Hi everyone,
to those I've known at Wikipedia and worked well with, thanks for the good times. I used to believe in Wikipedia. It was worth a lot to me, it was fun, it was good to work on articles.
But I'm quitting. It's sad to say, I know, and even sadder that due to my reasons for quitting, I can't trust leaving a goodbye message on my user page or mailing from my normal account. But for the things I am about to say, I know that several admins and possibly those higher up in the project would ban me just for saying it. I know this message may never reach this list either, but I'm at least going to try. I'm doing it this way because someday, I might want to come back, and I'd like to be able to come back under the same username I left.
I'm quitting wikipedia because I don't like what I've seen too many admins become. Self-righteous, arrogant, self-centered, conceited... jerks.
I've seen too many admins who believe that our civility policies only apply to the normal editors. Too many admins whose first course is to insult a new user in order to see if they get a "reaction" so that they can spank the new user for talking back to an admin.
I've seen too many admins block accounts for infinite duration on flimsy evidence or mere whim.
I've seen admins block accounts with the reason of "name..", and then block another account for the reason that it was a "suspected sockpuppet" - of the offensive username block.
I've seen more accusations thrown around of someone being a "sockpuppet" of another user. Time and again, I looked through the edits, and I didn't see it. Instead, what I saw were users who were systematically hounded until they finally broke down and broke the civility rules, and then as an afterthought someone came up and said "oh, it doesn't matter, they were a sockpuppet of X anyways", thereby removing all culpability on the part of the abusive users who had spent time hounding and abusing the newbie to the point of cussing or vandalizing.
I've seen the way accusations of "sockpuppet" have become a way of life in content disputes, and I've see how the admins on wikipedia do absolutely nothing about it. Too many despicable pov warriors spend their time accusing anyone they disagree with on one article or another of being a "sockpuppet", and never does a CheckUser come back innocent. The one time I ever saw CU come back inconclusive, the admin blocked them for being a sockpuppet anyways, claiming they had "proof" in the form of edit summaries, which is to say that the user was editing on the same article where the admin's friends had previously harassed someone.
I saw a thread earlier today which I thought was monstrous - a user whose talk page was locked for "unblock template abuse", whose only crime or "abuse" of the template was removing the template after the blocking admin consistently and maliciously removed it. This thread was stopped by the assertion of David Gerard that the person who started the thread was "Enviroknot." I don't give a damn who started the thread, if the question is valid, the question is valid. I looked at the user in question, and I see plenty of problems with the way it was handled, and at least two admins who deserve at the least a stern censure and at the most, de-adminning for abusive behavior. We NEED users to bring these problems up. We NEED to cull the herd of abusive administrators.
But there's no way in hell I can say that with my normal username, because David's terms are clear: the usage of the term "sockpuppet" stops all rational discussion, and anyone disagreeing with David gets banned.
Anyone who says that there are abusive administrators out there, or speaks out against a specific one they've had a run-in with? The cry of "Rouge Admin lololol lets see how can I pwn this noob today, take that and stop annoying the admins" is the cry that goes out, not "that sounds serious, I'll take a look."
We are too arrogant. I've seen Jimbo use the excuse of "well troll X doesn't like it so they are doing right" or "well you must be correct because the wikipediareview crowd doesn't like you" as a way to justify bad behavior in the wikimedia IRC room and even on this list. I've seen countless times where good users are attacked for speaking up and saying this same thing: We, the overwhelming number of admins on the project, are too arrogant. Too self-centered.
We spend too much time "defending" wikipedia and not enough time bringing new users into the fold, being polite, being nice. Teaching them about policies, about the manual of style. Editing alongside them. Admins are supposed to be "just another editor with a few extra buttons", but too many admins today get drunk on that power. They insist that normal editors are "beneath" them, that they should be able to own articles and give their friends a hand up when content disputes arise. If you're friends with an admin, rest assured that your buddies will call someone a name, get one called back, and then ask you to punish the other guy for "incivility." And you'll do it, too, without a moment's hesitation, simply because you have the power to do it.
I've sat in the IRC channel watching a user come in to ask for help only to be rebuffed, attacked, insulted, and finally booted because "no new user could ever find the IRC chat room, they are obviously a sockpuppet of some disruptive user." I sat by silently because I knew if I spoke out, they'd just boot me too for being "disruptive."
And you know what? I'm tired of it. Our articles are suffering because even the good edits of supposed "sockpuppets" are being reverted by overly-zealous admins who believe that they have to hunt for every edit made by someone they think is banned - even if it's just a typo fix - and revert it. Yes, I have watched this in action. I have watched admins put obvious page-tagging edits like an insertion of "joe is a fag" back because the user who reverted the vandalism was someone deemed a "sockpuppet" by our completely erroneous and pointless system.
The Wiki is broken. It's not the vandals who broke it. Those we could handle. It's not the edit warriors who broke it. Those we can handle.
WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up jerks. We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting full of ourselves.
And every one of the admins on wikipedia, myself included, has been guilty of it at one point. Some are more guilty than others. Some are jerks 100% of the time. Some have become so obsessed with their pet sockpuppet, be it Enviroknot, Freestylefrappe, Willy on Wheels, Entmoots, Pigsonthewing, JarlaxleArtemis, Karmafist, Lir, PoolGuy, or whatever else their pet sockpuppet of the week is that they are no longer useful.
Some never should have passed RFA to start with. Some deliberately gamed the system and pulled support from a specific interest group to get passed, then turned around and started immediately abusing their power to help the interest group and haven't stopped since. Some are likely sockpuppets of serial edit warriors.
Some are just insane.
And some of us just are human, and fail to appreciate that, and fall victim to power tripping behavior. I think that the admin behavior which made this list moderation-default falls under that. But that's another of those things that is "not up for discussion."
Too many things are not open for discussion. Too many of the verboten topics center around people who are on power trips, or were at the time they took some action. Too many times admins seeking to consolidate their power bases or trading favors with other admins have stood up for improper, abusive behavior.
So, I'm out. As long as the cult of adminship reigns here, wikipedia's not going to improve. New articles may come and edits might be made eventually, but the state of wikipedia, our accuracy, our reliability, WILL fail as long as admins are allowed to champion abusive users or be abusive themselves and simply get away with it time and again, rubber stamped by secret evidence and higher-ups who are more interested in their own power than making a better encyclopedia.
Jimbo, this might as well be an open letter to you too. None of the rest of these spineless yes-men will ever say these things to your face. Hell, I couldn't at the last meetup, because I was so afraid that you or Danny or one of the other high-ups would note down my username and ban me. That's the atmosphere you've cultivated.
Peace out.
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
But I'm quitting. It's sad to say, I know, and even sadder that due to my reasons for quitting, I can't trust leaving a goodbye message on my user page or mailing from my normal account. But for the things I am about to say, I know that several admins and possibly those higher up in the project would ban me just for saying it. I know this message may never reach this list either, but I'm at least going to try. I'm doing it this way because someday, I might want to come back, and I'd like to be able to come back under the same username I left.
Being banned for speaking out? I know of no cases. The claim was most frequently heard from the hydra commonly tagged "Enviroknnot", but he was banned for being a pathological fuckwit and for assuming no-one could possibly work out it was him every time just by looking at the way he always came back making the same edits to the same bunch of articles.
I saw a thread earlier today which I thought was monstrous - a user whose talk page was locked for "unblock template abuse", whose only crime or "abuse" of the template was removing the template after the blocking admin consistently and maliciously removed it. This thread was stopped by the assertion of David Gerard that the person who started the thread was "Enviroknot." I don't give a damn who started the thread, if the question is valid, the question is valid. I looked at the user in question, and I see plenty of problems with the way it was handled, and at least two admins who deserve at the least a stern censure and at the most, de-adminning for abusive behavior. We NEED users to bring these problems up. We NEED to cull the herd of abusive administrators.
We have the Arbitration Committee for that. If you don't say anything, they don't know.
WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up jerks. We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting full of ourselves.
If you are an admin then I am a notorious troll living in Houston.
- d.
I expected this sort of response from David Gerard. It saddens me to see it, but I knew it would come.
This sort of attitude and obsessiveness is precisely why I am leaving.
David, I saw an email sent to this list on the admin who was removing the unblock request from the page of a user he himself had blocked. YOU declared it a nonissue. I'm sure that the affected user, who by our arbcom rules is the "only" one allowed to make such an arbcom case, is completely unable to do so since they are BLOCKED.
This is a larger problem I have with our policies, though. Every policy we have on the matter is designed to make it impossible for an aggrieved user to make any protest against abuse.
Parker.
On 10/6/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
But I'm quitting. It's sad to say, I know, and even sadder that due to
my
reasons for quitting, I can't trust leaving a goodbye message on my user page or mailing from my normal account. But for the things I am about to say, I know that several admins and possibly those higher up in the
project
would ban me just for saying it. I know this message may never reach
this
list either, but I'm at least going to try. I'm doing it this way
because
someday, I might want to come back, and I'd like to be able to come back under the same username I left.
Being banned for speaking out? I know of no cases. The claim was most frequently heard from the hydra commonly tagged "Enviroknnot", but he was banned for being a pathological fuckwit and for assuming no-one could possibly work out it was him every time just by looking at the way he always came back making the same edits to the same bunch of articles.
I saw a thread earlier today which I thought was monstrous - a user
whose
talk page was locked for "unblock template abuse", whose only crime or "abuse" of the template was removing the template after the blocking
admin
consistently and maliciously removed it. This thread was stopped by the assertion of David Gerard that the person who started the thread was "Enviroknot." I don't give a damn who started the thread, if the
question is
valid, the question is valid. I looked at the user in question, and I
see
plenty of problems with the way it was handled, and at least two admins
who
deserve at the least a stern censure and at the most, de-adminning for abusive behavior. We NEED users to bring these problems up. We NEED to
cull
the herd of abusive administrators.
We have the Arbitration Committee for that. If you don't say anything, they don't know.
WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up
jerks.
We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting
full
of ourselves.
If you are an admin then I am a notorious troll living in Houston.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 10/6/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
I expected this sort of response from David Gerard. It saddens me to see it, but I knew it would come.
This sort of attitude and obsessiveness is precisely why I am leaving.
David, I saw an email sent to this list on the admin who was removing the unblock request from the page of a user he himself had blocked. YOU declared it a nonissue. I'm sure that the affected user, who by our arbcom rules is the "only" one allowed to make such an arbcom case,
I've seen arbcom cases started by those not directly involved.
This is a larger problem I have with our policies, though. Every policy we have on the matter is designed to make it impossible for an aggrieved user to make any protest against abuse.
My experence suggests otherwise. In fact at the moment most of our policy appears to be focused on when stuff can be deleted.
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
I expected this sort of response from David Gerard. It saddens me to see it, but I knew it would come. This sort of attitude and obsessiveness is precisely why I am leaving.
In your first email you stated you were an admin. Could you please tell of conflicts you dealt with? Leave names out if you like.
(By the way, it's pretty much inconceivable I or anyone is going to somehow permanently ban an admin for speaking out on wikien-l; you should correct that one next time around. But let's play along for now.)
- d.
"But let's play along for now", eh?
I see your mind is already made up. That, my dear David, is why I am not about to let you have my username.
Regardless, since there are other admins and people on this list who are willing to take this seriously and examine it in good faith, I'll answer your question. Please keep a civil tongue in your head, sarcastic and nasty responses are not what I'm looking for.
- I've blocked many obvious vandals in my time. The taggers, the page blankers, the ones who want to put "hi" or "fuck" or "penis" on as many pages as they can, that sort of thing.
- I've welcomed new users. I really wish our welcome message included item links to the dispute resolution areas (broken as they are) these days. I think it would help new users who get into a conflict when being bold, since bold behavior often leads to conflicts with others. For that matter, why isn't a welcome message automatically generated on the creation of any new account's talk page, so they'd instantly see a "You have new messages" bar and be able to see the welcome message? Why not do that instead of waiting for an admin to come along and do it?
Too many new users, especially the ones that get targeted for abuse by pov warriors, never get to see the welcome message because abusive admins and users don't bother with it, they go straight into the "warnings" to try to establish some excuse for blocking or other bad behavior.
- I've blocked a few people for less obvious vandalism - changing a date to be wrong, altering a fact in a way that isn't truthful. I've unblocked a few of these people when they left a message on their page or emailed me to apologize and admit they just had their facts wrong. WP:AGF and civility are very important when dealing with these sorts of things!
- I've screwed up and blocked someone in a conflict of interest. Twice. I apologized later, but the damage was done. In one case I didn't apologize until the 24 hours was up, because I didn't calm down quick enough and nobody - thanks to the "contact the blocking admin first" stupidity we have these days - was willing to unblock once I logged out. I got two "I want to talk to you about this case" messages, but since I didn't respond, nobody unblocked. In the second case, I unblocked after 10 hours, but only after another admin contacted me on IRC. Their statement was that they wouldn't unblock as it would be "incivil" to me to do so, but they thought I should reconsider.
It's a stupid policy that leaves final decision on unblocking in the hands of a hothead who just has to ignore any messages in order to make the block stick.
Yes, it does bother me that I did this, and yes, this is partially why I'm leaving, or at least taking a decently long wikibreak. Because I'd seen this behavior in others, but catching myself doing it makes me unhappy with myself, and realizing that I did it in part because I'd absorbed the "admins are gods" culture in Wikipedia makes me worry I'd do it again on another bad day.
- I've edited a lot.
- I've seen plenty of edit wars and enforced 3RR. Three times in my memory someone's unblocked someone that I blocked for 3RR/edit warring when they were tag-teaming someone else. Yes, they technically didn't violate 3RR. Were they trying to provoke the other guy into it? Damn skippy they were. Policy says you block both sides in an edit war, not just the 3RR violator, and I was following that.
Every time, the unblocking admin "happened" to be one of their friends, or at least it would appear that way since they made similar edits, showed up on each other's talk pages a fair amount (usually to "suggest" that this or that editor is close to a 3RR violation), and had the same interest-group and language userblocks.
I'm sorry, but when all it takes is getting two of your buddies together to tag-team someone you disagree with, 3RR doesn't work. It's just another tool for the pov warriors to use to hold on to an article.
Plus, it was hard to decide which version to lock it to. And it was even more annoying that after I locked it down to the supposed "wrong" version, their friend who unblocked them comes along and uses his admin rights to set it to their "preferred" version. But I knew full well that if I were to take this to dispute resolution, or even leave a message on the user they'd provoked to 3RR suggesting it, they and their friend the admin would start their own RFC/RFAr case about how I was in a "conflict of interest" because I was the one who'd blocked them, and their admin friend would accuse me of wheel warring if I put it back or reblocked. And no matter the facts, it's the one who makes the first accusation that sticks 90% of the time.
- I've never been involved in an arbcom case. I've read plenty. Half of them, I'm sad to say, read like a drumhead trial more than an attempt to look seriously at a case. No, I'm not counting the egregious examples, the definite trolls and abusers. I'm counting only the ones where I think wrong was done on both sides, and yet only one side got the book thrown at them, with the other side who were just as wrong being excused because they were "opposing a troll."
On 10/6/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
I expected this sort of response from David Gerard. It saddens me to see
it,
but I knew it would come. This sort of attitude and obsessiveness is precisely why I am leaving.
In your first email you stated you were an admin. Could you please tell of conflicts you dealt with? Leave names out if you like.
(By the way, it's pretty much inconceivable I or anyone is going to somehow permanently ban an admin for speaking out on wikien-l; you should correct that one next time around. But let's play along for now.)
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6 Oct 2006, at 15:56, Parker Peters wrote:
Yes, it does bother me that I did this, and yes, this is partially why I'm leaving, or at least taking a decently long wikibreak.
"I'm leaving" is now turning into "taking a wikibreak". Here's the truth: There's no escape from Wikipedia!
Well, I did state that at some point, I might want to come back! If so, my "leaving" turns into a wikibreak.
We'll see how things go.
On 10/6/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 15:56, Parker Peters wrote:
Yes, it does bother me that I did this, and yes, this is partially why I'm leaving, or at least taking a decently long wikibreak.
"I'm leaving" is now turning into "taking a wikibreak". Here's the truth: There's no escape from Wikipedia!
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Parker Peters wrote:
Well, I did state that at some point, I might want to come back! If so, my "leaving" turns into a wikibreak.
Here's an idea: if you give us your username and you're not instantly blocked by some ROUGE ADMIN, it's a wikibreak...
Parker Peters wrote:
I've welcomed new users. I really wish our welcome message included item links to the dispute resolution areas (broken as they are) these days. I think it would help new users who get into a conflict when being bold, since bold behavior often leads to conflicts with others. For that matter, why isn't a welcome message automatically generated on the creation of any new account's talk page, so they'd instantly see a "You have new messages" bar and be able to see the welcome message? Why not do that instead of waiting for an admin to come along and do it?
I don't know that an automated message will help. The templated welcome messages that I have seen strike me as very cold and impersonal. A pleasant welcome without references to a lot of rules would be more friendly. When one person shows a willingness to answer question and be a mentor it gives the newbie someone to turn to.
I've screwed up and blocked someone in a conflict of interest. Twice. I apologized later, but the damage was done. In one case I didn't apologize until the 24 hours was up, because I didn't calm down quick enough and nobody - thanks to the "contact the blocking admin first" stupidity we have these days - was willing to unblock once I logged out. I got two "I want to talk to you about this case" messages, but since I didn't respond, nobody unblocked. In the second case, I unblocked after 10 hours, but only after another admin contacted me on IRC. Their statement was that they wouldn't unblock as it would be "incivil" to me to do so, but they thought I should reconsider.
Sounds like somebody needed a reality check. There is nothing uncivil about a single reversal with relevant comments. It merely deals with the fact that none of us can be online 24/7
Yes, it does bother me that I did this, and yes, this is partially why I'm leaving, or at least taking a decently long wikibreak. Because I'd seen this behavior in others, but catching myself doing it makes me unhappy with myself, and realizing that I did it in part because I'd absorbed the "admins are gods" culture in Wikipedia makes me worry I'd do it again on another bad day.
Congratulations for being able to recognize when you do this yourself. Too many spend a lifetime here incapable of understanding that they are sometimes the one at fault.
- I've seen plenty of edit wars and enforced 3RR. Three times in my memory
someone's unblocked someone that I blocked for 3RR/edit warring when they were tag-teaming someone else. Yes, they technically didn't violate 3RR. Were they trying to provoke the other guy into it? Damn skippy they were. Policy says you block both sides in an edit war, not just the 3RR violator, and I was following that.
I've never supported 3RR, but one needs to remember its purpose, which is to calm an argument, not to solve it. Persistently using it as a punitive weapon tends to lose track of its purpose.
Ec
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 07:31:37 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
This is a larger problem I have with our policies, though. Every policy we have on the matter is designed to make it impossible for an aggrieved user to make any protest against abuse.
No, none of the *policies* we have prevent this, I think. It is very hard to be truly objective when reviewing unblock requests, though, and we definitely need more people like JoshuaZ and Phaedirel who are able to see the good in everybody.
But let's be honest, the SPUIs of this world are tolerated despite the disruption they cause. Sock-farming POV pushers should be shown the door speedily and in no uncertain terms.
Guy (JzG)
Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on.
Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be blocked for being a sockpuppet?
It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?
On 10/6/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 07:31:37 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
This is a larger problem I have with our policies, though. Every policy
we
have on the matter is designed to make it impossible for an aggrieved
user
to make any protest against abuse.
No, none of the *policies* we have prevent this, I think. It is very hard to be truly objective when reviewing unblock requests, though, and we definitely need more people like JoshuaZ and Phaedirel who are able to see the good in everybody.
But let's be honest, the SPUIs of this world are tolerated despite the disruption they cause. Sock-farming POV pushers should be shown the door speedily and in no uncertain terms.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on. Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be blocked for being a sockpuppet? It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?
Generally not, I'd say. Speaking as the admin you say you are, what would you say should be done concerning such?
- d.
This is my final reply to you, David. I've no need for your continued attempts to provoke me.
But since you asked, and since I started this question, I'll provide some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&pag... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:Sc... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ScienoSitter&action=...
In this instance, I think the offending admin should receive a censure and a warning regarding his actions, from arbcom. Only the only person who has standing to bring such a case is blocked indefinitely.
Why? #1 - The admin in question, Naconkantari, was the one who instituted a block on NoLongerScieno with a reason of "user.." #2 - The admin in question, Naconkantari, then blocked ScienoSitter for being a "vandalism-only account" and "suspected sockpuppet of NoLongerScieno."
Whether ScienoSitter's edits are vandalism? I don't necessarily think so, and I think this is failure to AGF on the part of the admin. Whether NoLongerScieno is a valid username block? If "Scieno" is a derogatory term for Scientologists, perhaps. It'd take more research before I could declare myself certain. I'm also not sure what ScienoSitter means, but it contains the same term and could have been validly blocked as another username violation without the need to falsely accuse a user of vandalism.
However, Naconkantari also committed the following offenses that warrant definite censure and show an extreme lack of judgement: #1 - He failed to leave even a message - much less the proper tags - on NoLongerScieno's page to let them know the proper course of action in the case of a username block. #2 - He, himself, the blocking admin, at least twice removed the user's unblock request from the page. This is a clear violation: every user should have the right to an impartial review of their block. #3 - He, himself, took action and reverted each of these users. While not an offense in itself, claiming a content dispute to be "vandalism" is troubling behavior for any admin, as it shows they do not understand policy.
Under our policies, I also tried to contact Naconkantari privately in IRC. He refused to discuss it and promised to put any unblocks or unprotection of the page back into effect. Not wanting to wheel war, I left it alone.
I would also think, in this instance, that Mr. Lefty and OmicronPersei8 are out of line and deserve some similar official censure. Again, the only person with standing to do so is blocked indefinitely.
OmicronPersei8 repeatedly removed the unblock request from the page, even though he is not even an admin. I would term this vandalism for interference with official templates.
Mr. Lefty locked the talk page of ScienoSitter for, of all things, "{{unblock}} abuse." Since there was only one unblock request present at any time, and it was being tag-team removed by the blocking admin and a user who ScienoSitter had been in content dispute with, this is an amazingly problematic behavior to deny a user their proper independent review. As I understand it, unless we've expanded the definition of "unblock template abuse" so far that it includes the mere posting of the template, that lock reason is completely bogus.
But that's my view of the situation as I came across it, based on reading the pages involved and the contribution histories of Naconkantari, ScienoSitter, NoLongerScieno, and OmicronPersei8.
Parker
On 10/6/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on. Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be blocked for being a sockpuppet? It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?
Generally not, I'd say. Speaking as the admin you say you are, what would you say should be done concerning such?
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Well, I've been watching this for a while, so I guess it's time for my side of the story.
(apologies as this was copied from a chat transcript) He was originally blocked as an IP editor for making personal attacks in edit summaries http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Front_organization&diff=prev&a... Then created an account to bypass 3RR http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Front_organization&diff=775878... was blocked and came on IRC contesting the block said that he didn't know who the IP editor was I did a /whois and it was the same IP as the IP editing the article [15:53] * Joins: NoLongerScieno (n=Mike@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available> next weekend, he tried the same thing as [[User:XVidMan]] [19:47] * Parts: XVidman (n=Xvid@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available (both are same)> [18:16] * Joins: ScienoSitter (n=James@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available (different)>
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enviroknot, this indef-blocked editor edits through houston roadrunner IP addresses. This is what led me to block all of the accounts as obvious sockpuppets of [[User:Enviroknot]]. Granted, I may have been in error with the block messages, but I fully stand by the blocks.
Also, Parker Peters, if you are IRC user pakaran, we did have a discussion about this. If not, my apologies.
naconkantari
On 10/6/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
This is my final reply to you, David. I've no need for your continued attempts to provoke me.
But since you asked, and since I started this question, I'll provide some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&pag...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:Sc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ScienoSitter&action=...
In this instance, I think the offending admin should receive a censure and a warning regarding his actions, from arbcom. Only the only person who has standing to bring such a case is blocked indefinitely.
Why? #1 - The admin in question, Naconkantari, was the one who instituted a block on NoLongerScieno with a reason of "user.." #2 - The admin in question, Naconkantari, then blocked ScienoSitter for being a "vandalism-only account" and "suspected sockpuppet of NoLongerScieno."
Whether ScienoSitter's edits are vandalism? I don't necessarily think so, and I think this is failure to AGF on the part of the admin. Whether NoLongerScieno is a valid username block? If "Scieno" is a derogatory term for Scientologists, perhaps. It'd take more research before I could declare myself certain. I'm also not sure what ScienoSitter means, but it contains the same term and could have been validly blocked as another username violation without the need to falsely accuse a user of vandalism.
However, Naconkantari also committed the following offenses that warrant definite censure and show an extreme lack of judgement: #1 - He failed to leave even a message - much less the proper tags - on NoLongerScieno's page to let them know the proper course of action in the case of a username block. #2 - He, himself, the blocking admin, at least twice removed the user's unblock request from the page. This is a clear violation: every user should have the right to an impartial review of their block. #3 - He, himself, took action and reverted each of these users. While not an offense in itself, claiming a content dispute to be "vandalism" is troubling behavior for any admin, as it shows they do not understand policy.
Under our policies, I also tried to contact Naconkantari privately in IRC. He refused to discuss it and promised to put any unblocks or unprotection of the page back into effect. Not wanting to wheel war, I left it alone.
I would also think, in this instance, that Mr. Lefty and OmicronPersei8 are out of line and deserve some similar official censure. Again, the only person with standing to do so is blocked indefinitely.
OmicronPersei8 repeatedly removed the unblock request from the page, even though he is not even an admin. I would term this vandalism for interference with official templates.
Mr. Lefty locked the talk page of ScienoSitter for, of all things, "{{unblock}} abuse." Since there was only one unblock request present at any time, and it was being tag-team removed by the blocking admin and a user who ScienoSitter had been in content dispute with, this is an amazingly problematic behavior to deny a user their proper independent review. As I understand it, unless we've expanded the definition of "unblock template abuse" so far that it includes the mere posting of the template, that lock reason is completely bogus.
But that's my view of the situation as I came across it, based on reading the pages involved and the contribution histories of Naconkantari, ScienoSitter, NoLongerScieno, and OmicronPersei8.
Parker
On 10/6/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on. Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be blocked for being a sockpuppet? It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?
Generally not, I'd say. Speaking as the admin you say you are, what would you say should be done concerning such?
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Responses inline:
On 10/6/06, Nacon Kantari naconk@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I've been watching this for a while, so I guess it's time for my side of the story.
(apologies as this was copied from a chat transcript) He was originally blocked as an IP editor for making personal attacks in edit summaries
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Front_organization&diff=prev&a... Then created an account to bypass 3RR
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Front_organization&diff=775878... was blocked and came on IRC contesting the block said that he didn't know who the IP editor was I did a /whois and it was the same IP as the IP editing the article [15:53] * Joins: NoLongerScieno (n=Mike@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available> next weekend, he tried the same thing as [[User:XVidMan]] [19:47] * Parts: XVidman (n=Xvid@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available (both are same)> [18:16] * Joins: ScienoSitter (n=James@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available (different)>
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enviroknot, this indef-blocked editor edits through houston roadrunner IP addresses. This is what led me to block all of the accounts as obvious sockpuppets of [[User:Enviroknot]]. Granted, I may have been in error with the block messages, but I fully stand by the blocks.
In the first place: none of the accounts did you block as a "sockpuppet of [[User:Enviroknot]]." Rather, as I check, you've blocked NoLongerScieno indefinitely for "name..", Inshaneee blocked Xvidme first as a "sockpuppet of Blainetologist" and then you reblocked as a "sockpuppet of NoLongerScieno", and you've blocked ScienoSitter with a reason of "(vandalism-only accou{nt)" with a tag on the userpage claiming it's a sockpuppet of NoLongerScieno.
From looking at the user talk page, I see at least two incidents where you,
the blocking admin, removed an unblock request template from the user's page. I don't care what your excuses are, I don't care what your explanation is: THAT was out of line, as was OmicronPersei8's removal of the unblock template.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ScienoSitter&action=...
Now, if you're going to bring up the name "Enviroknot", as David Gerard did earlier, I've been doing a little research back into the history. Since I don't have access to the "secret evidence" side of CheckUser, I've only been able to go by the contributions list, and I've yet to find a diff from the Enviroknot account that breaks our rules, save for removing templates from the userpage.
For that matter, I think the hoarding of "evidence" like this is bad. Houston's a huge city. Roadrunner, like it or not, appears to be their bigggest ISP, or at least one of the top 2 (SBC/Yahoo appear to be the other; Roadrunner's cable modem, SBC is DSL, so they probably have plenty of markets where only one or the other is available). It'd be like if we were to take Cox Cable or AOL and declare "X vandal always has an IP from Cox, therefore all new users from Cox are sockpuppets."
But that's the sort of problem we get, and it directly conflicts with AGF and Be Bold too.
Now that you're on the defensive, you're completely willing to try to attach the name "Enviroknot" to this based on IP address, even though from every supposed "Enviroknot sock" I've been able to hunt down, there isn't an edit on Scientology or even a reference to it to be found?
This may be incivil of me, but I think your belated accusation and attempt to link that case to yours are very Bad Faith.
I also have a problem with your being the blocking admin in the first place, since you were clearly by the page history spending your time edit warring with these accounts.
As an ancillary topic, I see that the page for [[User:Enviroknot]] has had the ban almost indefinitely extended (all the way through May now), but there's a severe lack of diffs or any reason for the extensions, either on the user page or on the affected arbcom page. The last one to have anything close to proper notation is one from Demi, which states that [[User:ForgetNever]] (who was editing on the arabs and anti-semitism page) is a sockpuppet of KaintheScion as established by CheckUser... except that as I understand how CU works, it shouldn't give any result of the sort for the difference in time between when the accounts were killed and created respectively.
The previous "extension", placed by Anonymous Editor (who I'll note seems to have been involved in edit warring in the past, on the same contentious topics) merely bumps it in March with no linking and no reporting whatsoever.
The last properly recorded "extension" according to the arbcom discussion page is to August 1, 2006. The last one up until Demi's which shows any notation whatsoever is by DMcdevit, who put a link to his discussion diff with Jayjg into the comment, but didn't bother to report it anywhere else.
Mirv's "addition" of "information" in question shows no evidence linking a supposed sockpuppet, has no information notated to the arbcom filing as to who the supposed sockpuppet was, and is damning in that we're again hoarding up evidence to attack any new editor.
I can't tell if they're a sock, but unless there is some other secret function of CheckUser going on we're not being told about, then the only "match" is to a huge ISP in a huge city, editing on a similar topic, and that dubious "match" is being used to push continual extensions to a block in a case that I can't say for sure was even a sockpuppet to start with.
That's very poor form, people.
Also, Parker Peters, if you are IRC user pakaran, we did have a discussion
about this. If not, my apologies.
No, I'm not. But I did watch your discussion with the person as they came in. Civility is important. Even when you think someone is acting in bad faith, even if you think you are right, you need to be civil.
Your conduct was as far from civil as possible.
Parker
This is the end of my involvement with Wikipedia.
I just wanted to give one final email to let you all know. If you want to email me privately, that's fine, but I won't be bothering with the en-l mailing list anymore, which was my last tie to a once-great project.
I do not take this action lightly. Hanging up my admin hat was one of the harder things I've ever done, because I used to believe in wikipedia.
However, three things on this list the past couple weeks have convinced me that Wikipedia is no longer worth it.
The first is Jimbo's rampant bad faith. He sent me a couple emails, and requested diffs for items I had question on. Since sending him the diffs, however, he has done precisely jack shit, and has not bothered to respond to my emails to him requesting a simple update on the matters at hand.
The second is the fact that, in every debate I have seen, the egomaniacs and power-mad jerks are in control, and every reasonable suggestion or suggestion that they start being reasonable is instead shouted down by a chorus of "I'm right and you're not" or dismissive arrogance. I'm not going to mention a specific name, you know damn well who you are.
The third is this below. I brought up a specific instance, because I was concerned about it.
What was the response from the clearly abusive administrator in question?
Step 1 - he indef-blocked and then in his emails since, claims that his reasons are different than the reason he indef-blocked. Step 2 - he had the talk page of a user locked for "abusing the unblock template" when in fact, all the user had done is revert abusive removal of said template. Step 3 - Sensing that his argument was weak, he all of a sudden came up with the idea of finding a troll who was from the same city, in this case "Enviroknot." And lo and behold, as soon as he said "Enviroknot", people stopped bothering with the thread and stopped bothering to pay any attention to his rampant abuses including ignoring AGF, BITE, and just being a general dickwad to non-admin users.
Now I've always thought the "Enviroknot" case was weak, ever since the first time I read it. But to actually say that out loud in Shittopedia these days is heresy, apparently. So I kept my mouth shut.
I don't care anymore. This is the kind of abusive crap that goes on every day that I was talking about, but none of you did shit; instead, you backed up your buddies in adminship. That's the kind of arrogant crap that has made this project no longer worth my time.
Jimbo, by your silence, you've proven that you don't really give a shit about making a good encyclopedia anymore.
Parker Peters, signing off.
On 10/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Responses inline:
On 10/6/06, Nacon Kantari naconk@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I've been watching this for a while, so I guess it's time for my side of the story.
(apologies as this was copied from a chat transcript) He was originally blocked as an IP editor for making personal attacks in
edit summaries
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Front_organization&diff=prev&a... Then created an account to bypass 3RR http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Front_organization&diff=775878...
was blocked and came on IRC contesting the block said that he didn't know who the IP editor was I did a /whois and it was the same IP as the IP editing the article [15:53] * Joins: NoLongerScieno (n=Mike@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available> next weekend, he tried the same thing as [[User:XVidMan]] [19:47] * Parts: XVidman (n=Xvid@cpe-70-114-*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available (both are same)> [18:16] * Joins: ScienoSitter (n=James@cpe-70-114 -*-*.houston.res.rr.com) <IP removed by me for email, actual available (different)>
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enviroknot, this indef-blocked editor edits through houston roadrunner IP addresses. This is what led me to block all of the accounts as obvious sockpuppets of [[User:Enviroknot]]. Granted, I may have been in error with the block messages, but I fully stand by the blocks.
In the first place: none of the accounts did you block as a "sockpuppet of [[User:Enviroknot]]." Rather, as I check, you've blocked NoLongerScieno indefinitely for "name..", Inshaneee blocked Xvidme first as a "sockpuppet of Blainetologist" and then you reblocked as a "sockpuppet of NoLongerScieno", and you've blocked ScienoSitter with a reason of " (vandalism-only accou{nt)" with a tag on the userpage claiming it's a sockpuppet of NoLongerScieno.
From looking at the user talk page, I see at least two incidents where you, the blocking admin, removed an unblock request template from the user's page. I don't care what your excuses are, I don't care what your explanation is: THAT was out of line, as was OmicronPersei8's removal of the unblock template.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ScienoSitter&action=...
Now, if you're going to bring up the name "Enviroknot", as David Gerard did earlier, I've been doing a little research back into the history. Since I don't have access to the "secret evidence" side of CheckUser, I've only been able to go by the contributions list, and I've yet to find a diff from the Enviroknot account that breaks our rules, save for removing templates from the userpage.
For that matter, I think the hoarding of "evidence" like this is bad. Houston's a huge city. Roadrunner, like it or not, appears to be their bigggest ISP, or at least one of the top 2 (SBC/Yahoo appear to be the other; Roadrunner's cable modem, SBC is DSL, so they probably have plenty of markets where only one or the other is available). It'd be like if we were to take Cox Cable or AOL and declare "X vandal always has an IP from Cox, therefore all new users from Cox are sockpuppets."
But that's the sort of problem we get, and it directly conflicts with AGF and Be Bold too.
Now that you're on the defensive, you're completely willing to try to attach the name "Enviroknot" to this based on IP address, even though from every supposed "Enviroknot sock" I've been able to hunt down, there isn't an edit on Scientology or even a reference to it to be found?
This may be incivil of me, but I think your belated accusation and attempt to link that case to yours are very Bad Faith.
I also have a problem with your being the blocking admin in the first place, since you were clearly by the page history spending your time edit warring with these accounts.
As an ancillary topic, I see that the page for [[User:Enviroknot]] has had the ban almost indefinitely extended (all the way through May now), but there's a severe lack of diffs or any reason for the extensions, either on the user page or on the affected arbcom page. The last one to have anything close to proper notation is one from Demi, which states that [[User:ForgetNever]] (who was editing on the arabs and anti-semitism page) is a sockpuppet of KaintheScion as established by CheckUser... except that as I understand how CU works, it shouldn't give any result of the sort for the difference in time between when the accounts were killed and created respectively.
The previous "extension", placed by Anonymous Editor (who I'll note seems to have been involved in edit warring in the past, on the same contentious topics) merely bumps it in March with no linking and no reporting whatsoever.
The last properly recorded "extension" according to the arbcom discussion page is to August 1, 2006. The last one up until Demi's which shows any notation whatsoever is by DMcdevit, who put a link to his discussion diff with Jayjg into the comment, but didn't bother to report it anywhere else.
Mirv's "addition" of "information" in question shows no evidence linking a supposed sockpuppet, has no information notated to the arbcom filing as to who the supposed sockpuppet was, and is damning in that we're again hoarding up evidence to attack any new editor.
I can't tell if they're a sock, but unless there is some other secret function of CheckUser going on we're not being told about, then the only "match" is to a huge ISP in a huge city, editing on a similar topic, and that dubious "match" is being used to push continual extensions to a block in a case that I can't say for sure was even a sockpuppet to start with.
That's very poor form, people.
Also, Parker Peters, if you are IRC user pakaran, we did have a discussion
about this. If not, my apologies.
No, I'm not. But I did watch your discussion with the person as they came in. Civility is important. Even when you think someone is acting in bad faith, even if you think you are right, you need to be civil.
Your conduct was as far from civil as possible.
Parker
On 10/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Your conduct was as far from civil as possible.
On 24/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
... jack shit ... dickwad ... Shittopedia ... shit ... crap ... shit ...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Parker Peters stated for the record:
This is the end of my involvement with Wikipedia.
It's like déjà vu all over again!
- -- Sean Barrett | The other side to the Wikipedia that nobody really sean@epoptic.com | likes to talk about... is that a large portion of | the content is fairly pornographic, and actually | quite lewd. --Encyclopedia Britannica spokesman
Parker Peters wrote:
The first is Jimbo's rampant bad faith. He sent me a couple emails, and requested diffs for items I had question on. Since sending him the diffs, however, he has done precisely jack shit, and has not bothered to respond to my emails to him requesting a simple update on the matters at hand.
Hey, Parker, I apologize to you that it takes me a while to do such things. Rather than assuming bad faith on my part, I recommend assuming good faith. Remember, I respond to dozens of different kinds of things from many different projects every day. I wrote to you to ask for diffs because I am interested in the problem you raised, and I will look into it. It's a shame that you have chosen to be hostile about it, but I am very sorry that I can't do more. :(
Jimbo, by your silence, you've proven that you don't really give a shit about making a good encyclopedia anymore.
Right. Well, I am sorry you feel that way.
--Jimbo
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 17:01:20 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on. Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be blocked for being a sockpuppet? It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?
And in trying to render it as an unambiguous yes/no answer you have the nub of the problem: it depends entirely on who the puppeteer is, the quality of the evidence, the edits which were made under the suspected sock account.
Guy (JzG)
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:17:54 +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on. Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be blocked for being a sockpuppet? It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?
And in trying to render it as an unambiguous yes/no answer you have the nub of the problem: it depends entirely on who the puppeteer is, the quality of the evidence, the edits which were made under the suspected sock account.
Oh, plus, blocking is preventative. Is there a potential problem to be averted? Will blocking and then discussing on the user talk page be a better result for the project than letting them edit?
Guy (JzG)
On 10/6/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:17:54 +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on. Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be blocked for being a sockpuppet? It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?
And in trying to render it as an unambiguous yes/no answer you have the nub of the problem: it depends entirely on who the puppeteer is, the quality of the evidence, the edits which were made under the suspected sock account.
Oh, plus, blocking is preventative. Is there a potential problem to be averted? Will blocking and then discussing on the user talk page be a better result for the project than letting them edit?
In the case I quoted, there was no "blocking and then discussing on the user talk page", there was instead "blocking and chain reverting the unblock template and then getting someone to block them for supposed template abuse."
Parker
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 17:37:51 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Oh, plus, blocking is preventative. Is there a potential problem to be averted? Will blocking and then discussing on the user talk page be a better result for the project than letting them edit?
In the case I quoted, there was no "blocking and then discussing on the user talk page", there was instead "blocking and chain reverting the unblock template and then getting someone to block them for supposed template abuse."
Name names. If it was a Zephram Stark sock, for example, then that is absolutely as it should be.
Guy (JzG)
On 07/10/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 17:37:51 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
In the case I quoted, there was no "blocking and then discussing on the user talk page", there was instead "blocking and chain reverting the unblock template and then getting someone to block them for supposed template abuse."
Name names. If it was a Zephram Stark sock, for example, then that is absolutely as it should be.
Indeed. It's often most efficient to mass-revert the sock's edits then go back and make the good ones again under one's own name. In practice, this saves other admins tracking the sockpuppeteer having to check each edit. It also nullifies gaming by trolls who say "no, no, my sock made three good edits!" "That's nice, dear. Go away."
- d.
Except that the admin involved never went back and re-did the good edits.
On 10/7/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/10/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 17:37:51 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
In the case I quoted, there was no "blocking and then discussing on the
user
talk page", there was instead "blocking and chain reverting the unblock template and then getting someone to block them for supposed template abuse."
Name names. If it was a Zephram Stark sock, for example, then that is absolutely as it should be.
Indeed. It's often most efficient to mass-revert the sock's edits then go back and make the good ones again under one's own name. In practice, this saves other admins tracking the sockpuppeteer having to check each edit. It also nullifies gaming by trolls who say "no, no, my sock made three good edits!" "That's nice, dear. Go away."
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 18:51:16 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Except that the admin involved never went back and re-did the good edits.
Too bad. Asking people to go back and check every single edit is just multiplying the disruption caused by the idiots. If editors on the individual articles want to review and reinstate the rolled back edits then that is up to them.
Guy (JzG)
The "original" account was claimed to be NoLongerScieno (blocked for "name..") and the second account was ScienoSitter.
Possible sockpuppet? Certainly.
Worthy of blocking under name block? Maybe.
Wrongful to tag as a "vandalism only" account and wrongful to block for being a sockpuppet of a username block? Definitely.
On 10/7/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 17:37:51 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Oh, plus, blocking is preventative. Is there a potential problem to be averted? Will blocking and then discussing on the user talk page be a better result for the project than letting them edit?
In the case I quoted, there was no "blocking and then discussing on the
user
talk page", there was instead "blocking and chain reverting the unblock template and then getting someone to block them for supposed template abuse."
Name names. If it was a Zephram Stark sock, for example, then that is absolutely as it should be.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 18:50:40 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
The "original" account was claimed to be NoLongerScieno (blocked for "name..") and the second account was ScienoSitter. Possible sockpuppet? Certainly. Worthy of blocking under name block? Maybe. Wrongful to tag as a "vandalism only" account and wrongful to block for being a sockpuppet of a username block? Definitely.
I reviewed the edits of both accounts, 100% vandalism (POV-pushing). Righteous block. Next case, please.
Guy (JzG)
On 8 Oct 2006, at 13:44, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 18:50:40 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
The "original" account was claimed to be NoLongerScieno (blocked for "name..") and the second account was ScienoSitter. Possible sockpuppet? Certainly. Worthy of blocking under name block? Maybe. Wrongful to tag as a "vandalism only" account and wrongful to block for being a sockpuppet of a username block? Definitely.
I reviewed the edits of both accounts, 100% vandalism (POV-pushing). Righteous block. Next case, please.
The right to complain never meant the right to get your way. The trick is to stop complaining when you're wrong, rather than to move around annoying ever more people.
At least some of this discussion has been interesting, but I still think the system is less broken than some people make out.
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 15:06:40 +0100, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
At least some of this discussion has been interesting, but I still think the system is less broken than some people make out.
I agree. Also, it is easier to fix from within than by taking pot-shots from the sidelines. Mind, I'm rather disquieted by what has happened to Tony Sidaway of late, and I'm not sure how I feel about the way the project can apparently no longer accommodate SPUI, although I suspect that may be just a fit of pique at losing a long-running and very heated argument.
Guy (JzG)
On 8 Oct 2006, at 19:27, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 15:06:40 +0100, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
At least some of this discussion has been interesting, but I still think the system is less broken than some people make out.
I agree. Also, it is easier to fix from within than by taking pot-shots from the sidelines. Mind, I'm rather disquieted by what has happened to Tony Sidaway of late, and I'm not sure how I feel about the way the project can apparently no longer accommodate SPUI, although I suspect that may be just a fit of pique at losing a long-running and very heated argument.
I suppose it shows peer pressure works.
Unfortunately, it's also another step towards blandness. If this project becomes boring, interesting people won't contribute.
There is a general distrust of dynamism, and this is a cultural flaw here which I am happy to do my bit to neutralise.
On 10/8/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
Unfortunately, it's also another step towards blandness.
Don't worry there are still plently of ah interesting editors around some of them admins.
On 10/8/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
There is a general distrust of dynamism, and this is a cultural flaw here which I am happy to do my bit to neutralise.
I'm glad.
Related it a trend towards ... the validation and amplification of hurt feelings (perhaps there's a better way to word that?). Inevitably feelings will get hurt sometimes; like all online forums, it's easy to misunderstand, easy to speak rash words, easy to be thoughtless. I think that part of 'assume good faith' - the part that gets forgotten - is about forgiving others for things, about believing that others (especially long term contributors) mean well even if they occasionally have boneheaded moments, about that almost-forgotten "wikilove" concept, not seen much of late.
Part of it is because, as the project grows, it gets easier for one's voice to be ignored and easier for one to never even notice that something is being done until it's done. Some people feel personally slighted when not consulted. It's not deliberate, people. And frankly, since the project's so huge, we are going to have to make decisions without consulting all 1000 admins and all the active contributors. (Almost) no decision on Wikipedia is forever binding, so we don't need to sink into organisational paralysis out of fear that people won't be getting their say.
-Matt
On 10/8/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I agree. Also, it is easier to fix from within than by taking pot-shots from the sidelines. Mind, I'm rather disquieted by what has happened to Tony Sidaway of late, and I'm not sure how I feel about the way the project can apparently no longer accommodate SPUI, although I suspect that may be just a fit of pique at losing a long-running and very heated argument.
I hope SPUI will be back; he doesn't play well with others, but he is a fountain of knowledge about what he's interested in. I also don't particularly like the way I've seen people justify dismissing him as a 'troll' and thus unworthy of respect.
Tony - well, I'll be circumspect about that case, but - Tony is not good at defusing tense situations, and he's demonstrated that repeatedly.
-Matt
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 11:56:03 -0700, "Matt Brown" morven@gmail.com wrote:
I hope SPUI will be back; he doesn't play well with others, but he is a fountain of knowledge about what he's interested in. I also don't particularly like the way I've seen people justify dismissing him as a 'troll' and thus unworthy of respect.
The major problem with SPUI is that he is utterly convinced that he is right. This is fine as long as he is, it is unambiguous, and he can prove it. As you say, he does not play well with others.
Tony - well, I'll be circumspect about that case, but - Tony is not good at defusing tense situations, and he's demonstrated that repeatedly.
I'm not very good at defusing tense situations either. But I tend not to try. Tony is, on the other hand, possessed of pretty good instincts in respect of content and has a long history of spotting and correcting obvious errors in the deletion process.
Guy (JzG)
On 10/8/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 11:56:03 -0700, "Matt Brown" morven@gmail.com wrote: I'm not very good at defusing tense situations either. But I tend not to try. Tony is, on the other hand, possessed of pretty good instincts in respect of content and has a long history of spotting and correcting obvious errors in the deletion process.
I think I saw Tony comment that only a few things he'd done for many months had both truly required the admin bit and not been controversial, and that he thought he could still do nearly as much good, with much less controversy, without it. I am hopeful that he follows through and does stay actively involved.
I think we're clearly seeing a bunch of smoke settling from pushback on "problem admins" getting very serious.
The results are a mixed bag - I would not have suggested Tony give up his admin bit, I would not have recommended Kelly Martin leave, especially given that she wasn't the source of the problem she got caught up in. I am quite glad that Fred came up with "No action taken for excessive zeal" for the Arb case Mongo was caught in, and that everyone including him accepted that after a bit more heat.
I certainly don't like some of the trolls taking this as some sort of victory. But complaints have been building for some time.
Ultimately, "customer service" skills are probably becoming increasingly important for WP admins. Part of that will be an increasing need to step back from an incident and have someone else handle it more often, rather than stay involved when it may be increasing tension rather than reducing it.
On 10/8/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
The major problem with SPUI is that he is utterly convinced that he is right. This is fine as long as he is, it is unambiguous, and he can prove it. As you say, he does not play well with others.
I suspect also if you could prove he was wrong, he'd be OK about it - but that when it's a matter that is subjective, you cannot prove him wrong. I don't think his position on road naming was per se wrong - both sides' positions were largely reasonable and sensible, but not compatible. It's simply that he saw absolutely no reason why he should not get his way or accept a way he didn't see as ideal even if it had more support.
I'm not very good at defusing tense situations either. But I tend not to try. Tony is, on the other hand, possessed of pretty good instincts in respect of content and has a long history of spotting and correcting obvious errors in the deletion process.
Tony has good instincts when it comes to being on the right side of an issue. He's bad, however, at convincing others of it without pissing them off.
-Matt
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 13:56:35 -0700, "Matt Brown" morven@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not very good at defusing tense situations either. But I tend not to try. Tony is, on the other hand, possessed of pretty good instincts in respect of content and has a long history of spotting and correcting obvious errors in the deletion process.
Tony has good instincts when it comes to being on the right side of an issue. He's bad, however, at convincing others of it without pissing them off.
Most of the time I think they needed to be pissed off. The people Tony aggravated are, in many cases, process wonks, adhering to process in the face of a self-evidently bad result for the project. What Tony did was in effect to point out the absurdity of their position; yes he did it in a confrontational way (I think he likes a bit of drama, myself) but I almost invariably found his reasoning entirely persuasive.
Guy (JzG)
And I disagree with your assessment. Non-righteous block, fraudulent claim of "vandalism only" account, edits had sources including sources brought from other articles on wikipedia that have not been challenged.
Parker
On 10/8/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 18:50:40 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
The "original" account was claimed to be NoLongerScieno (blocked for "name..") and the second account was ScienoSitter. Possible sockpuppet? Certainly. Worthy of blocking under name block? Maybe. Wrongful to tag as a "vandalism only" account and wrongful to block for being a sockpuppet of a username block? Definitely.
I reviewed the edits of both accounts, 100% vandalism (POV-pushing). Righteous block. Next case, please.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Just to be clear, here's a few diffs I don't consider vandalism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Little_Green_Footballs&diff=pr... - Adds a link to event in question, and more information on term coined by the site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Church_of_Scientology&diff=pre... - Information on the "free personality test" that the Church of Scientology uses. The same sources are used on the [[Oxford Capacity Analysis]] article we have, and the sources have not been challenged. I cannot in good conscience term this "vandalism" or "POV Pushing."
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rehabilitation_Project_Force&d... - Expands the list of accusations which have been leveled at the Scientology Rehabilitation Project Force, but it includes a source. Without challenging the source, I can't consider this vandalism either.
There are other edits I would consider POV pushing, but here's the thing: that is NOT an excuse to institute an indefinite block. That's a reason to teach the user about our policies and try to get them working as a productive editor.
And yes, I know full well we've had problems on Scientology articles in the past. Our controversial articles attract new users all the time, because controversy attracts eyes, and there's no doubt Scientology is highly controversial as well as being stirred up by the South Park controversy.
But as I see this case, it's a classic example of violating BITE. There was no welcome message or anything posted to either user, and the same hair-trigger admin was involved in both cases.
To post such a dismissive analysis? I won't question your good faith or motivation, but I have to question the validity of your claim.
Parker
On 10/8/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
And I disagree with your assessment. Non-righteous block, fraudulent claim of "vandalism only" account, edits had sources including sources brought from other articles on wikipedia that have not been challenged.
Parker
On 10/8/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 18:50:40 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
The "original" account was claimed to be NoLongerScieno (blocked for "name..") and the second account was ScienoSitter. Possible sockpuppet? Certainly. Worthy of blocking under name block? Maybe. Wrongful to tag as a "vandalism only" account and wrongful to block for
being a sockpuppet of a username block? Definitely.
I reviewed the edits of both accounts, 100% vandalism (POV-pushing). Righteous block. Next case, please.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 8 Oct 2006, at 17:35, Parker Peters wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Church_of_Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=79117149
- Information on the "free personality test" that the Church of
Scientology uses. The same sources are used on the [[Oxford Capacity Analysis]] article we have, and the sources have not been challenged. I cannot in good conscience term this "vandalism" or "POV Pushing."
I took the "free" Scientology test. Taking it was free, and then they marked it. They were very annoyed when I wouldn't pay for the result.
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 11:35:04 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
There are other edits I would consider POV pushing, but here's the thing: that is NOT an excuse to institute an indefinite block. That's a reason to teach the user about our policies and try to get them working as a productive editor.
Except that the username makes it perfectly plain that this is a reincarnation. I leave it to the admins active on that particular article to identify who is the puppet master here, but it is more than plausible that this is a lock-evading sock of an unrepentant POV pusher. I recently had a very calm and civil discussion with an editor who got blocked in similar way, I asked his patience while we ran CheckUser and thanked him for it when I had enough evidence to unblock. The blocking admin was content to admit the mistake. It's nice to assume good faith, but sometimes when yet another "brand new user" pops up it can be asking a bit much. Sure, we make mistakes, but by far the most common mistake is extending too much benefit of the doubt to people who are simply not here to help build a neutral encyclopaedia.
Guy (JzG)
There are other edits I would consider POV pushing, but here's the thing: that is NOT an excuse to institute an indefinite block. That's a reason
to
teach the user about our policies and try to get them working as a productive editor.
Except that the username makes it perfectly plain that this is a reincarnation.
Then it should be blocked as a username block, and appropriate messages sent, no?
That the blocking admin did nothing to inform the user of the fact that it was a username block the first time, makes it problematic, no?
I leave it to the admins active on that particular
article to identify who is the puppet master here, but it is more than plausible that this is a lock-evading sock of an unrepentant POV pusher.
Plausible? Perhaps. But we Assume Good Faith here, not act trigger-happy on anything we can come up with that we call "plausible."
I recently had a very calm and civil discussion with an
editor who got blocked in similar way, I asked his patience while we ran CheckUser and thanked him for it when I had enough evidence to unblock.
Nobody was civil to this user, and nobody asked his patience or anything; they just went gung-ho attacking.
The blocking admin was content to admit the mistake.
A rarity, but good to hear.
It's nice to assume good faith, but sometimes when yet another "brand new
user" pops up it can be asking a bit much.
It's policy.
Sure, we make mistakes,
but by far the most common mistake is extending too much benefit of the doubt to people who are simply not here to help build a neutral encyclopaedia.
I disagree. I think the most common mistake is the refusal to extend good faith and the refusal to be civil in all instances. Parker
On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 14:25:57 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Except that the username makes it perfectly plain that this is a reincarnation.
Then it should be blocked as a username block, and appropriate messages sent, no?
No. A username block is for an inappropriate username. This block was for inappropriate behaviour. And to be honest I don't see a lot of point in arguing about it anyway - it's a difference which makes no difference.
Nobody was civil to this user, and nobody asked his patience or anything; they just went gung-ho attacking.
Except that the edit history shows nothing but tendentious editing, and the username strongly implies that this is a reincarnation of another (presumably banned as tendentious) editor. Blocking stops the problem behaviour, and there was no evident good editing to be lost by blocking. So arguing about it is pointless: it's a righteous block of a POV pushing vandal. And if by some miracle the problem editor repents we can always unblock. Do not forget the stress and inconvenience caused to other editors by POV-pushing vandals, or the angst caused by well-meaning editors trying hard to accommodate the views of POV-pushing vandals trying to insert ridiculously biased content. POV warriors are a plague on the project and we should cheer loudly every time we hound one out.
It's nice to assume good faith, but sometimes when yet another "brand new
user" pops up it can be asking a bit much.
It's policy.
Policy does not require us to be naive in the face of the blindingly obvious.
I disagree. I think the most common mistake is the refusal to extend good faith and the refusal to be civil in all instances.
So you say. I believe otherwise. Feel free to begin a debate on the admins' noticeboard, which is in my view the appropriate venue for philosophical debate about admin actions in the abstract.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
Except that the username makes it perfectly plain that this is a reincarnation. I leave it to the admins active on that particular article to identify who is the puppet master here, but it is more than plausible that this is a lock-evading sock of an unrepentant POV pusher. I recently had a very calm and civil discussion with an editor who got blocked in similar way, I asked his patience while we ran CheckUser and thanked him for it when I had enough evidence to unblock. The blocking admin was content to admit the mistake. It's nice to assume good faith, but sometimes when yet another "brand new user" pops up it can be asking a bit much. Sure, we make mistakes, but by far the most common mistake is extending too much benefit of the doubt to people who are simply not here to help build a neutral encyclopaedia.
A mere suspicion or possibility that someone is a sockpuppet should not be grounds for blocking. Unless this user is causing problems completely in his own right, any blocking can wait until you have checked out the facts.
If the person is completely new how can you possibly know that he is not here to build an encyclopedia? It makes for a far more pleasant environment to err in favour of keeping a borderline case. It's great to get rid of some of these problem users, but the effort to root them out can too easily become an unhealthy obsession.
Ec
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:30:29 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
A mere suspicion or possibility that someone is a sockpuppet should not be grounds for blocking. Unless this user is causing problems completely in his own right, any blocking can wait until you have checked out the facts.
And in this case the puppet account was indeed causing problems in its own right.
I feel it would be more productive to discuss a less clear-cut example, if one can be cited. This is an open and shut case, in my view.
Guy (JzG)
Parker Peters wrote:
Ok, here's a basic question. One we should all be able to agree on.
Should a "suspected sockpuppet" (new username) of a username block be blocked for being a sockpuppet?
It's a simple enough question. Yes or no?
Doesn't this properly depend on more context than the question provides?
My answer is: sometimes, it depends on the full context of the situation.
Example: a totally blatant vandal is blocked under one name, and comes back 5 minutes later under an obvious variant of the same name, and does the same vandalism again, and is blocked again. And again. And again. And finally under the Nth variant name, instead of starting with the vandalism, the user makes a user page stating an objective of correcting the horrible censorship on article X, the very article he has been vandalizing. I think blocking this suspected sockpuppet is fine.
Example: Someone shows up and makes a couple of lame but non-vandalism edits to a page which has been the favorite of a longtime sockpuppeteer. I say, in this sort of case, it can be possible to give the benefit of the doubt to find out if the newcomer is really a sock.
It just depends.
On 6 Oct 2006, at 22:57, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 07:31:37 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
This is a larger problem I have with our policies, though. Every policy we have on the matter is designed to make it impossible for an aggrieved user to make any protest against abuse.
No, none of the *policies* we have prevent this, I think. It is very hard to be truly objective when reviewing unblock requests, though, and we definitely need more people like JoshuaZ and Phaedirel who are able to see the good in everybody.
But let's be honest, the SPUIs of this world are tolerated despite the disruption they cause. Sock-farming POV pushers should be shown the door speedily and in no uncertain terms.
Luckily we have Admins who are steadfast in their dedication to this task :-)
On 06/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up jerks. We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting full of ourselves.
If you are an admin then I am a notorious troll living in Houston.
Honestly, thats just about the biggest admition of guilt you could have done. The guy is trying to bring up serious issues and you make a joke of it. If it is because you are named in the email you should put a bit of thought into dealing with the issue, it wont go away with you acting like that.
Peter Ansell
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
And every one of the admins on wikipedia, myself included, has been guilty of it at one point. Some are more guilty than others. Some are jerks 100% of the time. Some have become so obsessed with their pet sockpuppet, be it Enviroknot, Freestylefrappe, Willy on Wheels, Entmoots, Pigsonthewing, JarlaxleArtemis, Karmafist, Lir, PoolGuy, or whatever else their pet sockpuppet of the week is that they are no longer useful
While you may have some valid points concerning the overzealous use of blocking, I can't agree that "every one of the admins... has been guilty at one point". Some admins prefer to avoid using blocks and getting involved in arbitration for the reasons you state.
Your notion that users are blocked for speaking out is not true, I've not seen it and can't imagine it happening without the blocker being chastised. I, for one, have "spoken out" against over-zealous use of blocking, anonymous editors' rights, etc. and have only, in response, received civilised discussion.