not supported or barely and inadequately supported by evidence. ArbComm was more of a knee-jerk body than I'd anticipated, I'd been fooled by a series of decisions where they clearly did investigate, and carefully.

Did I do anything wrong? Of course I did! I also did stuff that was exactly right, and exactly effective, and accomplished what many editors and administrators thought impossible.

But my personal right to edit Wikipedia meant almost nothing to me, and standing up for the rights of legions of editors who had been abused, and I'd been watching it for a long time, and I believe that this has done and contnues to do long-term damage, was much more important. I'm just one editor, I'm nothing compared to them. Someone like Mr. Gerard may not be capable of understanding this attitude, it would be so foreign to how he'd think. Or is it?

Never mind, it doesn't matter.

ArbComm is not the cause of Wikipedia's problems, it's merely a symptom. Fix the basic problems, and ArbComm, or its replacement, would become far more functional. The problem is not the fault of any member of ArbComm, nor of any editor or faction, though some do stand in the way of reform, that's simply what's natural. I ddn't seek to have anyone banned, even though there were -- and are -- several who by ordinary standards, if their behavior were examined, would be, because these people would be harmless or even useful if the structure were functional. The problem, in a nutshell, is that the founders of Wikipedia did not know how to put together a project that could maintain unity and consensus when the scale became large. That's not surprising, not many know how to do this! But there are people who do, who have had experience with it. Few of them have become Wikipedia editors, and Wikipedia has not sought this expertise. Indeed, it's blocked and banned people for even suggesting solutions.

And, from the beginning, as I became active, back in 2007, I wrote that this was expected behavior.

I'd registered in, I think, 2005, and had other wiki experience, and was a moderator on the W.E.L.L. in the 1980s and a moderator of soc.religion.islam in the 90s -- still am, though inactive --, do you think there was any controversy there? And I've handled large meetings, an international conference, of people inclined to argue about everything, and managed to facilitate the formation of consensus in a few days on far more than ever happened before or since. I know how to do it, I know what it takes. But, I aslso have always found that when an entrenched oligarchy is favored by the status quo, as to personal power, they will oppose any reform that will move toward equity, because they will correctly see it as lessening their personal power, and they will readily believe that their personal power is essential to success of the organization. It is a deep and persistent effect, related to the Iron Law of Oligarchy, cf. the WP article on that. How to move beyond the damage done by the Iron Law is a subtle problem, and few even recognize the existence of the problem. They ascribe the problems to something else, to "them," usually." I.e., they will think that the problem is the oligarchy, which isn't correct. The problem is the lack of consensus structure. Consensus does not arise both naturally and efficiently in large-scale organizations. It does arise, sometimes, eventually, but the process takes so long and is so difficult, that it burns people out in the course of it. Both efficiency and thoroughness, i.e, maximization of consensus, are necessary. And Wikipedia seemed like a good place to test some of the ideas, one decent and advisable step at a time. Nothing was done to be disruptive. But from what I've written, you'll understand that it will be taken as disruptive, quickly and readily.

I was a little surprised by the vehemence of the response, at first. I'd expected more that it would simply be ignored until and unless it became more of a present threat. But the active core of the editorial community is generally very smart, in some ways. They sensed what a danger it was, to them -- not to the community, and it changed no policies, and did not create voting --, and turned out in droves to attempt to delete and salt the ideas and the attempted experiment. That puzzled Kim Bruning.... he thought it was merely a rejected proposal.... The attempt to delete and salt had supermajority approval, but failed. Today, my guess, it would be deleted. The admins who would have resisted that have mostly abandoned the field.