For transparency, the moderated user "countpointercount" has the following message for subscribers to the mailing list:
'Your "moderators" are now claiming that any reporting of abusive administrators is a "personal attack." This is obvious coverup behavior.'
This is in response to my rejection of two emails, both of which I considered to contain personal attacks because they called various administrators 'abusive' etc. What are the thoughts of subscribers to the list on this? What would the appropriate course of action have been?
~Mark Ryan
On 2/20/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
For transparency, the moderated user "countpointercount" has the following message for subscribers to the mailing list:
'Your "moderators" are now claiming that any reporting of abusive administrators is a "personal attack." This is obvious coverup behavior.'
This is in response to my rejection of two emails, both of which I considered to contain personal attacks because they called various administrators 'abusive' etc. What are the thoughts of subscribers to the list on this? What would the appropriate course of action have been?
~Mark Ryan
Speaking for myself (and, I think, a number of other users), I completely trust your and the other mods capability to judge whether or not a post contains personal attacks. Ask him to state his case in a more civil and neutral manner, and if he does so, let it through.
Not using personal attacks is the most basic criteria for being allowed in the conversation, and if he can't do that, he shouldn't be allowed to post.
Keep up the good work.
--Oskar
I'm with Oskar. If they call various administrators abusive they should be able to back that up. Of course, the smarter response is to talk it out with the admin in question so it doesn't come to such accusations.
Mgm
On 2/20/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
For transparency, the moderated user "countpointercount" has the following message for subscribers to the mailing list:
'Your "moderators" are now claiming that any reporting of abusive administrators is a "personal attack." This is obvious coverup behavior.'
This is in response to my rejection of two emails, both of which I considered to contain personal attacks because they called various administrators 'abusive' etc. What are the thoughts of subscribers to the list on this? What would the appropriate course of action have been?
~Mark Ryan
Speaking for myself (and, I think, a number of other users), I completely trust your and the other mods capability to judge whether or not a post contains personal attacks. Ask him to state his case in a more civil and neutral manner, and if he does so, let it through.
Not using personal attacks is the most basic criteria for being allowed in the conversation, and if he can't do that, he shouldn't be allowed to post.
Keep up the good work.
--Oskar
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 20/02/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I'm with Oskar. If they call various administrators abusive they should be able to back that up. Of course, the smarter response is to talk it out with the admin in question so it doesn't come to such accusations.
Mgm
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
~Mark Ryan
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
It's a judgement call. I trust your judgement of the situation. This mailing list isn't the place for complaining about abusive admins, anyway.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
It's a judgement call. I trust your judgement of the situation. This mailing list isn't the place for complaining about abusive admins, anyway.
I know that the list admins have been criticized of late for letting through messages that people have questioned. However, this list is the forum of last resort for people who have been banned from post to Wikipedia.
I'm one of those who see very little harm in letting through a hostile message. No one is forced to read the message.
I'm also curious about the content of these messages. I have been pushed on this list to provide evidence for abusive admins.
If calling an admin "abusive" is itself a personal attack, then am I in danger of being moderated when I provide such evidence? Is it the mere fact that the user in question called certain admins "abusive" the grounds for not posting the message?
-Rich
On 20/02/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
I'm also curious about the content of these messages. I have been pushed on this list to provide evidence for abusive admins. If calling an admin "abusive" is itself a personal attack, then am I in danger of being moderated when I provide such evidence? Is it the mere fact that the user in question called certain admins "abusive" the grounds for not posting the message?
If you're decently substantiating a serious accusation then that's not a serious concern. I mean, really.
- d.
I know that the list admins have been criticized of late for letting through messages that people have questioned. However, this list is the forum of last resort for people who have been banned from post to Wikipedia.
It rarely does any good, though. It would be better if they emailed the admin in question, or ArbCom.
I'm one of those who see very little harm in letting through a hostile message. No one is forced to read the message.
There is no way to know if you want to read a message before you've read it, so you are forcing people to either read the message or not read the list at all. (You could read all the messages that don't mention admin abuse in the subject line, I suppose, but that would still result in you not reading perfectly good messages about admin abuse.)
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I know that the list admins have been criticized of late for letting through messages that people have questioned. However, this list is the forum of last resort for people who have been banned from post to Wikipedia.
It rarely does any good, though. It would be better if they emailed the admin in question, or ArbCom.
A common element in the complaints is that the admin in question does not respond to questions.
I'm one of those who see very little harm in letting through a hostile message. No one is forced to read the message.
There is no way to know if you want to read a message before you've read it, so you are forcing people to either read the message or not read the list at all. (You could read all the messages that don't mention admin abuse in the subject line, I suppose, but that would still result in you not reading perfectly good messages about admin abuse.)
You're just urging this false choice to be dramatic. It doesn't take much effort to look at the beginning of a message and decide that you don't want to read it. At that point it's easy to delete it and anything else in that thread. At least Mark was gracious enough to outline his dilemma. I am more worried by where others could take this in the future than about what will happen with this individual.
Ec
on 2/20/07 7:44 AM, Rich Holton at richholton@gmail.com wrote:
I know that the list admins have been criticized of late for letting through messages that people have questioned. However, this list is the forum of last resort for people who have been banned from post to Wikipedia.
I'm one of those who see very little harm in letting through a hostile message. No one is forced to read the message.
I'm also curious about the content of these messages. I have been pushed on this list to provide evidence for abusive admins.
If calling an admin "abusive" is itself a personal attack, then am I in danger of being moderated when I provide such evidence? Is it the mere fact that the user in question called certain admins "abusive" the grounds for not posting the message?
I also have a problem with someone censoring what I read based on their own personal sensitivity.
Marc Riddell
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I also have a problem with someone censoring what I read based on their own personal sensitivity.
I really don't think that's an accurate description of what actually happens.
- d.
on 2/20/07 8:36 AM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I also have a problem with someone censoring what I read based on their own personal sensitivity.
I really don't think that's an accurate description of what actually happens.
- d.
David,
When someone else decides that what I have written isn't suitable for someone else's eyes - what else do you call it but censorship.
Marc
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 2/20/07 8:36 AM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I also have a problem with someone censoring what I read based on their own personal sensitivity.
I really don't think that's an accurate description of what actually happens.
When someone else decides that what I have written isn't suitable for someone else's eyes - what else do you call it but censorship.
In that case it's an argument in favour of "censorship." This is supposed to be a list with a working purpose and appropriately relevant content for a project with a working purpose and appropriately relevant content, not a random soapbox.
- d.
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:47:14 -0500, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
When someone else decides that what I have written isn't suitable for someone else's eyes - what else do you call it but censorship.
Helping you not to make a fool of yourself? It's one possibility, anyway.,
Guy (JzG)
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 2/20/07 8:55 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG at guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Helping you not to make a fool of yourself? It's one possibility, anyway.,
Guy (JzG)
Come on, Guy; that's about as subjective as it gets. You're going to do me a favor by censoring what I write?
It's pretty much the definition of a moderated list; that some messages, at some point, are not let through. This is, historically, necessary so that reasonable discussion is not drowned out by a cesspool of people frantically wanking over adding photos of shit to articles.
(Literally - early-mid 2005, I think. The least erudite trolling I've seen on the list...)
Call it "censorship" if you want, but I don't see any reason we should just let people write screeds of virulent hatemail to a wide-distribution, specific-purpose discussion list. This does exist for a purpose; that purpose requires we play nice.
In the specific case in question, it doesn't help that "abusive admin" or "admin abuse" is a shibboleth - people who cry that tend, on examination, to almost invariably be talking nonsense. I don't know why, nor do I know why the people most prone to seeing VAST CONSPIRACIES against them seem to all come up with the exact phrase, but it's got a pretty good hitrate.
on 2/20/07 1:05 PM, Andrew Gray at shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's pretty much the definition of a moderated list; that some messages, at some point, are not let through. This is, historically, necessary so that reasonable discussion is not drowned out by a cesspool of people frantically wanking over adding photos of shit to articles.
(Literally - early-mid 2005, I think. The least erudite trolling I've seen on the list...)
Call it "censorship" if you want, but I don't see any reason we should just let people write screeds of virulent hatemail to a wide-distribution, specific-purpose discussion list. This does exist for a purpose; that purpose requires we play nice.
In the specific case in question, it doesn't help that "abusive admin" or "admin abuse" is a shibboleth - people who cry that tend, on examination, to almost invariably be talking nonsense. I don't know why, nor do I know why the people most prone to seeing VAST CONSPIRACIES against them seem to all come up with the exact phrase, but it's got a pretty good hitrate.
--
- Andrew Gray
Andrew,
I agree with you. Even the largest protest rally, community meeting or other gathering where, at times, highly emotional and controversial issues are being discussed needs to be moderated. Otherwise nothing constructive could get done: the gathering becomes a harangue.
What pushed my button was the act of censoring the words spoken at that gathering. Attacking someone personally has no place anywhere much less in a public forum. It is the refuge of cowards, and those who have no substance to their argument. It¹s blowing smoke and smoke irritates the eyes and makes it difficult to breathe. And, like all such irritants, it should be dispelled.
I simply feel the moderators (editors) need to exercise particular caution when deciding what words render a List post unacceptable.
Marc
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I simply feel the moderators (editors) need to exercise particular caution when deciding what words render a List post unacceptable.
We do try to. The content of the list this week should make it clear that we're really not so very fussy ...
- d.
on 2/20/07 9:10 AM, Jimmy Wales at jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
When someone else decides that what I have written isn't suitable for someone else's eyes - what else do you call it but censorship.
Editorial judgment.
It's what we do.
--Jimbo
Fine literary editing requires a great deal of talent, and even the finest writer needs an equally fine editor. But, do all of the persons editing (moderating) this list have that degree of talent?
Marc
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Fine literary editing requires a great deal of talent, and even the finest writer needs an equally fine editor. But, do all of the persons editing (moderating) this list have that degree of talent?
No, which is why we try to keep a light hand and err on the side of letting stuff through. It takes a remarkable level of stupid for us to bother doing anything.
- d.
on 2/20/07 9:26 AM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
No, which is why we try to keep a light hand and err on the side of letting stuff through. It takes a remarkable level of stupid for us to bother doing anything.
- d.
But David, this takes me back to the original question: Is it really offensive to call someone abusive? I, personally, would not use the word to define someone, I would, instead, describe their behavior as abusive; but isn't that, in the context of this List, somewhat nickpicky?
Marc
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 2/20/07 9:26 AM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
No, which is why we try to keep a light hand and err on the side of letting stuff through. It takes a remarkable level of stupid for us to bother doing anything.
But David, this takes me back to the original question: Is it really offensive to call someone abusive? I, personally, would not use the word to define someone, I would, instead, describe their behavior as abusive; but isn't that, in the context of this List, somewhat nickpicky?
I'd generally allow it to pass myself in the first instance, FWIW. Though I'd expect substantiation to follow. It's supposed to be a productive working list for a project.
- d.
On 2/20/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 2/20/07 9:26 AM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
No, which is why we try to keep a light hand and err on the side of letting stuff through. It takes a remarkable level of stupid for us to bother doing anything.
But David, this takes me back to the original question: Is it really offensive to call someone abusive? I, personally, would not use the word
to
define someone, I would, instead, describe their behavior as abusive;
but
isn't that, in the context of this List, somewhat nickpicky?
I'd generally allow it to pass myself in the first instance, FWIW. Though I'd expect substantiation to follow. It's supposed to be a productive working list for a project.
- d.
The user in question has, in fact, mailed in not just numerous diffs but a very accurate description of the situation. In fact, they were attacked by other users of this list for sending "too many" emails, apparently because the list system was not functioning properly and did not inform them of the moderation queue.
As far as I can understand after investigating with my own tools, the behavior towards this user was in fact abusive on the part of the involved administrators. In fact, the whole circumstances surrounding the case seem to stem from an administrator who felt it was his "right" to poke and prod and provoke a returned user, trying to get a reaction in order to justify a ban.
The fact that administrators actually will stand up to defend deliberate provocation - behavior that would NEVER be tolerated of a normal user, especially if it were directed at an administrator or so-called "respected user" - is one more bit of proof that wikipedia has become elitist and of the major cultural problems generated by too small a pool of people who have too much power for their egos to withstand. The "rules" as we put them forth seem to only apply to "other people" and you can get away with far too much if you've got a friend with power, or power yourself.
Of course, the fact that emails seem to have sat in the queue for 36 hours or more (one email, which I did not receive until Monday night, was apparently sent Sunday morning) isn't helping either. I'm sure that is frustrating the user to no end.
Parker
On 20/02/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'd generally allow it to pass myself in the first instance, FWIW. Though I'd expect substantiation to follow. It's supposed to be a productive working list for a project.
The user in question has, in fact, mailed in not just numerous diffs but a very accurate description of the situation. In fact, they were attacked by other users of this list for sending "too many" emails, apparently because the list system was not functioning properly and did not inform them of the moderation queue.
I was speaking in general, as the original question asked me seemed to be about the general approach.
- d.
On 2/20/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
But David, this takes me back to the original question: Is it really offensive to call someone abusive? I, personally, would not use the word to define someone, I would, instead, describe their behavior as abusive; but isn't that, in the context of this List, somewhat nickpicky?
Marc
It totally depends on the context. If you have a serious complaint that you present properly with solid evidence to back it up, then calling an admin abusive isn't all that big of a deal. If you can't do that well and you are just throwing the word around, then hell yeah it's offensive.
Historically speaking, something like 95% of all incidents of people calling admins "rouge" or "abusive" have been wholly without merit. It's been people that have been reverted, people who want a specific agenda but isn't allowed, annoying vandals, etc. After a while, when you hear about an email such as was sent to the list and rejected, you kinda get the picture of what is in it, and you're glad when it is moderated out.
--Oskar
On 2/20/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
But David, this takes me back to the original question: Is it really offensive to call someone abusive? I, personally, would not use the word
to
define someone, I would, instead, describe their behavior as abusive;
but
isn't that, in the context of this List, somewhat nickpicky?
Marc
It totally depends on the context. If you have a serious complaint that you present properly with solid evidence to back it up, then calling an admin abusive isn't all that big of a deal. If you can't do that well and you are just throwing the word around, then hell yeah it's offensive.
I haven't seen the message, but in a later email Mark Ryan admits that diffs were provided as evidence of the abuse.
Yet he blocked the emails claiming that it was a personal attack.
This is censorship, if not worse, and definitely does not help Wikipedia, nor does it do anything to help resolve the situation. If anything, all it is going to do is prove to the user that there IS a systematic attempt at a coverup or something similar to protect administrators who abuse their powers.
Parker
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
On 2/20/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
But David, this takes me back to the original question: Is it really offensive to call someone abusive? I, personally, would not use the word to define someone, I would, instead, describe their behavior as abusive; but isn't that, in the context of this List, somewhat nickpicky?
It totally depends on the context. If you have a serious complaint that you present properly with solid evidence to back it up, then calling an admin abusive isn't all that big of a deal. If you can't do that well and you are just throwing the word around, then hell yeah it's offensive.
It's still a judgement call that needs to be viewed in context. Enough needs to be let through to provide the context.
Historically speaking, something like 95% of all incidents of people calling admins "rouge" or "abusive" have been wholly without merit. It's been people that have been reverted, people who want a specific agenda but isn't allowed, annoying vandals, etc. After a while, when you hear about an email such as was sent to the list and rejected, you kinda get the picture of what is in it, and you're glad when it is moderated out.
I'm willing to concede your 95% figure, but it's good to know what problems are being raised. The ones who act consistently without merit will soon develop a reputation, and no-one on the list will be willing to take up their cause. A moderator should not be painting a target on himself to take the flaming arrows intended for a less than wholesome complainant.
Ec
Wow, I think that is the first time I have started a thread on this mailing list that has received so many replies. :)
I posted here in the hope of receiving guidance from the list subscribers about what they consider to be acceptable on this mailing list, so that the WikiEN-l moderators can tailor our moderation to suit the subscribers. For weeks we have been receiving messages like "who let this through to the list" and "why isn't this person banned from the list" in relation to various people, and I was unsure to what extent the 'tolerance' of the subscribers to the mailing list endured.
On 20/02/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
Calling someone "abusive" is still an ad hominem statement. Rather than saying "Admin X is abusive!1!" the person should say "Admin X engaged in behaviour on Y page that seemed abusive to me, here's some diffs..."
Yes, that's what I was getting at. You can raise the issue of questionable behaviour by an administrator without resorting to calling them "abusive". I guess that makes this an issue of civility rather than personal attacks? But this thread, if anything, indicates that calling someone abusive is not considered to be as grave as I had thought. Maybe it's becoming so widely used that people have become desensitised to the accusation. Anyway, at least one other user had their emails rejected because of this, and they readily re-submitted the email modified to remove such accudsatory language, and it was accepted onto the mailing list.
I'm not interested in rejecting any email simply because it accuses an admin of misconduct. If that happened, how would dodgy admins be exposed? But what I am hoping to avoid is WikiEN-l becoming "the new Wikipedia Review", wherein a crowd of overly paranoid banned users sit and go through every single admin action of their most hated administrator (generally the admin who blocked them in the first place). I recognise that it is a balancing act between total censorship and a total free-for-all. I just wanted to know in which direction the balance should tip, according to the wishes and sensitivities of the subscribers to the mailing list.
For the record, and since the mailing list has generally expressed an opposition to the moderation of such messages, I copy below the messages whic I moderated. Please look into the person's complaints.
~Mark Ryan
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Samuel L Bronkowitz" countpointercount@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:31:12 -0600 Subject: Just the latest Not satisfied with trying to silence those they've banned, the abusive admin crew are now trying to silence Miss Mondegreen for speaking up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ANI#Stop_archiving.21_in_re_RunedChozo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ANI#Proposed_Community_Ban_of__Miss_Mondegre...
"Mackensen" has also been routinely "cleaning" comments regarding his behavior off of the page.
But you don't care about systemic abuse, obviously.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Samuel L Bronkowitz countpointercount@gmail.com Date: Feb 18, 2007 7:39 PM Subject: more abusive administrator behavior To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APSPMario&diff=1088... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:PS...
User "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington" blocked him, removed his unblock request, redirected the page to his talk page, then locked them both.
He claimed "Trolling" for PSPMario legitimately trying to file an unblock request.
How long do you plan to keep up the charade that there's no systemic abuse of administrator powers going on?
Reading those two emails confirmed exactly what I thought they would contain. This user is very rude (calling the admin abusive is the least of it), disrespectful and generally trollish. Also, at least the second one of his claims (the only one I looked at, briefly) was complete BS.
We get a dozen of these guys every week. Seriously, how many people have accused our admins of being "rouge"? If there is a legitimate complaint, we have ways to deal with that. Sending trollish comments to wikien is not one of them.
I said it before and I'll say it again: I have complete trust in the mods ability to separate legitimate stuff from things like this. There has been a lot of complaints recently about what you let through and what you don't, but overall I think you do a great job. And hey, if you getting backed up, you could hold start a recruitment thread again like you done before sometimes. I'm sure there are people willing to help.
--Oskar
I note that you completely ignored the first complaint, that of users trying to get a longtime user of Wikipedia banned for speaking up on WP:ANI about abuses by administrators and their complete refusal to answer questions posted there.
In fact, your approach in general seems to be to attack someone for bringing valid complaints. This does not speak highly of you.
On 2/20/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
Reading those two emails confirmed exactly what I thought they would contain. This user is very rude (calling the admin abusive is the least of it), disrespectful and generally trollish. Also, at least the second one of his claims (the only one I looked at, briefly) was complete BS.
Let's take a look at this in depth, shall we? I find your remark of "complete BS" to be dismissive, rude, and unhelpful.
Basis of the complaint: #1 - "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington" blocked user:PSPMario. Factually true: 07:40, 17 February 2007 Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpingtonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington( Talkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington| contribshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington) blocked "PSPMario http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PSPMario (contribshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/PSPMario)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite (Sockpuppethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/RunedChozo )
#2 - "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington" removed the unblock request: Factually true. Diff for original unblock request: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APSPMario&diff=1088...
Diff for removal (also the point where Sir Nicholas redirects page): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APSPMario&diff=1088...
#3 - Unblock request was valid. I am copying the unblock request text here: "I am no sockpuppet and I demand a REAL checkuser, one I can see. This was pure bullshit. Unless someone was editing from my house which I REALLY DOUBT, then the only conclusion is that someone lied about the checkuser result."
This looks like a valid complaint to me.
#4 - "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington" then locked the user's talk page after redirecting it to the userpage: Factually true. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APSPMario&diff=1088...
I see this as a completely valid complaint. Not only does Sir Nicholas remove a valid unblock request when he's the blocking admin - which is a SERIOUS violation, or at least should be - he then not only locks the talk page, but redirects it elsewhere.
This makes it that much more difficult for someone trying to track down what's going on to get to the right place, since linking to the talk page no longer works properly.
There are no words for this other than abuse of power.
Parker
On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:32:32 +0900, "Mark Ryan" ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
--8<------------
As I thought: the mods are conservative in what they block, only the most egregious nonsense gets moderated. The comments in those messages, we'd have ignored.
You were right, keep up the good work.
Guy (JzG)
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:41:19 -0500, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
But David, this takes me back to the original question: Is it really offensive to call someone abusive?
Have you ever read [[WP:ROUGE]]?
Guy (JzG)
On 2/20/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
However, this list is the forum of last resort for people who have been banned from post to Wikipedia.
Shouldn't unblock-en-l serve that function now?
On 2/20/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Fine literary editing requires a great deal of talent, and even the finest writer needs an equally fine editor. But, do all of the persons editing (moderating) this list have that degree of talent?
This isn't Granta, this is an Internet mailing list. I'm sure the mods are up to the task.
On 2/20/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
However, this list is the forum of last resort for people who have been banned from post to
Wikipedia.
Shouldn't unblock-en-l serve that function now?
If it were actually properly monitored and served a real enforcement function? Perhaps. Instead, it's just something ignored, yet another rubber stamp with no real meaning.
Parker
On 2/20/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
Shouldn't unblock-en-l serve that function now?
If it were actually properly monitored and served a real enforcement function? Perhaps. Instead, it's just something ignored, yet another rubber stamp with no real meaning.
So what's the solution then? You have a tiresome amount of things to say here about imagined malfeasance, so what do you propose we do about this supposed problem? It would be preferable to come up with a solution that doesn't expose our volunteers to daily abuse and attacks and make this list a troll free-for-all.
On 2/21/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
Shouldn't unblock-en-l serve that function now?
If it were actually properly monitored and served a real enforcement function? Perhaps. Instead, it's just something ignored, yet another
rubber
stamp with no real meaning.
So what's the solution then? You have a tiresome amount of things to say here about imagined malfeasance,
It wouldn't need to be said if the malfeasance weren't both all too real, and all too common.
so what do you propose we do
about this supposed problem? It would be preferable to come up with a solution that doesn't expose our volunteers to daily abuse and attacks and make this list a troll free-for-all.
Ideally? I'd like for administrators not to do the things that cause problems. But that's not likely.
So here's a few thoughts/steps:
======================= #1 - Recognize that adminship, as it exists now, is a big deal.
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big deal. However, the bar for losing adminship is nearly impossibly high. If Adminship were not a big deal, the ever-growing requirements for it would not be ever-growing. But they are.
Adminship is a big deal. It is a big deal because of the damage an administrator can do to the project. But it is also a big deal because of the control it gives an administrator: they have the ability to not only damage the project, but to cause major damage just to individual contributors at the drop of a hat, anyone with whom they have a disagreement... save for other administrators.
It is this very power that the most abusive of administrators wield, but it's this same power that the rest of the administrator pool spends their time protecting. I don't think that most of the administrators actually want more administrators on the project, because they behave to the contrary: they behave as if more administrators would dilute their own power, and rightly so.
For the same reason, SERIOUS inquiry into serious misdeeds by administrators is stonewalled constantly. Why? Because if one administrator can lose their powers, then other administrators are also "vulnerable", and they don't want that to happen. Rather than clean up their acts and not break the rules, they protect other administrators who break the rules freely.
The very power given to administrators is also a cause of the great corruption. Remember the parable of the hammer:
when the only tool you give someone is a hammer, they are apt to see everything as a nail.
We have too many admins today who run around whacking with their hammers, not caring who they hit or what, being egged on by other administrators who do the same thing.
======================= #2 - Make it perfectly clear: administrators are NOT above the rules.
here is the biggest problem with wikipedia today. Administrators are free to do whatever they want. Any administrator can claim something is "trolling", and the rest of the administrators will pop their heads up to say "sure is" without really looking; again, if one administrator can claim something is "trolling" and wield their power, it makes it easier for the next one to as well.
Administrators today are free to be incivil as they want, and complaints of incivility are greeted with yawns and ignored by the other administrators claiming administrators have a "tough job." Well, "Administrators are just regular editors with extra buttons" - remember that? That ought to mean that administrators are subject to the same rules.
Yet that's not the case. An administrator today who insults a user, then turns around and blocks for "incivility" when insulted back, is lauded. That's not only wrong, it is part of the reason so many admins are so stuck up: they believe their adminship gives them a free pass to be as mean, as incivil, as abusive as they want.
And all too often, they're right about that.
======================= #3 - Set clear-cut rules against the ongoing abuses of the system. ENFORCE THEM.
Here's a few abuses of the system that have become commonplace recently by administrators:
(A) "Scarlet Letter" abuse. Users clearing/archiving warnings that they've already seen, or clearing off bad-faith tagging such as "suspected sockpuppet" tags or "warning" templates placed by abusive users trying to harass another user (usually claiming that a difference of opinion on a content matter is "vandalism), are routinely targeted by administrators. The goal of both abusive users and administrators is to rile the editor up. This is deliberate provocation, completely incivil, and all too common - yet it is regularly given a free pass by the administrator community.
Were a regular user to start putting a "suspected sockpuppet" template on an admin's user page, or leaving them warnings about breaking the rules and reverting the warning if the admin removed it, the admin wouldn't think twice about blocking them for "harassment" or "trolling" or something else. Yet administrators get away with this freely.
That's a problem.
(B) Talk-page abuse/Unblock abuse
One of the second most common behaviors by administrators, and somewhat related to "scarlet letter" harassment, is abusing a user's talk page while they are blocked. It has been established by the wikipedia community that it is helpful to allow a user to still edit on their own talk page when blocked: at least then, they have SOME on-wiki way of communicating, responding, or voicing complaints.
Abusive administrators all the time take this as a means of attack, however; they block a user, usually leaving an insulting verbage as their "you're blocked for X" notice, and then sit back. When the user files an unblock request, the user or one of their cronies either denies it with another incivil note, or reverts it and then locks the talk page. More egregious, sometimes the reverter isn't even an administrator themselves.
Administrators need to understand: BLOCKING SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET THEM MAD. It is an action that is agressive and adversarial. No matter what the temperament of the user, they will feel angry over this. They are likely to leave a message that lashes out in anger at whoever did it, PARTICULARLY if it is not justified within the rules or they already feel picked-upon by the admin or his/her cronies.
What is the harm of leaving the talk page alone? Nothing. User space is not indexed, it does not affect the article space in any way. Yet administrators routinely abuse the talk page of a user, trying to provoke them into further "incivility" in order to extend blocks or come up with an excuse to be even more punitive.
What's worse is that this sort of behavior goes directly against the blocking policy: blocks are never supposed to be punitive. Yet when you're locking a user's talk page for reacting after provocation, you are doing exactly that: punishing them for being angry at something that's been done to them.
(C) Admins with conflicts of interest
This is one of the most insidious, but it's been routinely abused by many administrators: rather than leave well enough alone, they take it upon themselves to wield every possible method of administrator power against a user all at once. Administrators don't just block a user and leave a message, politely stating why: they leave an insulting block message, to harass the user, revert the unblock notice, extend the block (many times to indefinite), and lock the user's page and talkpage down so that the user cannot possibly respond.
The declining admin on an unblock request rarely just leaves a decline, they also lock down the user page. The phrasing on the unblock template that it "continues to be visible" doesn't help either when it clearly doesn't: unblock-declined templates are REMOVED from the page list of users requesting an unblock, so the only person likely to see it is the administrator and his friends coming by to have a laugh over what they've done to someone.
======================= #4 - STOP Abusive usage of CheckUser
One of our worst items today is the CheckUser code: I wrote an email after seeing the output in one case, earlier.
CheckUser itself isn't a bad tool. Correctly used, it can distinguish with some relative certainty, though not absolute certainty, whether someone is sockpuppeting. This is useful.
What is not useful today is the fact that the system has grown from being Positive, Negative, or No-Conclusion to having umpteen different gradiations, each of which is no help at all except for the end two. CheckUser is abused in this manner, with administrators who have access to it using it not to say for certain or saying "this is not conclusive enough", to using it as a deliberate way to take unrelated users and claim they're sockpuppets. Fishing expeditions have gotten worse as this has gone on: it used to be that abusive attacks claiming someone was a "sockpuppet" over content disputes were relatively easily solved, but now the only question is which side can get their abusive admin to do a checkuser on the other side and claim it's positive first, regardless of the actual result.
The worst problem with CheckUser, unfortunately, is that it is "secret evidence." It's the equivalent of a paid informer in a box, saying that someone broke the law: how can you defend against such a thing even if it's not true? You can't, and the worst CU performers know it, and exploit that - especially since CU policy explicitly denies anyone the right to see the results or even demand a re-check, not that it would matter since most of the CU readers are also part of the admin clique (see part #1).
==== My solution would be: SEPARATION OF POWERS.
It's quite simple. The less power someone has, the less likely they are to be corrupt. The problem we have today is a bunch of people running around who are Judge, Jury, Executioner, Court Reporter, Appeals Court, King, Bishop, Whatever all thrown together in one neat little package. They have way too much power in one set of hands.
Someone who is a Bureaucrat should not be an Administrator. Someone who does CheckUser should not be an Administrator. Someone who is on ArbCom should not be an Administrator.
Preferably, they should Never Have Been administrators.
It doesn't completely eliminate the ongoing problems of cronyism - see what George W Bush has done to the US even through separation of powers - but it would at least be a start, to lessen them somewhat.
One other point to make: "It would be preferable to come up with a solution that doesn't expose our volunteers to daily abuse and attacks..."
I agree fully. I don't think "daily abuse and attacks" help anything.
The reality, however, is that there are legitimate problems - obvious vandals - that administrators should deal with daily. I really have no problem with this: once you block them, they can edit their own talkpage... so what if they do something there? It's not in the article space, it shouldn't be an issue. You're free not to revisit the page, and let other administrators take care of it from there.
And then there are the illegitimate problems, and THIS is where administration is breaking down: far too many administrators think that they have the right to abuse their power in content disputes, to block only one side of an argument for "incivility" when they're friends with another side, to deliberately protect a POV clique that they are friends with. This is not only where most of the abuses I outlined above occur, this is what gives Wikipedia such a poor reputation.
It's not the obvious vandalism that's a problem, it's the number of people, growing every day, who see an article, try to fix it, and get whacked by an over-eager, over-egoed, over-caffeine-dosed admin who's lost the ability to distinguish from a real vandal and someone trying to [[Be Bold]] and fix a problem. These people, abused and mistreated by wikipedia's administrators, don't just "leave", they become obvious vandals or worse yet, enemies of wikipedia. When they see wikipedia having a donation drive, they laugh it off as a joke and announce they hope it fails.
The animosity of those people is on your heads, for allowing this problem to get so big.
Parker
On 2/21/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
It's not the obvious vandalism that's a problem, it's the number of people, growing every day, who see an article, try to fix it, and get whacked by an over-eager, over-egoed, over-caffeine-dosed admin who's lost the ability to distinguish from a real vandal and someone trying to [[Be Bold]] and fix a problem.
I can see two possible patterns a newbie editor can get into when trying to "fix" a "defended" article.
1. bold/revert/talk/shrug/go play elsewhere
2. bold/revert/bold/revert/bold/revert/go WTF on talk page/bold/revert/bold/revert/ bold/revert/more dickery on talk page/block/sockpuppets/block/lather/rinse/repeat
As far as you know, have any of these innocent newbie editors drew the wrath of a "rogue admin" following pattern 1?
On 2/21/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
It's not the obvious vandalism that's a problem, it's the number of
people,
growing every day, who see an article, try to fix it, and get whacked by
an
over-eager, over-egoed, over-caffeine-dosed admin who's lost the ability
to
distinguish from a real vandal and someone trying to [[Be Bold]] and fix
a
problem.
I can see two possible patterns a newbie editor can get into when trying to "fix" a "defended" article.
bold/revert/talk/shrug/go play elsewhere
bold/revert/bold/revert/bold/revert/go WTF on talk
page/bold/revert/bold/revert/ bold/revert/more dickery on talk page/block/sockpuppets/block/lather/rinse/repeat
As far as you know, have any of these innocent newbie editors drew the wrath of a "rogue admin" following pattern 1?
You're drawing a false route There are more possibilities than that:
0. Obvious vandalism from the start: no question on blocking, and I really have no problem with blocking.
1. bold/revert/talk/shrug/leave
2. bold/revert/argue/blocked/leave - This one's been made into an enemy of wikipedia
3. bold/revert/get abused by POV clique - Another enemy of wikipedia now
4. bold/revert/bold/revert/bold/etc (Your #2) - congratulations, you've made an enemy again.
5. bold/revert/bold/talk/reverted by others/accused of being a sockpuppet of someone previous/angry at false accusation... and again, wikipedia's made an enemy.
Parker
Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 2/21/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
It's not the obvious vandalism that's a problem, it's the number of people, growing every day, who see an article, try to fix it, and get whacked by an over-eager, over-egoed, over-caffeine-dosed admin who's lost the ability to distinguish from a real vandal and someone trying to [[Be Bold]] and fix a problem.
I can see two possible patterns a newbie editor can get into when trying to "fix" a "defended" article.
bold/revert/talk/shrug/go play elsewhere
bold/revert/bold/revert/bold/revert/go WTF on talk
page/bold/revert/bold/revert/ bold/revert/more dickery on talk page/block/sockpuppets/block/lather/rinse/repeat
As far as you know, have any of these innocent newbie editors drew the wrath of a "rogue admin" following pattern 1?
Ron,
Perhaps I'm misconstruing your point. Is your question rhetorical, or actually seeking information? Are you suggesting that, if a "newbie editor" were to simply walk away, there would be no problem?
IF that is what you're suggesting, then I seriously disagree with you. Sure, perhaps there would not be the more visible problem of revert wars, "dickery", sockpuppets, etc. But the less visible, but more insidious problem of an admin preventing valid work an a page would remain. A "bold edit" (as opposed to vandalism) should not simply be reverted. Yes, I may be guilty of doing this, but then I should be gently warned, and progressively less gently warned if I continue, until either more drastic action is required against me, or I mend my ways.
Of course, none of that is exclusive to admins. That's just standard, respectful behavior. But if the newbie has heard that one must be careful about admins, or one can get blocked, the "shrug and walk away" behavior is more likely, especially for the kind of newbie editors who would likely become productive editors. The boldness of the newbie editor is diminished (if not squashed entirely), and at least in some cases, the newbie may give up on the project entirely.
Meanwhile, the admin who reverted the newbie doesn't draw the attention of anyone else. You can't really call the admin "abusive", at least not intentionally. But from the point of view of the newbie, it could very easily seem like "there was this admin, who could ban me from the project, who refused to allow me to make changes to this page. I guess Wikipedia isn't as open to people editing as I thought they were. And those admins sure are a pain in the ass."
No complaints to anyone. Just a bad taste in a newbie's mouth. Successful businesses quickly learn that the real bad news isn't that your customers are complaining to you--the real bad news is when your customers aren't complaining to you but are disappointed, and are complaining to others.
-Rich
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps I'm misconstruing your point. Is your question rhetorical, or actually seeking information? Are you suggesting that, if a "newbie editor" were to simply walk away, there would be no problem?
If the newbie's (or anybody else's) change to an article is reverted and he can't make his case in the "talk" phase then yes "walk away"[1]. There's no consensus for his change. A "dick" phase is not going to change that. If he strongly feels that. If he strongly feels that the article is being defended in a state that violates policy then there are "non dick" paths he can follow such as rfcs or arbcom. If he can't get satisfaction there then hey that's life. You can't win them all.
1. "Go play elsewhere" is a better way of putting this. There are plenty of "undefended" and abandoned articles that need attention.
On 2/22/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps I'm misconstruing your point. Is your question rhetorical, or actually seeking information? Are you suggesting that, if a "newbie editor" were to simply walk away, there would be no problem?
If the newbie's (or anybody else's) change to an article is reverted and he can't make his case in the "talk" phase then yes "walk away"[1]. There's no consensus for his change. A "dick" phase is not going to change that. If he strongly feels that. If he strongly feels that the article is being defended in a state that violates policy then there are "non dick" paths he can follow such as rfcs or arbcom. If he can't get satisfaction there then hey that's life. You can't win them all.
A "new user" who goes to either of these in less than 6 months is the most likely candidate for the "sockpuppet aaugh sockpuppet" form of abuse all too prevalent. He's also likely to be declared a sockpuppet/meatpuppet based on the short life of account and/or IP address status alone, despite policy stating that new people arrive to WP all the time (ESPECIALLY on the articles that are highly contentious and involve plenty of POV issues) and with no other evidence.
The system itself is abusive.
Parker
Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps I'm misconstruing your point. Is your question rhetorical, or actually seeking information? Are you suggesting that, if a "newbie editor" were to simply walk away, there would be no problem?
If the newbie's (or anybody else's) change to an article is reverted and he can't make his case in the "talk" phase then yes "walk away"[1]. There's no consensus for his change. A "dick" phase is not going to change that. If he strongly feels that. If he strongly feels that the article is being defended in a state that violates policy then there are "non dick" paths he can follow such as rfcs or arbcom. If he can't get satisfaction there then hey that's life. You can't win them all.
- "Go play elsewhere" is a better way of putting this. There are
plenty of "undefended" and abandoned articles that need attention.
Perhaps you're using the idea of "defending" an article differently than I am. From the context of Parker Peter's original post that you were replying to, we're talking about someone who is, in good faith, trying to improve the article, and an admin "whacking" them for doing it.
As I see it, one can legitimately defend an article against vandalism, against overall POV, against the addition of questionable and unreferenced "facts", and against unintelligible incoherence. There may be others I'm not thinking of right now, but these are specifically defined violations of policy (except perhaps for the last one), and we all want to defend articles against these.
But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being bold in a good faith effort to fix an article. A newbie being bold is not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy. Quite the contrary, we encourage it. If a change to an article does not violate policy but is reverted, and then the change stonewalled on the talk page, the "defender" is violating policy ([[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]), and this is particularly damaging when the "defender" is an admin.
-Rich Holton
On 2/22/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being bold in a good faith effort to fix an article.
But what if previous consensus has determined that it "ain't broke"?
A newbie being bold is not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy.
No it's not. And if the newbie is being whacked by an admin acting as the article's pit bull after a bold or two then yes, the admin himself should be whacked.
This should never happen...
bold/revert/bold/whack
However, this is what we see in too many of these cases...
bold/revert/bold/revert/dick/whack
Quite the contrary, we encourage it. If a change to an article does not violate policy but is reverted, and then the change stonewalled on the talk page, the "defender" is violating policy ([[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]),
And this can be responded too by the dispute resolution procedures. This is mentioned in WP:OWN. If the "newbie editor" responds with "dickery" then whether or not he's right or wrong he will get whacked, not for the bold but for the dickery and I don't believe you can argue that he was goaded into being a dick (uncivil, personal attacks etc.) or somehow magically made to act like a dick by the article's "gang".
On 2/22/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/22/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being bold in a good faith effort to fix an article.
But what if previous consensus has determined that it "ain't broke"?
Previous "consensus" as defined by who? An organized POV clique?
One of the biggest problems for Wikipedia is that "Consensus" morphs into "Ownership" and "Groupthink" too darned easily. A group of editors forming "consensus" see anyone who comes in to challenge that as a "vandal" and a threat to their control of the article, and are likely to attack and abuse anyone who thinks differently.
It's even worse when we have a known group of editors with severe POV problems that are obviously apparent (members of X political party/grouping, members of X wacked-out cultish religion, etc), but who stick around and exercise de-facto Ownership of articles while claiming it's "Consensus."
A newbie being bold is
not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy.
No it's not. And if the newbie is being whacked by an admin acting as the article's pit bull after a bold or two then yes, the admin himself should be whacked.
This should never happen...
bold/revert/bold/whack
However, this is what we see in too many of these cases...
bold/revert/bold/revert/dick/whack
No, what we see more often is:
bold/revert/bold/ (revert+argue/bold+argue repeatedly) /revert+ownership+admin+dick+revert=whack.
Quite the contrary, we
encourage it. If a change to an article does not violate policy but is reverted, and then the change stonewalled on the talk page, the "defender" is violating policy ([[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]),
And this can be responded too by the dispute resolution procedures. This is mentioned in WP:OWN. If the "newbie editor" responds with "dickery" then whether or not he's right or wrong he will get whacked, not for the bold but for the dickery and I don't believe you can argue that he was goaded into being a dick (uncivil, personal attacks etc.) or somehow magically made to act like a dick by the article's "gang".
If wikipedians act like dicks, a new user coming in will see that Wikipedia is a place for people to be dicks. It's the normal course of procedure, and they are GOING to respond in kind.
Dickery is goading, plain and simple. The so-called "experienced" wikipedians and admins goad and provoke people all the time, knowing they can get away with it since their friends will protect them.
As I stated earlier, the "dispute resolution" process is a joke, because it's laid out in a byzantine fashion, and set up so that any new editor coming in who actually successfully navigates it can be accused of being a sockpuppet/returned vandal/whatever the fuck new BS charge has been created, because they "know too much about the system."
Look at past cases. I know it's going to be met with groans, but it's a case in hand, and it readily illustrates the point - User:RunedChozo. The problem for RunedChozo on the PSP pages was that he felt User:ZakuSage was violating WP:OWN. He posted to this effect in multiple places.
ZakuSage then responded by wikistalking RunedChozo, and engaging in deliberate provocation and harassment. ZakuSage, however, had friends to protect him, while RunedChozo didn't - he got a one-week block, "extended" to two weeks by the blocking admin for blowing up on his talk page in response, reduced back to 1 week when it was pointed out that this was out of process and invalid
End result? ZakuSage got off with a verbal "warning" and his friends waited around to harass RunedChozo when he returned. And we know how that's gone now and we can see the collateral damage as ZakuSage's friends went ballistic trying to harass other users based on the case, and defending the admins who abused RunedChozo.
Do I think RunedChozo deserved blocking? Hell yes. He crossed the line.
Did it deserve to be indefinite? He was deliberately provoked by administrators abusing their power and authority, so a "Hell no" is in order there. It didn't deserve to be any more than 24 hours, but our admins have a history of out of process, ever longer blocks for the purpose of antagonizing and provoking people and just being downright vindictive.
Instead of converting RunedChozo - who proved he could make constructive edits, learned to create workspaces so that he didn't get into a fight while trying to make something look right, and showed that his edits could be valid when other people took his suggestion and created the portion of the article he'd suggested in the first place - into a good editor, Wikipedia's abusive admin culture turned him into an enemy, and likely now a vandal.
That's why Wikipedia fails.
Parker ==== Parker Peters http://parkerpeters.livejournal.com
Parker Peters wrote:
If wikipedians act like dicks, a new user coming in will see that Wikipedia is a place for people to be dicks. It's the normal course of procedure, and they are GOING to respond in kind.
If a boy sees his dad regularly beating up his mom he will learn from that mentorship, and apply those lessons in his own marriage.
Dickery is goading, plain and simple. The so-called "experienced" wikipedians and admins goad and provoke people all the time, knowing they can get away with it since their friends will protect them.
After five years I would consider myself experienced, and hope that I have successfully avoided the use of such provocative actions on any regular basis. It's important to avoid the implication that simply being experienced or being an admin means support for abusive behaviours. My suspicion is that most of these people do not get involved in such things, and will only apply their experience and admin privileges in the limited area of their personal interests.
Ec
On 22/02/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
This should never happen... bold/revert/bold/whack However, this is what we see in too many of these cases... bold/revert/bold/revert/dick/whack
More patience is needed in such cases, I agree.
(I tend to avoid that level of article watching if I can avoid it. My wikistress went WAY down the day I stopped even looking at my watchlist.)
- d.
Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 2/22/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being bold in a good faith effort to fix an article.
But what if previous consensus has determined that it "ain't broke"?
How can such a "consensus" possibly have been reached when this bold person was not a part of the discussion? How can you know that someone who was not there doesn't have a completely different unexplored outlook on the subject? It could even be that those who were a part of the "previous consensus" are no longer around, and that today's consensus might be comppletely different from the previous one.
What has to be accepted as a fundamental principle of collaborative communities is that very few, if any, consensuses are final. They are all open for reconsideration. It may seem tiresome to keep going over the same material again and again, but that is a small price to pay for the fruits of being truly collaborative. No vote should ever be considered permanently closed.
The implication for admins who must deal with a bold edit is that they should provide the bold editor a link to where the "previous consensus" was reached. He could then review the discussion, add his comments or vote, as the situation requires. The fact that the old discussion is deep in the archives or was previously presumed closed should have no bearing on his action.
A newbie being bold is not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy.
No it's not. And if the newbie is being whacked by an admin acting as the article's pit bull after a bold or two then yes, the admin himself should be whacked.
This should never happen...
bold/revert/bold/whack
However, this is what we see in too many of these cases...
bold/revert/bold/revert/dick/whack
3RR is still a part of this context. The first bold action and the first revert can probably be very simple actions. The second bold tells everyone that the person has an issue that goes beyond a simple correction and should be explained, but a failure to give proper explanation can be excused through lack of experience. The second revert (presumably by an admin) should include an attempt to open a discussion that is not just boilerplate.
Quite the contrary, we encourage it. If a change to an article does not violate policy but is reverted, and then the change stonewalled on the talk page, the "defender" is violating policy ([[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]),
And this can be responded too by the dispute resolution procedures. This is mentioned in WP:OWN. If the "newbie editor" responds with "dickery" then whether or not he's right or wrong he will get whacked, not for the bold but for the dickery and I don't believe you can argue that he was goaded into being a dick (uncivil, personal attacks etc.) or somehow magically made to act like a dick by the article's "gang".
You make it sound like it's only newbies that engage in dickery. If the dickery is in the form of goading or from a gang why is it so immune to being argued? What's good for newbie dicks is good for admin dicks.
Ec
Rich Holton wrote:
Perhaps you're using the idea of "defending" an article differently than I am. From the context of Parker Peter's original post that you were replying to, we're talking about someone who is, in good faith, trying to improve the article, and an admin "whacking" them for doing it.
As I see it, one can legitimately defend an article against vandalism, against overall POV, against the addition of questionable and unreferenced "facts", and against unintelligible incoherence. There may be others I'm not thinking of right now, but these are specifically defined violations of policy (except perhaps for the last one), and we all want to defend articles against these.
But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being bold in a good faith effort to fix an article. A newbie being bold is not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy. Quite the contrary, we encourage it. If a change to an article does not violate policy but is reverted, and then the change stonewalled on the talk page, the "defender" is violating policy ([[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]), and this is particularly damaging when the "defender" is an admin.
A person who makes a good-faith effort to explain his position on the talk page needs to be fairly considered. If he does this, and receives no good-faith replies (which may include a link to a previous discussion) in 24 hours, he is perfectly justified in restoring his bold edit. Stonewalling could have the person waiting indefinitely.
Ec
Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton wrote:
Perhaps I'm misconstruing your point. Is your question rhetorical, or actually seeking information? Are you suggesting that, if a "newbie editor" were to simply walk away, there would be no problem?
If the newbie's (or anybody else's) change to an article is reverted and he can't make his case in the "talk" phase then yes "walk away". There's no consensus for his change. A "dick" phase is not going to change that. If he strongly feels that. If he strongly feels that the article is being defended in a state that violates policy then there are "non dick" paths he can follow such as rfcs or arbcom. If he can't get satisfaction there then hey that's life. You can't win them all.
If nobody answers his comments on the talk page, he has made his case.
Your Kafkaesque universe seems to suggest that the house should play with a stacked dick.
Ec
On 2/23/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If nobody answers his comments on the talk page, he has made his case.
Here's how I would handle it.
If my bolds on an article are reverted by regular editors, especially more then one, I would assume by the reverts themselves that there is no consensus for my bolds. I might make a polite query on the talk page but my next move would be to "go play elsewhere".
You see it's not important to me that one particular edit in one particular page sticks. I don't even watch the pages I edit. If the edit sticks, fine. If it gets reverted, then hey that's life. Let someone else go to war there. There's thousands of other articles to read and edit. (most of my edits have so far been minor ones anyway)
I think every editor, especially newbies, need to ask themselves this question. "Am are here to help the project and make enwikipedia a better encyclopedia or am I here to get my point across in [[Article]]?"
Here's another quote from the "don't be a dick" essay I posted earlier...
"Honestly examine your motivations. Are you here to contribute and make the project good? Or is your goal really to find fault, get your views across, or be the one in control? Perhaps secretly inside you even enjoy the thrill of a little confrontation. This may not make you a bad person, but to everyone who is busily trying to build something great, you become an impediment"
Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 2/23/07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
If nobody answers his comments on the talk page, he has made his case.
Here's how I would handle it.
Thank you for answering fairly.
If my bolds on an article are reverted by regular editors, especially more then one, I would assume by the reverts themselves that there is no consensus for my bolds. I might make a polite query on the talk page but my next move would be to "go play elsewhere".
It probably took a little time here before you came to that conclusion. Newbies are not born with this skill. It needs to be politely discussed with them, and that can't be done with bureaucratic boilerplate on his talk page. As a newbie you can have no idea who the "regular" editors are.
Polite queries are good, and it is good to wait at least 24 hours for a response, preferably longer. Unfortunately what often happens when you repeat your bold after a fair waiting period is that it is reverted again with no explanation by the same person who then posts a nasty threat on your talk page, and refuses to discuss the matter despite all your polite entreaties.
You see it's not important to me that one particular edit in one particular page sticks. I don't even watch the pages I edit. If the edit sticks, fine. If it gets reverted, then hey that's life. Let someone else go to war there. There's thousands of other articles to read and edit. (most of my edits have so far been minor ones anyway)
It's not a problem with most minor edits, and I agree that keeping a long list of watched pages is not particularly productive.
I think every editor, especially newbies, need to ask themselves this question. "Am are here to help the project and make enwikipedia a better encyclopedia or am I here to get my point across in [[Article]]?"
Other than for "especially newbies" I agree with you. I would come down much harder on admins because they should know better.
Here's another quote from the "don't be a dick" essay I posted earlier...
"Honestly examine your motivations. Are you here to contribute and make the project good? Or is your goal really to find fault, get your views across, or be the one in control? Perhaps secretly inside you even enjoy the thrill of a little confrontation. This may not make you a bad person, but to everyone who is busily trying to build something great, you become an impediment"
Certainly. Insisting on your own way and immediately collapsing from a position that you believe to be wrong can both distance you from the task of making a good encyclopedia. How far you go before giving up is not going to be the same in every instance. How you do things is important. I still believe that those who are thoroughly undisdickable are a small minority.
Ec
On 2/21/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
Ideally? I'd like for administrators not to do the things that cause problems. But that's not likely.
Ideally, you would stop viewing every administrative action as resulting from a malicious abuse of power. But that's not likely.
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big deal. However, the bar for losing adminship is nearly impossibly high. If Adminship were not a big deal, the ever-growing requirements for it would not be ever-growing. But they are.
I agree that we should probably treat adminship as a more of a big deal. But I don't worry about "abusive" admins, not to protect my own "power" ("you'll have to pry my mop from my cold dead fingers!") but because we already have ArbCom to deal with the worst offenders. Given that I don't see nearly every admin as malicious and abusive, I think that this is a sufficent remedy. No malicious admin can prevent an abused user from bringing a matter before them.
here is the biggest problem with wikipedia today. Administrators are free to do whatever they want
This is, of course, news to me. Had I been aware of this, I would have blocked the other users I've been in conflicts with instead of dealing with tedious ArbCom proceedings.
(A) "Scarlet Letter" abuse. Users clearing/archiving warnings that they've already seen, or clearing off bad-faith tagging such as "suspected sockpuppet" tags or "warning" templates placed by abusive users trying to harass another user (usually claiming that a difference of opinion on a content matter is "vandalism), are routinely targeted by administrators. The goal of both abusive users and administrators is to rile the editor up. This is deliberate provocation, completely incivil, and all too common - yet it is regularly given a free pass by the administrator community.
If I put a warning tag on a user talk page, it's because that user has done something meriting a warning, not to "rile the editor up". They should not be removed because they serve as a notice to other administrators that this user has a history of negative behavior.
Tags placed in bad faith can be dealt with like any other abuse.
Administrators need to understand: BLOCKING SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET THEM MAD. It is an action that is agressive and adversarial. No matter what the temperament of the user, they will feel angry over this. They are likely to leave a message that lashes out in anger at whoever did it, PARTICULARLY if it is not justified within the rules or they already feel picked-upon by the admin or his/her cronies.
The fact that a block gets someone MAD does not justify further abuse, and the talk page should not be used to give a troll a soapbox to attack people.
On 2/22/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
Ideally? I'd like for administrators not to do the things that cause problems. But that's not likely.
Ideally, you would stop viewing every administrative action as resulting from a malicious abuse of power. But that's not likely.
I don't view "every" administrative action as resulting from a malicious abuse of power, Rob, and I'll thank you to take that little flame back right now and actually read my statements. Particularly the previous email I just sent.
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big
deal. However, the bar for losing adminship is nearly impossibly high. If Adminship were not a big deal, the ever-growing requirements for it
would
not be ever-growing. But they are.
I agree that we should probably treat adminship as a more of a big deal. But I don't worry about "abusive" admins, not to protect my own "power" ("you'll have to pry my mop from my cold dead fingers!") but because we already have ArbCom to deal with the worst offenders. Given that I don't see nearly every admin as malicious and abusive, I think that this is a sufficent remedy. No malicious admin can prevent an abused user from bringing a matter before them.
Lol. An abusive administrator only has to indefinitely block a user, lock their talkpage, and then start "reverting sockpuppets" and they'll be defended to the hilt by the other abusive administrators. And any case brought before Arbcom will either be laughed out for "not following process" or otherwise they'll find a technicality by which to let the abusive admin get away with it.
here is the biggest problem with wikipedia today. Administrators are free to
do whatever they want
This is, of course, news to me. Had I been aware of this, I would have blocked the other users I've been in conflicts with instead of dealing with tedious ArbCom proceedings.
(A) "Scarlet Letter" abuse. Users clearing/archiving warnings that
they've
already seen, or clearing off bad-faith tagging such as "suspected sockpuppet" tags or "warning" templates placed by abusive users trying
to
harass another user (usually claiming that a difference of opinion on a content matter is "vandalism), are routinely targeted by administrators.
The
goal of both abusive users and administrators is to rile the editor up.
This
is deliberate provocation, completely incivil, and all too common - yet
it
is regularly given a free pass by the administrator community.
If I put a warning tag on a user talk page, it's because that user has done something meriting a warning, not to "rile the editor up". They should not be removed because they serve as a notice to other administrators that this user has a history of negative behavior.
Tags placed in bad faith can be dealt with like any other abuse.
Administrators need to understand: BLOCKING SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET THEM MAD. It is an action that is agressive and adversarial. No matter what
the
temperament of the user, they will feel angry over this. They are likely
to
leave a message that lashes out in anger at whoever did it, PARTICULARLY
if
it is not justified within the rules or they already feel picked-upon by
the
admin or his/her cronies.
The fact that a block gets someone MAD does not justify further abuse, and the talk page should not be used to give a troll a soapbox to attack people.
If they're mad, they're mad. PEOPLE VENT WHEN THEY ARE MAD.
If you can't understand this, you've got serious socioaffective issues to get through, and those alone probably should disqualify you from adminship.
Is a talk page "giving a troll a soapbox"? It's not part of the article space, and the only people likely to go there are admins reviewing the block, or people responding to something they said elsewhere.
Instead of instantly extending the block and being vindictive, an admin who sees something like that ought to post a message understanding that they are angry, but INVITING THEM TO TAKE IT BACK THEMSELVES.
You know, give someone a chance to calm down and then take back something said in the heat of anger.
Instead, the admins on wikipedia see it as a chance to kick someone with steel-toed boots while they're lying on the sidewalk bleeding, and get some vicious thrill out of doing so, because then they can put another notch on their blocked-users cane.
I see this garbage written all the time about how "admins have a tough job" and have to be "cut some slack", have to be "given some time to respond", yadda yadda yadda. Well, regular users deserve the same consideration, deserve the time to take back something they said when angry, deserve to be treated respectfully by the administrators. And that just doesn't happen on Wikipedia. Admins are free to get as mad as they want, but if someone an admin's mistreating doesn't instantly calm down and start kissing ass, the whole admin community decides it's free playtime to engage in a collective beating.
Parker
Rob wrote:
The fact that a block gets someone MAD does not justify further abuse, and the talk page should not be used to give a troll a soapbox to attack people.
I'd agree with that. On the other hand, there's this pattern I'm worried about that goes something like this:
1. A new user tries to do something that seems reasonable to them, but is annoying to us -- e.g., adding their friend's band to Wikipedia. 2. Almost instantly they receive a boilerplate negative reaction from us -- e.g., their article is speedied. 3. They struggle to understand what the hell is going on and do something they think is reasonable -- let's say they replace the speedy template with {{hangon}} and go on editing their article. 4. They get another instant boilerplate negative reaction and experience more frustration -- perhaps they get the template back, a user page warning for removing speedies, and an edit conflict to boot. 5. After repeatedly being frustrated in trying to do something they think is useful, they express their frustration with less than perfect politeness. 6. The cycle of negative interactions spirals until they end up blocked.
And then from here, I'm sure a most of those people just go away, nursing their burnt fingers and telling their pals what jerks those Wikipedians are. A few of them take it as a great injustice and turn into long-term enemies.
For this to happen, I don't think there need to be malice on either side, just ordinary human nature. My mother, who lives in a town with one stop light, would occasionally drive to Chicago to visit me. She was convinced that all Chicago drivers were either vicious or insane. Most of them weren't, but they were used to moving at such a pace and with such a focus on throughput that she took it as hostility and madness. They in turn saw her as hopelessly clueless and inconsiderate, and a great barrier to progress.
I would rather we took more time with these people, as I think we currently create more enemies than we need, and discourage potential contributors.
William
on 2/22/07 1:44 PM, William Pietri at william@scissor.com wrote:
I would rather we took more time with these people
Before I reply to your entire message I need to know this: how many new persons sign on to become Community Members in Wikipedia in a given month. The answer will pretty much determine whether my idea is workable or not.
Marc Riddell
On 2/22/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
For this to happen, I don't think there need to be malice on either side, just ordinary human nature.
A great post in general, but this part in particular needs to be pulled out and held up by itself.
Most of the time, most people are not malicious. Fact is, two people can get into stupid misunderstandings and vicious disagreement without any malice at all and only the best of intentions. See [[Hanlon's razor]], most commonly phrased as "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Misunderstanding is incredibly easy in an environment such as Wikipedia, especially when at least one party is not familiar with the terrain and is thus at a significant communications disadvantage (in both directions).
-Matt
William Pietri wrote:
Rob wrote:
The fact that a block gets someone MAD does not justify further abuse, and the talk page should not be used to give a troll a soapbox to attack people.
I'd agree with that. On the other hand, there's this pattern I'm worried about that goes something like this:
- A new user tries to do something that seems reasonable to them, but is annoying to us -- e.g., adding their friend's band to Wikipedia.
- Almost instantly they receive a boilerplate negative reaction from us -- e.g., their article is speedied.
- They struggle to understand what the hell is going on and do something they think is reasonable -- let's say they replace the speedy template with {{hangon}} and go on editing their article.
- They get another instant boilerplate negative reaction and experience more frustration -- perhaps they get the template back, a user page warning for removing speedies, and an edit conflict to boot.
- After repeatedly being frustrated in trying to do something they think is useful, they express their frustration with less than perfect politeness.
- The cycle of negative interactions spirals until they end up blocked.
The disrespect starts at #2. If the person so acting took the trouble to open a dialogue instead of slapping on impersonal boilerplate and initiating hostile action a lot more of these newbies could be mentored into becoming useful contributors.
And then from here, I'm sure a most of those people just go away, nursing their burnt fingers and telling their pals what jerks those Wikipedians are. A few of them take it as a great injustice and turn into long-term enemies.
With full justification for doing so.
I would rather we took more time with these people, as I think we currently create more enemies than we need, and discourage potential contributors.
That's the big problem to overcome.
Ec
on 2/22/07 1:44 PM, William Pietri at william@scissor.com wrote:
I'd agree with that. On the other hand, there's this pattern I'm worried about that goes something like this:
- A new user tries to do something that seems reasonable to them,
but is annoying to us -- e.g., adding their friend's band to Wikipedia. 2. Almost instantly they receive a boilerplate negative reaction from us -- e.g., their article is speedied. 3. They struggle to understand what the hell is going on and do something they think is reasonable -- let's say they replace the speedy template with {{hangon}} and go on editing their article. 4. They get another instant boilerplate negative reaction and experience more frustration -- perhaps they get the template back, a user page warning for removing speedies, and an edit conflict to boot. 5. After repeatedly being frustrated in trying to do something they think is useful, they express their frustration with less than perfect politeness. 6. The cycle of negative interactions spirals until they end up blocked.
And then from here, I'm sure a most of those people just go away, nursing their burnt fingers and telling their pals what jerks those Wikipedians are. A few of them take it as a great injustice and turn into long-term enemies.
For this to happen, I don't think there need to be malice on either side, just ordinary human nature. My mother, who lives in a town with one stop light, would occasionally drive to Chicago to visit me. She was convinced that all Chicago drivers were either vicious or insane. Most of them weren't, but they were used to moving at such a pace and with such a focus on throughput that she took it as hostility and madness. They in turn saw her as hopelessly clueless and inconsiderate, and a great barrier to progress.
I absolutely relate to what your mother was feeling! Been there!
I would rather we took more time with these people, as I think we currently create more enemies than we need, and discourage potential contributors.
William
William,
Excellent, insightful post. Thanks.
I am going to suggest something as a possible remedy for the problems you brought up.
When I first joined the WP Community I not only had no idea how to maneuver within WP (and, yes I had read all of the intro stuff) my computer skills consisted of point & click anything beyond that and I had to scream for a computer tech. From day one, this wonderful WP Community Member came out of the woodwork to help. They answered the 1000+ questions I had, and actually helped me to format my User Page. I was very grateful for this, and it also gave me an indication of, and made he very comfortable with, the WP culture.
So, how about this: When a new person registers to join the WP Community they are automatically assigned, designated (whatever term you want) to an established Community Member. This established Member would act as their mentor for a given period of time. And any questions or problems the new Member may have in the beginning could be mentored by this person.
If an idea like this has been proposed before & rejected, I would love to know why. If it hasn¹t as yet, what do you think?
Marc Riddell
Marc Riddell wrote:
I am going to suggest something as a possible remedy for the problems you brought up.
When I first joined the WP Community I not only had no idea how to maneuver within WP (and, yes I had read all of the intro stuff) my computer skills consisted of point & click anything beyond that and I had to scream for a computer tech. From day one, this wonderful WP Community Member came out of the woodwork to help. They answered the 1000+ questions I had, and actually helped me to format my User Page. I was very grateful for this, and it also gave me an indication of, and made he very comfortable with, the WP culture.
So, how about this: When a new person registers to join the WP Community they are automatically assigned, designated (whatever term you want) to an established Community Member. This established Member would act as their mentor for a given period of time. And any questions or problems the new Member may have in the beginning could be mentored by this person.
If an idea like this has been proposed before & rejected, I would love to know why. If it hasn¹t as yet, what do you think?
Your lack of technical skills is a far more tractable problem set than the lack of social skills exhibited by some others. ;-)
I've raised the idea of mentorship before, but the results have been no response, and not outright rejection. I don't know whether on a practical basis it would work at all. Assigning the right mentor to the right newbie is not an easy task, because there can be so many different incompatibilities. Some people do just fine quietly figuring things out for themselves, others, like you, are really helped by a little technical guidance, still others may have absolutely no problem with the technology but need a more personal intervention of someone who can help to calm them down or run interference with single-minded admins.
I don't know if the idea would work, but I need to maintain an open mind.
Ec
on 2/23/07 7:02 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I've raised the idea of mentorship before, but the results have been no response, and not outright rejection. I don't know whether on a practical basis it would work at all. Assigning the right mentor to the right newbie is not an easy task, because there can be so many different incompatibilities. Some people do just fine quietly figuring things out for themselves, others, like you, are really helped by a little technical guidance, still others may have absolutely no problem with the technology but need a more personal intervention of someone who can help to calm them down or run interference with single-minded admins.
I don't know if the idea would work, but I need to maintain an open mind.
Ray,
On reflection, I really wasn't thinking about the early "getting settled" issues so much as the new person who gets into some serious editing conflicts.
You are right, matching up new persons with compatible veterans would be a challenge. But I would like to hope that, within the Community, there are enough fair-minded, patient ones with the interactive skills to do the job.
Something to think about
Marc
On 22/02/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
(A) "Scarlet Letter" abuse. Users clearing/archiving warnings that they've already seen, or clearing off bad-faith tagging such as "suspected sockpuppet" tags or "warning" templates placed by abusive users trying to harass another user (usually claiming that a difference of opinion on a content matter is "vandalism), are routinely targeted by administrators. The goal of both abusive users and administrators is to rile the editor up. This is deliberate provocation, completely incivil, and all too common - yet it is regularly given a free pass by the administrator community.
If I put a warning tag on a user talk page, it's because that user has done something meriting a warning, not to "rile the editor up". They should not be removed because they serve as a notice to other administrators that this user has a history of negative behavior. Tags placed in bad faith can be dealt with like any other abuse.
This issue has come up before. Admins should be smart enough to check the talk page history.
Administrators need to understand: BLOCKING SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET THEM MAD. It is an action that is agressive and adversarial. No matter what the temperament of the user, they will feel angry over this. They are likely to leave a message that lashes out in anger at whoever did it, PARTICULARLY if it is not justified within the rules or they already feel picked-upon by the admin or his/her cronies.
The fact that a block gets someone MAD does not justify further abuse, and the talk page should not be used to give a troll a soapbox to attack people.
In an ideal world, it would be better to calm things down before a block if possible.
That said, if someone is clearly being a dick, that's of course a different matter.
- d.
<snip>
Administrators need to understand: BLOCKING SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET THEM
MAD. It is an action that is agressive and adversarial. No matter what
the
temperament of the user, they will feel angry over this. They are
likely to
leave a message that lashes out in anger at whoever did it,
PARTICULARLY if
it is not justified within the rules or they already feel picked-upon
by the
admin or his/her cronies.
The fact that a block gets someone MAD does not justify further abuse, and the talk page should not be used to give a troll a soapbox to attack people.
In an ideal world, it would be better to calm things down before a block if possible.
That said, if someone is clearly being a dick, that's of course a different matter.
Every admin doing something abusive will claim they are dealing with a
"dick." Doesn't mean they are, nor does it mean the admin isn't just as guilty of being one.
Rob wrote:
On 2/21/07, Parker Peters wrote:
Ideally? I'd like for administrators not to do the things that cause problems. But that's not likely.
Ideally, you would stop viewing every administrative action as resulting from a malicious abuse of power. But that's not likely.
Parker did not speak of "every" administrative action. Reading that into what he says is dishonest.
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big deal. However, the bar for losing adminship is nearly impossibly high. If Adminship were not a big deal, the ever-growing requirements for it would not be ever-growing. But they are.
I agree that we should probably treat adminship as a more of a big deal. But I don't worry about "abusive" admins, not to protect my own "power" ("you'll have to pry my mop from my cold dead fingers!") but because we already have ArbCom to deal with the worst offenders. Given that I don't see nearly every admin as malicious and abusive, I think that this is a sufficent remedy. No malicious admin can prevent an abused user from bringing a matter before them.
Again no-one else is trying to distort the argument into being one about "every admin" How much ArbCom can realistically consider is limited by the time that its members have available. If you see ArbCom as dealing with the "worst offenders" this is a serious drift from the original intention of ArbCom. May I remind you that it was originally established to diminish the need for those being disciplined to appeal directly to Jimbo; it was an appelate function; its duties did not include a first instance determination of responsibility.
In theory, yes, anyone can bring a matter before ArbCom. In reality very few people in real life have the skills or understanding needed to bring a case before an appelate court. Your assertion assumes that everyone has the skills, and that new immigrants and babies have innate abilities to immediately grasp all the steps that must be followed to pursue a case. Your presumption that everyone approaches ArbCom as an equal fails on that basis.
(A) "Scarlet Letter" abuse. Users clearing/archiving warnings that they've already seen, or clearing off bad-faith tagging such as "suspected sockpuppet" tags or "warning" templates placed by abusive users trying to harass another user (usually claiming that a difference of opinion on a content matter is "vandalism), are routinely targeted by administrators. The goal of both abusive users and administrators is to rile the editor up. This is deliberate provocation, completely incivil, and all too common - yet it is regularly given a free pass by the administrator community.
If I put a warning tag on a user talk page, it's because that user has done something meriting a warning, not to "rile the editor up". They should not be removed because they serve as a notice to other administrators that this user has a history of negative behavior.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a person removing such a notice from his own talk page. If he removes it himself that is proof that he has seen it. The primary purpose of user talk pages is to communicate to that user; anything removed from the current page remains in the history of the page. There are plenty of other means for administrators to communicate with each other. Blocking someone because he has removed a warning tag from the current version of his own talk page is unequivocally abusive.
Administrators need to understand: BLOCKING SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET THEM MAD. It is an action that is agressive and adversarial. No matter what the temperament of the user, they will feel angry over this. They are likely to leave a message that lashes out in anger at whoever did it, PARTICULARLY if it is not justified within the rules or they already feel picked-upon by the admin or his/her cronies.
The fact that a block gets someone MAD does not justify further abuse, and the talk page should not be used to give a troll a soapbox to attack people.
In an ideal world the wronged person should maintain the tranquility of a saint. Admins should learn to recognize when their own actions have angered a user and should restrain from further abuse that would have the effect of sending the user over the top. I expect admins to know better than to keep trolling those persons that they have already angered.
Ec
On 21/02/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big deal.
Nonsense. It's amazing (and, frankly, mystifying) to me how often this awfully poor logical conclusion comes up.
"Being a sysop is not a big thing, anyone can become one" is equivalent to saying "If you are judged unable to become a sysop, then, wow, you really must be two nuts short of a bolt".
The corollary is that if you do have your sysop bit removed, you are now being accused of, indeed, having a shortage of bolt-fasteners.
If we did hold sysops to some impossibly high standard - and, it should be pointed out, I personally see nothing wrong, and a great deal right, with holding Arbitrators and Stewards to this level, for instance - then, yes, being desysoped would not be such a big thing because people would fail the test all the time. But we don't, so it is, because they don't. See?
[Sorry for being annoyed at yet another faulty repetition of illogic.]
Yours,
On 2/22/07, James Forrester jdforrester@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/02/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a
big
deal.
Nonsense. It's amazing (and, frankly, mystifying) to me how often this awfully poor logical conclusion comes up.
"Being a sysop is not a big thing, anyone can become one" is equivalent to saying "If you are judged unable to become a sysop, then, wow, you really must be two nuts short of a bolt".
The corollary is that if you do have your sysop bit removed, you are now being accused of, indeed, having a shortage of bolt-fasteners.
If we did hold sysops to some impossibly high standard - and, it should be pointed out, I personally see nothing wrong, and a great deal right, with holding Arbitrators and Stewards to this level, for instance - then, yes, being desysoped would not be such a big thing because people would fail the test all the time. But we don't, so it is, because they don't. See?
[Sorry for being annoyed at yet another faulty repetition of illogic.]
James,
Not the case.
If we held the standard for entry fairly low, we'd have more sysops. Some of them, just like too many today, would probably get drunk on the power and start abusing it.
If it were taken away, BUT it hadn't been so hard to achieve in the first place, it would not be so much of a letdown. It's not an insult to say to someone, "Sorry, but this was an inappropriate usage; you're being stepped down. Feel free to reapply later when you feel you've corrected whatever caused this overstep."
Instead, being de-adminned right now is considered a huge deal. An admin has to go SO batshit over-insane to get de-sysopped that flagrant abuses, incivility, deliberate provocation of users, are seen as "alright" because there is a "shortage", we have "too few" admins, yadda yadda.
I'd much prefer the secondary case, where if an admin didn't make the cut, it was no big deal, because they could always apply later when they correct whatever's wrong and we didn't have to worry about needing to give that bit to someone, or worse keep the admin bit in the hands of someone who doesn't deserve it, "or things will be left undone."
Right now, with the bar set so high for entry, that's not the case; returning RFA members have been kept de-sysopped for such "crimes" as doing something over 6 months previous that another admin with an axe to grind disagreed with... which is also a problem of the cronyism inherent in the system.
Parker
James Forrester wrote:
On 21/02/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big deal.
Nonsense. It's amazing (and, frankly, mystifying) to me how often this awfully poor logical conclusion comes up.
"Being a sysop is not a big thing, anyone can become one" is equivalent to saying "If you are judged unable to become a sysop, then, wow, you really must be two nuts short of a bolt".
The corollary is that if you do have your sysop bit removed, you are now being accused of, indeed, having a shortage of bolt-fasteners.
If we did hold sysops to some impossibly high standard - and, it should be pointed out, I personally see nothing wrong, and a great deal right, with holding Arbitrators and Stewards to this level, for instance - then, yes, being desysoped would not be such a big thing because people would fail the test all the time. But we don't, so it is, because they don't. See?
[Sorry for being annoyed at yet another faulty repetition of illogic.]
Yours,
It's not quite that simple. It looks like your logic is true, but then that Parker's is true too.
Your logic: Having a Nobel prize is a big deal (hardly anyone has it); not having it is not a big deal. Being able to hear is not a big deal (almost everyone can); not being able to hear is a big deal.
Parker's logic: Being able to shape your tongue in a u-shape is not a big deal; not being able to do it is not a big deal either (it doesn't matter either way). Being happy in love is a big deal; being unhappy in love is a big deal too (it matters a lot, either way).
Your logic is based on how high the standard for X is. Parker's is based on how much X matters.
David
James Forrester wrote:
On 21/02/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big deal.
Nonsense. It's amazing (and, frankly, mystifying) to me how often this awfully poor logical conclusion comes up.
"Being a sysop is not a big thing, anyone can become one" is equivalent to saying "If you are judged unable to become a sysop, then, wow, you really must be two nuts short of a bolt".
The corollary is that if you do have your sysop bit removed, you are now being accused of, indeed, having a shortage of bolt-fasteners.
This analogy is excessively dramatic. When considering granting admin privileges one needs to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary. That someone has improperly used his sysop powers does not imply that he is mad. It would be more likely that it reflects poor social skills. In time he could again show evidence of better social skills
If we did hold sysops to some impossibly high standard - and, it should be pointed out, I personally see nothing wrong, and a great deal right, with holding Arbitrators and Stewards to this level, for instance - then, yes, being desysoped would not be such a big thing because people would fail the test all the time. But we don't, so it is, because they don't. See?
I see no problem holding a sysop to a higher standard than an ordinary user, and applying an even higher standard for bureaucrats and stewards.
Ec
On 23/02/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
This analogy is excessively dramatic. When considering granting admin privileges one needs to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
You haven't seen RFA lately then, I take it.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 23/02/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
This analogy is excessively dramatic. When considering granting admin privileges one needs to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
You haven't seen RFA lately then, I take it.
Has it improved? O:-)
Ec
Parker Peters wrote:
Ideally? I'd like for administrators not to do the things that cause problems. But that's not likely.
So here's a few thoughts/steps:
Thank you for the thoughtful consideration in this post.
#1 - Recognize that adminship, as it exists now, is a big deal.
If Adminship were not a big deal, then losing adminship would not be a big deal. However, the bar for losing adminship is nearly impossibly high. If Adminship were not a big deal, the ever-growing requirements for it would not be ever-growing. But they are.
Adminship is a big deal. It is a big deal because of the damage an administrator can do to the project. But it is also a big deal because of the control it gives an administrator: they have the ability to not only damage the project, but to cause major damage just to individual contributors at the drop of a hat, anyone with whom they have a disagreement... save for other administrators.
Then this could be solved by reducing the "big deal" that is in fact associated with adminship. Opening it up would do this.
#2 - Make it perfectly clear: administrators are NOT above the rules.
here is the biggest problem with wikipedia today. Administrators are free to do whatever they want. Any administrator can claim something is "trolling", and the rest of the administrators will pop their heads up to say "sure is" without really looking; again, if one administrator can claim something is "trolling" and wield their power, it makes it easier for the next one to as well.
Simply put the rules need to be enforced sternly against all, including admins.
#3 - Set clear-cut rules against the ongoing abuses of the system. ENFORCE THEM.
Good!
#4 - STOP Abusive usage of CheckUser
One of our worst items today is the CheckUser code: I wrote an email after seeing the output in one case, earlier.
CheckUser itself isn't a bad tool. Correctly used, it can distinguish with some relative certainty, though not absolute certainty, whether someone is sockpuppeting. This is useful.
OK
My solution would be: SEPARATION OF POWERS.
It's quite simple. The less power someone has, the less likely they are to be corrupt. The problem we have today is a bunch of people running around who are Judge, Jury, Executioner, Court Reporter, Appeals Court, King, Bishop, Whatever all thrown together in one neat little package. They have way too much power in one set of hands.
Someone who is a Bureaucrat should not be an Administrator. Someone who does CheckUser should not be an Administrator. Someone who is on ArbCom should not be an Administrator.
Preferably, they should Never Have Been administrators.
I don't think that this is workable. The listed sets of powers all include admin privileges. It could be impossible to do these jobs without admin powers. Certainly a person who has these higher duties should have an ability to use his regular admin privileges with restraint, and know when using them would compromise his decision making.
Ec
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
When someone else decides that what I have written isn't suitable for someone else's eyes - what else do you call it but censorship.
Editorial judgment.
It's what we do.
--Jimbo
Uh-oh, I can see the headlines now -
"Wikipedia founder favors censorship, calls it "editorial judgment"'
"Your company censored from Wikipedia? Wales is OK with that"
"The British government has learned that Jimmy Wales has sought significant quantities of censorship - from Africa"
:-)
Stan
Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net writes:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
When someone else decides that what I have written isn't suitable for someone else's eyes - what else do you call it but censorship.
Editorial judgment.
It's what we do.
--Jimbo
Uh-oh, I can see the headlines now -
"Wikipedia founder favors censorship, calls it "editorial judgment"'
"Your company censored from Wikipedia? Wales is OK with that"
"The British government has learned that Jimmy Wales has sought significant quantities of censorship - from Africa"
:-)
Stan
"There ought to be limits to freedom."
"One of the great things about Wikipedia articles is, sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."
"I know that the editors and the readers can coexist peacefully."
"This is an impressive crowd — the edits and the edit-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my admins."
"They want editors controlling articles editorially - like it's some kind of encyclopedia.
"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a vandalized main page."
And finally:
"Vandals never stop thinking about how to hurt Wikipedia, and neither do we."
On 2/20/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a vandalized main page."
um it's happened.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
It's a judgement call. I trust your judgement of the situation. This mailing list isn't the place for complaining about abusive admins, anyway.
My understanding was that when they are blocked they are told to come to this list if they want to take their complaint further. Is this wrong?
This would seem to account for the fact that most of these complaints are from people who had not previously participated in the mailing list. How else would we end up with them?
On 2/20/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
It's a judgement call. I trust your judgement of the situation. This mailing list isn't the place for complaining about abusive admins, anyway.
My understanding was that when they are blocked they are told to come to this list if they want to take their complaint further. Is this wrong?
This would seem to account for the fact that most of these complaints are from people who had not previously participated in the mailing list. How else would we end up with them?
If they're blocked the block messages tell them that they can appeal on their talk page or to the unblock-en-l mailing list, not wikien-l.
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 11:38:25 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
If they're blocked the block messages tell them that they can appeal on their talk page or to the unblock-en-l mailing list, not wikien-l.
And if you think there's trolling on here, you just take a peek in that box! :o)
Guy (JzG)
On 2/20/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/02/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I'm with Oskar. If they call various administrators abusive they should be able to back that up.
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
Calling someone "abusive" is still an ad hominem statement. Rather than saying "Admin X is abusive!1!" the person should say "Admin X engaged in behaviour on Y page that seemed abusive to me, here's some diffs..."
On 20/02/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
Calling someone "abusive" is still an ad hominem statement. Rather than saying "Admin X is abusive!1!" the person should say "Admin X engaged in behaviour on Y page that seemed abusive to me, here's some diffs..."
wikien-l is to some extent an official channel for complaint. Starting unduly stroppy is generally forgivable.
But if the accusations are serious, list readers will reasonably expect details and diffs.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 20/02/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/20/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
Calling someone "abusive" is still an ad hominem statement. Rather than saying "Admin X is abusive!1!" the person should say "Admin X engaged in behaviour on Y page that seemed abusive to me, here's some diffs..."
wikien-l is to some extent an official channel for complaint. Starting unduly stroppy is generally forgivable.
But if the accusations are serious, list readers will reasonably expect details and diffs.
Sure, and it's understandable if this is missing from the initial complaint. If a listmember wants to take it further he can always ask those questions. Stonewalling the questions will do nothing to settle the problem.
Ec
On 2/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
wikien-l is to some extent an official channel for complaint. Starting unduly stroppy is generally forgivable.
But if the accusations are serious, list readers will reasonably expect details and diffs.
For the record, my approach is to allow a user's first post to be stroppy and ranty, and thereafter to expect them to calm down and act in an adult manner. I would accept this:
"It's frustrating to me how abusive some of the admins are, and how they get away with it. Have a look at this diff..."
but not this:
"All the admins are abusive, and get away with murder. Tom, Dick and Harry are the worst!"
The first is likely to lead to a productive discussion. The second is purely inflammatory and degrades the quality of this list.
Steve
Stephen Bain wrote:
Calling someone "abusive" is still an ad hominem statement. Rather than saying "Admin X is abusive!1!" the person should say...
Indeed he should. But this is also at the heart of one of the rather disturbing asymmetries in the admin/non-admin relationship.
When a non-admin engaged in a petty dispute complains about some of the things being said about him in that dispute, he's often told, in so many words, not to take it so personally, to get a thicker skin, that Wikipedia can be a harsh place, that if he can't stand the heat this kitchen might not be the place for him.
But when a non-admin engaged in a petty dispute with an admin calls the admin "abusive", or in a moment of anger refers to the admin's revertions of the non-admin's petty edits as "vandalism", he's apt to be blocked for this abuse.
Steve Summit wrote:
Stephen Bain wrote:
Calling someone "abusive" is still an ad hominem statement. Rather than saying "Admin X is abusive!1!" the person should say...
Indeed he should. But this is also at the heart of one of the rather disturbing asymmetries in the admin/non-admin relationship.
Absolutely. It's in the nature of holding superior power not to see that one is so much more powerful.
When a non-admin engaged in a petty dispute complains about some of the things being said about him in that dispute, he's often told, in so many words, not to take it so personally, to get a thicker skin, that Wikipedia can be a harsh place, that if he can't stand the heat this kitchen might not be the place for him.
But when a non-admin engaged in a petty dispute with an admin calls the admin "abusive", or in a moment of anger refers to the admin's revertions of the non-admin's petty edits as "vandalism", he's apt to be blocked for this abuse.
Even more important is the unwillingness of an admin to enter into a dialogue. Perhaps the point was discussed two years ago, but the present editor was not part of that discussion which may now be buried deep in the archives. The arguments may seem repetitious to the admin, but they are entirely new to the editor. The question then becomes how do we respect the views of a new person about an issue which was previously considered to be long closed.
"Abuse of power", which may be what is often meant by "admin abuse", means taking advantage of your superior power, status or experience as the basis for winning a difference of opinion. Admins have friends in the Project; without them they would not be admins. They can easily call on an available friend to add the extra power needed to win an argument; some would even see that as abusive. The non-admin may not have had the time to develop a circle of friends, and is easily frustrated by the tactics of the admins; he easily falls afoul of established rules that he does not understand. He comes here looking for an advocate who could perhaps mediate the problem. We do have a mediation system (I think), but he may not be fully aware of how it operates.
Steve is talking about systemic issues, and systemic issues are only rarely imposed systematically. Inequalities of power are systemic because mos people who abuse such powers do not realize that they are doing so, and will honestly deny that it is happening.
Ec
On 2/20/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/02/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I'm with Oskar. If they call various administrators abusive they should
be
able to back that up. Of course, the smarter response is to talk it out with the admin in
question
so it doesn't come to such accusations.
Mgm
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
If you get to the point where you need to ask the list if you should have moderated the message, you should send it to the list. Sending a message saying that you considered moderation because of its tone may be appropriate.
I.e., when in doubt, err on the side of transparency.
We're not children here; we can take the random annoying message.
On 20/02/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
If you get to the point where you need to ask the list if you should have moderated the message, you should send it to the list. Sending a message saying that you considered moderation because of its tone may be appropriate. I.e., when in doubt, err on the side of transparency. We're not children here; we can take the random annoying message.
This is pretty much how it works. The moderation is basically to keep the level of utter crap down to manageable levels.
(We're back to having new members start moderated. It was nice while it lasted.)
- d.
On 2/20/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/02/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
If you get to the point where you need to ask the list if you should
have
moderated the message, you should send it to the list. Sending a message saying that you considered moderation because of its tone may be appropriate. I.e., when in doubt, err on the side of transparency. We're not children here; we can take the random annoying message.
This is pretty much how it works. The moderation is basically to keep the level of utter crap down to manageable levels.
(We're back to having new members start moderated. It was nice while it lasted.)
And the reasoning is why, precisely?
Oh, right. To make the echo chamber worse.
==== Parker Peters http://parkerpeters.livejournal.com
Mark Ryan wrote:
On 20/02/07, MacGyverMagic wrote:
I'm with Oskar. If they call various administrators abusive they should be able to back that up. Of course, the smarter response is to talk it out with the admin in question so it doesn't come to such accusations.
Mgm
Ah, but the emails in question contained diffs which they claimed shewed that the administrators in question were "abusive". Should those have been let through?
For me it's clearly yes. The diffs are a key positive factor.
Simply calling an admin abusive should not be a serious factor, nor should failing to discern the subtlety between an abusive admin and an abusive action. I think that very few people would make that distinction. Relevance is more important. A claim of admin abuse is specifically about what the admin does in Wikipedia, and is thus relevant. If the claimant enters into all manner of claims about the admin's personal morals, paternity or sexual preferences that would clearly be beyond our control, and would fail the relevance test.
Ec
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:24:01 +0900, "Mark Ryan" ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
This is in response to my rejection of two emails, both of which I considered to contain personal attacks because they called various administrators 'abusive' etc. What are the thoughts of subscribers to the list on this? What would the appropriate course of action have been?
The mods of this list are conservative in their interpretation, allowing people the benefit of the doubt long after some of us have written them off as a bad job. I join the small chorus backing your sound judgment on this.
For my money, a properly stated case against an admin from an editor with a history and a decent reputation is never a problem. The vast majority of complaints about admin behaviour are generic "rouge admin abuse" crap and can safely be ignored, especially if they can't bring themselves to state it in a civil manner. Sounds like this lot fails on both levels.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
For my money, a properly stated case against an admin from an editor with a history and a decent reputation is never a problem. The vast majority of complaints about admin behaviour are generic "rouge admin abuse" crap and can safely be ignored, especially if they can't bring themselves to state it in a civil manner. Sounds like this lot fails on both levels.
An editor with a history and decent reputation knows the ropes, and that alone helps to keep him out of trouble. There are exceptions, as the recent complaints by Waerth have shown. His complaints about how Thai open proxies are blocked made sense, but his presentation of the problem and abuse of those who wanted to help was abrasive and disinclined most people from trying to help him
The others probably don't know what they have at their disposal, and need to be taught. One starts with the presumption that the claim is valid, even if 95% of those claims turn out to be completely unfounded. We can't really judge the validity of a claim without investigating more deeply.
Some claimants are grossly abusive and offensive. This goes well beyond simple claims of admin abuse, or the occasional cuss word. This should receive a personal response from the moderator asking the claimant to tone down his comment, and restate his complaint in a more civil manner. The mederator could even promise that if he does that he will let the revised complaint move onto the list. The moderator makes no comment whatsoever about the merits of the claim; doing so would compromise his neutrality. The moderator can let the claimant know that list members are free to take up advocacy or not for the claim, and that it is not uncommon to wait for up to 48 hours before there is any reply.
Once a complaint has reached the list it is up to the interested list members to ask for diffs or other missing information. A very common missing bit of information is the person's own user name, without which nothing can be done with the complaint.
Assuming the complainant gets the message about how to civilly present his case, arguments can be made against excessive e-mails or persistent whining, but it is difficult to establish clear criteria about these because the tolerance of list members varies considerably. Again though, the moderator must avoid getting himself into the middle of a fight that has nothing to do with him.
Ec
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:41:56 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
(apologies for non-trimmed top posting)
Ray, I subscribe to unblock-en-l. The really gross cases, I simply don't read. I'm not capable of extending good faith so some of those people, so I leave them alone. I *know* some cases are valid even though they are stated in obnoxious terms and often by obnoxious people. One who was unblocked under a month ago is now in front of ArbCom; the unblock was probably valid but I'd not have unblocked. The thing is, though, we don't need those cases here. Here, we discuss things which might actually be broken. Admins blocking abusive trolls is not broken. I trust the mods to sort out the abusive trolls from the simply rude and obnoxious, I then apply my own filters to the rude and obnoxious. Overall, the mods are doing just fine. Either the seriously batshit cases don't post here, like they do to the unblock list, or they are being modded, and actually I don't care which.
Guy
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
For my money, a properly stated case against an admin from an editor with a history and a decent reputation is never a problem. The vast majority of complaints about admin behaviour are generic "rouge admin abuse" crap and can safely be ignored, especially if they can't bring themselves to state it in a civil manner. Sounds like this lot fails on both levels.
An editor with a history and decent reputation knows the ropes, and that alone helps to keep him out of trouble. There are exceptions, as the recent complaints by Waerth have shown. His complaints about how Thai open proxies are blocked made sense, but his presentation of the problem and abuse of those who wanted to help was abrasive and disinclined most people from trying to help him
The others probably don't know what they have at their disposal, and need to be taught. One starts with the presumption that the claim is valid, even if 95% of those claims turn out to be completely unfounded. We can't really judge the validity of a claim without investigating more deeply.
Some claimants are grossly abusive and offensive. This goes well beyond simple claims of admin abuse, or the occasional cuss word. This should receive a personal response from the moderator asking the claimant to tone down his comment, and restate his complaint in a more civil manner. The mederator could even promise that if he does that he will let the revised complaint move onto the list. The moderator makes no comment whatsoever about the merits of the claim; doing so would compromise his neutrality. The moderator can let the claimant know that list members are free to take up advocacy or not for the claim, and that it is not uncommon to wait for up to 48 hours before there is any reply.
Once a complaint has reached the list it is up to the interested list members to ask for diffs or other missing information. A very common missing bit of information is the person's own user name, without which nothing can be done with the complaint.
Assuming the complainant gets the message about how to civilly present his case, arguments can be made against excessive e-mails or persistent whining, but it is difficult to establish clear criteria about these because the tolerance of list members varies considerably. Again though, the moderator must avoid getting himself into the middle of a fight that has nothing to do with him.
Ec
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Guy (JzG)
Mark Ryan wrote:
For transparency, the moderated user "countpointercount" has the following message for subscribers to the mailing list:
'Your "moderators" are now claiming that any reporting of abusive administrators is a "personal attack." This is obvious coverup behavior.'
This is in response to my rejection of two emails, both of which I considered to contain personal attacks because they called various administrators 'abusive' etc. What are the thoughts of subscribers to the list on this? What would the appropriate course of action have been?
Having been cc'd on one of those rejected messages, I think you made the right decision.
I looked into the user in question, and he was being contentious and difficult on AIV within 30 minutes of creating his account. I'd give 10:1 odds that he's a sockpuppet doing the standard I'm-really-not-a-sockpuppet dance. His refusal to calm down and the stridency of his accusations aren't helping, either.
On the off chance that his he's really a well-meaning user, it seems to me that he doesn't have a lot invested in that account, and he's already gotten himself a bad reputation. If he's still following this list, I'd suggest that he just let this incident go and take a month's break from Wikipedia. Then when he has cooled down, he can start fresh with a new account. As long as he becomes a good contributor and behaves appropriately, nobody will know or care that he once got off on the wrong foot.
I know some people are concerned that this is censorship, and is blocking an avenue of appeal. If people are really worried about that, we could create another list where we try to sort the wheat from the chaff and talk down from the ledge people who are upset, legitimately or not. Something between an ombudsman, a help desk, and a therapist. I'd rather not see that traffic on this list, but I'm glad to serve on that other list.
William
On 2/20/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
I know some people are concerned that this is censorship, and is blocking an avenue of appeal. If people are really worried about that, we could create another list where we try to sort the wheat from the chaff and talk down from the ledge people who are upset, legitimately or not. Something between an ombudsman, a help desk, and a therapist. I'd rather not see that traffic on this list, but I'm glad to serve on that other list.
There's always unblock-en-l. As is probably the case with all of these lists, it's too easy for frequent respondents and readers on that list, myself included, to become jaded, so a little outside input and oversight would probably be welcome, in my opinion.
Most of the requests on there are pretty obvious, but some aren't.
-Luna
Luna wrote:
On 2/20/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
I know some people are concerned that this is censorship, and is blocking an avenue of appeal. If people are really worried about that, we could create another list where we try to sort the wheat from the chaff and talk down from the ledge people who are upset, legitimately or not. Something between an ombudsman, a help desk, and a therapist. I'd rather not see that traffic on this list, but I'm glad to serve on that other list.
There's always unblock-en-l. As is probably the case with all of these lists, it's too easy for frequent respondents and readers on that list, myself included, to become jaded, so a little outside input and oversight would probably be welcome, in my opinion.
Most of the requests on there are pretty obvious, but some aren't.
Just to follow up on this, I've been reading unblock-en-l for a month or so. My main impression is that it is a grinding and thankless job, and that the people working on it maintain an admirably fresh and polite tone with the bulk of the requests.
If I have more detailed suggestions or comments, where's the best place to discuss that?
Thanks,
Willliam
On 2/20/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Mark Ryan wrote:
For transparency, the moderated user "countpointercount" has the following message for subscribers to the mailing list:
'Your "moderators" are now claiming that any reporting of abusive administrators is a "personal attack." This is obvious coverup behavior.'
This is in response to my rejection of two emails, both of which I considered to contain personal attacks because they called various administrators 'abusive' etc. What are the thoughts of subscribers to the list on this? What would the appropriate course of action have been?
Having been cc'd on one of those rejected messages, I think you made the right decision.
I looked into the user in question, and he was being contentious and difficult on AIV within 30 minutes of creating his account. I'd give 10:1 odds that he's a sockpuppet doing the standard I'm-really-not-a-sockpuppet dance. His refusal to calm down and the stridency of his accusations aren't helping, either.
On the off chance that his he's really a well-meaning user, it seems to me that he doesn't have a lot invested in that account, and he's already gotten himself a bad reputation. If he's still following this list, I'd suggest that he just let this incident go and take a month's break from Wikipedia. Then when he has cooled down, he can start fresh with a new account. As long as he becomes a good contributor and behaves appropriately, nobody will know or care that he once got off on the wrong foot.
I know some people are concerned that this is censorship, and is blocking an avenue of appeal. If people are really worried about that, we could create another list where we try to sort the wheat from the chaff and talk down from the ledge people who are upset, legitimately or not. Something between an ombudsman, a help desk, and a therapist. I'd rather not see that traffic on this list, but I'm glad to serve on that other list.
William
Lie much?
"he was being contentious and difficult on AIV within 30 minutes of creating his account."
You mean, I spoke up on Adminstrator's Noticeboard (AIV?) about something I saw that I considered to be improper behavior: the deliberate provocation of a user, by an admin, conduct which would never have been countenanced were they not an admin, a Checkuser filed obviously as a fishing expedition, and obviously falsified results that could have no bearing on the case.
Coverup.
Hi, Samuel.
Samuel L Bronkowitz wrote:
Lie much?
Here we have an example of why you are unlikely to make any progress in this.
No, I don't lie much. I offered you advice on how to press your case; you rejected it out of hand. I gave my opinion in answer to a question asked, and you accuse me of lying. I'm not sure how I could be lying about my own opinion, but let that pass.
This isn't my job. I'm just an occasional volunteer editor, with no special perks, no special powers, and no personal acquaintance with anybody here. I have no obligation to deal with you just because you're in a lather. But I took the time to look into into your concern, because it's important to me that Wikipedia succeeds, and I think the move toward a caste system is one of the biggest risk factors right now. If that's not enough for you, that seems like your problem, not mine.
I'm not saying you are a sockpuppet; I'm just saying that's a reasonable conclusion to come to, and that your behavior fits the patterns that I'm familiar with. If you don't like that, perhaps you should try behaving differently.
"he was being contentious and difficult on AIV within 30 minutes of creating his account."
You mean, I spoke up on Adminstrator's Noticeboard (AIV?) about something I saw that I considered to be improper behavior: the deliberate provocation of a user, by an admin, conduct which would never have been countenanced were they not an admin, a Checkuser filed obviously as a fishing expedition, and obviously falsified results that could have no bearing on the case.
Coverup.
You're welcome to your interpretation of the events. I have mine.
Being accusatory and rude didn't appear to help you in your 7 entire hours on Wikipedia, and it's not doing much for me here. I would like to believe that you care about Wikipedia so deeply, but you've managed to convince me that you're one of the tiny minority of participants who is more invested in being upset and generating drama than in doing anything productive.
I could be entirely wrong, of course. But your behavior has persuaded me that it's not worth more time to find out. And I'd guess that's why you've seen so little response here from others as well.
So again, I'd suggest that you let this go and take a month off. If there really is a sinister cabal, it will still be here in 30 days, and you can uncover its machinations then. And hopefully you'll do it with a cool head and a kind word. The greatest friend to real conspiracies are the ranting conspiracy nuts, as they make it very difficult for more measured people to take the possibility of conspiracy seriously.
And if there isn't one, well, you can always come back and actually edit some articles.
Regards,
William
William Pietri wrote:
Hi, Samuel.
Samuel L Bronkowitz wrote:
Lie much?
Here we have an example of why you are unlikely to make any progress in this.
No, I don't lie much. I offered you advice on how to press your case; you rejected it out of hand. I gave my opinion in answer to a question asked, and you accuse me of lying. I'm not sure how I could be lying about my own opinion, but let that pass.
This isn't my job. I'm just an occasional volunteer editor, with no special perks, no special powers, and no personal acquaintance with anybody here. I have no obligation to deal with you just because you're in a lather. But I took the time to look into into your concern, because it's important to me that Wikipedia succeeds, and I think the move toward a caste system is one of the biggest risk factors right now. If that's not enough for you, that seems like your problem, not mine.
That's what most of us are. Some of us will try to look through all the rhetoric and accusations, and try to make sense of the situation, but it often ends up that the people we are trying to help do not make the job very easy.
Ec
On 2/20/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Mark Ryan wrote:
For transparency, the moderated user "countpointercount" has the following message for subscribers to the mailing list:
'Your "moderators" are now claiming that any reporting of abusive administrators is a "personal attack." This is obvious coverup behavior.'
This is in response to my rejection of two emails, both of which I considered to contain personal attacks because they called various administrators 'abusive' etc. What are the thoughts of subscribers to the list on this? What would the appropriate course of action have been?
Having been cc'd on one of those rejected messages, I think you made the right decision.
I've now seen one of them, and I'm convinced the decision was completely wrong: the diffs were both valid and exposed serious abusive behavior going on.
I looked into the user in question, and he was being contentious and
difficult on AIV within 30 minutes of creating his account.
{{fact}}
[[Diff Needed]]
I didn't see anything of the sort: what I did see is a user making a very legitimate question, and being attacked and railroaded through an abusive and quite possibly false CheckUser for his troubles.
I'd give
10:1 odds that he's a sockpuppet doing the standard I'm-really-not-a-sockpuppet dance. His refusal to calm down and the stridency of his accusations aren't helping, either.
The abject refusal of anyone to make any serious enquiry into his complaint, the ongoing abuse of his talk page when he tried to file for unblock, and the continual abusive tactics displayed by many administrators in trying to shut off further enquiry on the WP:ANI board aren't helping him to calm down, either. They're more proving his accusations had some truth behind them.
On the off chance that his he's really a well-meaning user, it seems to
me that he doesn't have a lot invested in that account, and he's already gotten himself a bad reputation.
You mean, he's already been attacked and his "reputation" meaninglessly blackened by people who will defend administrator behavior no matter how wrong they are.
If he's still following this list, I'd
suggest that he just let this incident go and take a month's break from Wikipedia. Then when he has cooled down, he can start fresh with a new account. As long as he becomes a good contributor and behaves
appropriately, nobody will know or care that he once got off on the
wrong foot.
Which means that he is blocked from participating in anything on WP:ANI or reporting bad behavior by administrators: a clever ruse to stop anyone from reporting administrators, given that administrators are given free reign of terror whilst anyone reporting them has to get past the wringer of accusations to even file a report.
I know some people are concerned that this is censorship, and is
blocking an avenue of appeal.
Yes, it is. There's no real controversy there: the behavior I'm seeing, from start to finish, has been administrators consistently doing their best to shut off legitimate complaints about the behavior of an administrator.
Why? Because if one administrator's actions can be questioned, they all can, and we have too many administrators here who are way too attached to their own power.
If people are really worried about that,
we could create another list where we try to sort the wheat from the chaff and talk down from the ledge people who are upset, legitimately or not. Something between an ombudsman, a help desk, and a therapist. I'd rather not see that traffic on this list, but I'm glad to serve on that other list.
William
The "other list" is called unblock-en-l, but it's a joke and serves not as a legitimate place of complaint, but a mere rubber stamp to certify the "godliness" of admins, no matter how abusive an action they take.
Parker
Parker Peters wrote:
The abject refusal of anyone to make any serious enquiry into his complaint, the ongoing abuse of his talk page when he tried to file for unblock, and the continual abusive tactics displayed by many administrators in trying to shut off further enquiry on the WP:ANI board aren't helping him to calm down, either. They're more proving his accusations had some truth behind them.
I think a point where we can agree is that I think many administrative and cleanup actions (not just blocks, but speedy deletions, regular deletions, and reverts) would go better if editors and admins were more patient with strong emotions, troublemaking, and the confusion of novices. In many cases, that could help people like "Samuel" to calm down, and it can keep people from turning into enemies. That's part of why I'd like to see more admins, so that each one has more time and more patience.
On the rest of it, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm open to being persuaded that the current admin system is prone to the sort of collusion and systemic bias that crops up regularly in police departments. But this isn't the case that will do it for me.
The "other list" is called unblock-en-l, but it's a joke and serves not as a legitimate place of complaint, but a mere rubber stamp to certify the "godliness" of admins, no matter how abusive an action they take.
When you (or anybody) write like this, I have to grit my teeth and make a strong effort to find the useful content that lies behind the contempt and acid words. If your goal is to get people to take your concerns seriously, there are more effective ways to go about things.
William
On 2/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Parker Peters wrote:
The abject refusal of anyone to make any serious enquiry into his
complaint,
the ongoing abuse of his talk page when he tried to file for unblock,
and
the continual abusive tactics displayed by many administrators in trying
to
shut off further enquiry on the WP:ANI board aren't helping him to calm down, either. They're more proving his accusations had some truth behind them.
I think a point where we can agree is that I think many administrative and cleanup actions (not just blocks, but speedy deletions, regular deletions, and reverts) would go better if editors and admins were more patient with strong emotions, troublemaking, and the confusion of novices.
The problem is, administrators are not so. The current crop of administrators are a bunch of hotheads, a provocative group who see any chance to do something to try to provoke a reaction as justified because they are the ones in power.
In many cases, that could help people like "Samuel" to calm down, and it can keep people from turning into enemies.
Instead, admins on wikipedia and on this list consistently have done nothing but the opposite. You've been doing your level best to turn every new editor that comes in, any editor that comes to try to say "this isn't right", into an enemy of wikipedia. And you're doing a very good job of it, because we have more and more enemies every day thanks to your efforts.
That's part of
why I'd like to see more admins, so that each one has more time and more patience.
Provided they actually showed patience, this would be a good thing, yes. However, every system option that's been proposed so far has looked more like a way for a group of admins to get more of their cronies made into admins, than an honest way to get an honest group of administrators who can enforce the rules fairly, neutrally, and remain calm and remember to treat people with respect.
On the rest of it, I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm open to
being persuaded that the current admin system is prone to the sort of collusion and systemic bias that crops up regularly in police departments. But this isn't the case that will do it for me.
This is precisely the case that shows it for me. Look at the sheer number of problem admins:
- The_Epopt abuses a user once.
- Steel359 follows up The_Epopt's action and makes a nasty, incivil comment, continues to try to provoke the user, blocks them, then locks the user page and talk page and personally removes an unblock request.
- Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington blocks a user, removes unblock request, locks the talk page, AND redirects the talk page elsewhere to make it that much harder to do a proper check.
- A completely innocent user, Miss Mondegreen, posts questions in regard to this abuse and the deliberate provocation by Steel359, and is accused of "trolling" and we see people calling for giving her a 6-month ban just for speaking up.
- Trebor Rowntree (now curiously an admin candidate despite plenty of poor behavior) abuses a user's talk page, removing unblock requests even though he's not an admin.
- Yamla/Ryulong connection: I've been doing some studying, and two admins, Yamla and Ryulong, are answering probably far more unblock requests than they should be, but since unblock declines aren't logged in an easy to check way, it's hard to get real statistics. Regardless, this probably doesn't help the situation, since their attitudes are rude at best.
- Regarding Jpgordon and the Checkuser, one of the few nice things about being an old admin is that I still have a few contacts (who will remain nameless for reasons you know well), and I've got the checkuser data myself.
Basis for a "probable" or "likely" check on CountPointercount and RunedChozo? Zero edit collision (never a revert to each other or anything). Possible IP address collision, but CountPointercount says he travels and the IP is at a large university which likely has an open wireless network, so that's no real proof either way. It would be easy enough to have CountPointercount just go somewhere else and log in to prove he travels, but that still has to get past people who are willing to falsify the results of a CheckUser.
Basis for a "probable" or "likely" check on PSPMario and RunedChozo: editing on two of the same articles (PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3). PSPMario reverts to RunedChozo's work on one occasion that I can find. Zero IP address connection. The edit in question is related to a popular webcomic/website (you may have heard of Penny Arcade?) and in regard to a debatably popular, or at least widely noted in the newsmedia, game console. We draw editors to these quite often, and claiming that PSPMario is a "sockpuppet" based on this revert is a real stretch, especially since Wikipedia's tools are specifically designed for things like reverts and copying back of older versions/sections of a page.
Basis for a "probable" or "likely" check on PSPMario and CountPointercount: the only possible confluence is that they both spoke up against the abusive treatment RunedChozo received at the hands of Steel359. No edit collision, no IP collision.
It's more likely that CountPointercount is a sockpuppet than PSPMario, and even that is unlikely, definitely not the basis for a "likely" finding in CheckUser.
JPGordon either misread the results or else deliberately wrote up his "likely" summary to get rid of users who were question the behavior of administrators, which is not a good thing. He likely didn't bother to run the question on PSPMario at all, which doesn't say much for competence. I'm willing to assume it was incompetence rather than malice for now, on his part.
JKelly's indefinite block of CountPointercount can be excused on the basis of "following orders" since JPGordon's bad checkuser was listed and Trebor and "Ex-Nintendo Employee" were agitating to try to get everyone they possibly can banned.
So yes, I'd say this has all the hallmarks of police dept-style corruption, based on everything - all truthful - that I've just listed.
The_Epopt's involvement may explain why the arbitration committee members are so curiously unwilling to respond to emails requesting that this be written up as a case, and why administrators were so quickly trying to "archive" it and otherwise quash investigation: they were probably easily afraid that any action to the contrary would mean Epopt, or one of his cronies, starting up an arbcom case to try to remove their own admin status.
Parker
On 22/02/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
- Regarding Jpgordon and the Checkuser, one of the few nice things about
being an old admin is that I still have a few contacts (who will remain nameless for reasons you know well), and I've got the checkuser data myself.
CheckUser queries are logged. The only administrator to look at the CheckUser data of all three users you mention is Jpgordon, the very administrator whose CheckUser actions/results you criticise.
So, unless you're in bed with a developer, I think it's safe to assume you're lying.
~Mark Ryan
Check for yourself then.
Parker
On 2/21/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/02/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
- Regarding Jpgordon and the Checkuser, one of the few nice things about
being an old admin is that I still have a few contacts (who will remain nameless for reasons you know well), and I've got the checkuser data
myself.
CheckUser queries are logged. The only administrator to look at the CheckUser data of all three users you mention is Jpgordon, the very administrator whose CheckUser actions/results you criticise.
So, unless you're in bed with a developer, I think it's safe to assume you're lying.
~Mark Ryan
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 22/02/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/02/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
- Regarding Jpgordon and the Checkuser, one of the few nice things about
being an old admin is that I still have a few contacts (who will remain nameless for reasons you know well), and I've got the checkuser data myself.
CheckUser queries are logged. The only administrator to look at the CheckUser data of all three users you mention is Jpgordon, the very administrator whose CheckUser actions/results you criticise.
So, unless you're in bed with a developer, I think it's safe to assume you're lying.
You know, Mark, I find that it's far more fun to let people tie themselves up in their increasingly-convoluted lies before calling them on them. Tsk, tsk. ;-)
Yours,
On 2/22/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
CheckUser queries are logged. The only administrator to look at the CheckUser data of all three users you mention is Jpgordon, the very administrator whose CheckUser actions/results you criticise.
So, unless you're in bed with a developer, I think it's safe to assume you're lying.
~Mark Ryan
When do we get to the point that we don't allow this shit anymore on wikien? Putting up with all of this makes it way more tiresome than it should be to be to read the list.
--Oskar
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Oskar Sigvardsson stated for the record:
On 2/22/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
CheckUser queries are logged. The only administrator to look at the CheckUser data of all three users you mention is Jpgordon, the very administrator whose CheckUser actions/results you criticise.
So, unless you're in bed with a developer, I think it's safe to assume you're lying.
~Mark Ryan
When do we get to the point that we don't allow this shit anymore on wikien? Putting up with all of this makes it way more tiresome than it should be to be to read the list.
--Oskar
I gotta disagree, Oskar. Watching Peter's increasing loony lies pile up is one of more amusing parts of reading this list.
- -- Sean Barrett | In America, anyone can be President. sean@epoptic.com | That's one of the risks you take.
On 22/02/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/22/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
CheckUser queries are logged. The only administrator to look at the CheckUser data of all three users you mention is Jpgordon, the very administrator whose CheckUser actions/results you criticise. So, unless you're in bed with a developer, I think it's safe to assume you're lying.
When do we get to the point that we don't allow this shit anymore on wikien? Putting up with all of this makes it way more tiresome than it should be to be to read the list.
Put it this way: more than me has thought he's more than one of the recent posters with a remarkably low evidence:invective ratio.
The poster in question is no longer completely useless to the list. I think we're slowly training him to write things that are relevant talking points concerning the project.
I fear that's all we can really do. The fundamental problem is that, as long as email addresses are free, it's impossible to keep someone entirely off the list without getting really drastic and screening just about all messages. And that would in fact make a conceptually-moderated list, which would be a failure as a list. wikien-l has to be open, as Wikipedia has to be open.
Heck, I don't want that job as a listmod. I just want to clear the spam and help people who can't work the Mailman interface and so forth, and boot out troublemakers only as needed.
As the mailing list for a wiki, readers have to have some of the tolerance to stupidity they need to have to work on the wiki itself. Just as working productively with *complete idiots* is pretty much mandatory on the wiki, putting up with this shit to some degree is hard to avoid here.
- d.
on 2/22/07 2:07 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Put it this way: more than me has thought he's more than one of the recent posters with a remarkably low evidence:invective ratio.
The poster in question is no longer completely useless to the list. I think we're slowly training him to write things that are relevant talking points concerning the project.
I fear that's all we can really do. The fundamental problem is that, as long as email addresses are free, it's impossible to keep someone entirely off the list without getting really drastic and screening just about all messages. And that would in fact make a conceptually-moderated list, which would be a failure as a list. wikien-l has to be open, as Wikipedia has to be open.
Heck, I don't want that job as a listmod. I just want to clear the spam and help people who can't work the Mailman interface and so forth, and boot out troublemakers only as needed.
As the mailing list for a wiki, readers have to have some of the tolerance to stupidity they need to have to work on the wiki itself. Just as working productively with *complete idiots* is pretty much mandatory on the wiki, putting up with this shit to some degree is hard to avoid here.
David,
Extremely well put! You helped me a great deal when I first came to the List. It was my first experience posting to any such list, and I didn't even know where to place, or how to format, my messages. Now, to some people's annoyance, I can focus on the substance ;-). You are a part of the chemo that will hold back the cancer in the culture.
Marc Riddell
On 22/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Extremely well put! You helped me a great deal when I first came to the List. It was my first experience posting to any such list, and I didn't even know where to place, or how to format, my messages. Now, to some people's annoyance, I can focus on the substance ;-). You are a part of the chemo that will hold back the cancer in the culture.
You mean, I make people horribly sick and their hair fall out, but IT'S ALL FOR THEIR OWN GOOD?
Exxxxxxxxxxxxcellent!
- d.
On 22/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Extremely well put! You helped me a great deal when I first came to the List. It was my first experience posting to any such list, and I didn't even know where to place, or how to format, my messages. Now, to some people's annoyance, I can focus on the substance ;-). You are a part of the chemo that will hold back the cancer in the culture.
on 2/22/07 4:11 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
You mean, I make people horribly sick and their hair fall out, but IT'S ALL FOR THEIR OWN GOOD?
Exxxxxxxxxxxxcellent!
I couldn't say cure for the cancer (which is, of course, what I meant) because someone would chastise me for not sighting my sources.
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 2/22/07 4:28 PM, Marc Riddell at michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
sighting my sources.
"sighting" my sources!?!
This is an excellent example of why a writer needs an editor!
Not at all, you just need to pat yourself on the back for an effective metaphor and play on words. :-)
Ec
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 2/22/07 4:28 PM, Marc Riddell at michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
sighting my sources.
"sighting" my sources!?!
This is an excellent example of why a writer needs an editor!
on 2/23/07 4:07 AM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Not at all, you just need to pat yourself on the back for an effective metaphor and play on words. :-)
Ec
Ray,
Thanks for the save ;-) - I'll take it! :-)
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
On 22/02/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Extremely well put! You helped me a great deal when I first came to the List. It was my first experience posting to any such list, and I didn't even know where to place, or how to format, my messages. Now, to some people's annoyance, I can focus on the substance ;-). You are a part of the chemo that will hold back the cancer in the culture.
on 2/22/07 4:11 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
You mean, I make people horribly sick and their hair fall out, but IT'S ALL FOR THEIR OWN GOOD?
Exxxxxxxxxxxxcellent!
I couldn't say cure for the cancer (which is, of course, what I meant) because someone would chastise me for not sighting my sources.
Well phrased! Chemo is a treatment with such general application that it fails to focus. Other more focused treatments depend much more on accurately sighting and siting the source of the problem.
Ec
On 2/22/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote: <snip>
As the mailing list for a wiki, readers have to have some of the tolerance to stupidity they need to have to work on the wiki itself. Just as working productively with *complete idiots* is pretty much mandatory on the wiki, putting up with this shit to some degree is hard to avoid here.
I guess you have some sort of point there, but you know what, I've had enough. I can't trust a single word he says and I can't be sure whether any of his policy suggestions are sincere or just ways to mess with us and waste our time. In my book, he has lost all credibility. I'm done reading his posts.
--Oskar
On 22/02/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I guess you have some sort of point there, but you know what, I've had enough. I can't trust a single word he says and I can't be sure whether any of his policy suggestions are sincere or just ways to mess with us and waste our time. In my book, he has lost all credibility. I'm done reading his posts.
Of course, this method works too ;-)
- d.
On 2/22/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Of course, this method works too ;-)
One has to be pragmatic ;-)
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
On 2/22/07, David Gerard wrote:
As the mailing list for a wiki, readers have to have some of the tolerance to stupidity they need to have to work on the wiki itself. Just as working productively with *complete idiots* is pretty much mandatory on the wiki, putting up with this shit to some degree is hard to avoid here.
I guess you have some sort of point there, but you know what, I've had enough. I can't trust a single word he says and I can't be sure whether any of his policy suggestions are sincere or just ways to mess with us and waste our time. In my book, he has lost all credibility. I'm done reading his posts.
The kind of piling on that I've seen in this thread against Parker is an obscenity that makes his faults mild by comparison. His ways of expressing himself leave much to be desired, but the reaction of some admins, the accusations of lying, the ridicule, the belittling, the lynch-mob mentality go far beyond anything that he could single-handedly do are absolutely sickening.
Try looking at his suggestions on their own merit, without regard to who is making them. Maybe some people find that they hit too close to home.
Ec
On 2/23/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The kind of piling on that I've seen in this thread against Parker is an obscenity that makes his faults mild by comparison. His ways of expressing himself leave much to be desired, but the reaction of some admins, the accusations of lying, the ridicule, the belittling, the lynch-mob mentality go far beyond anything that he could single-handedly do are absolutely sickening.
For what it's worth, a person doesn't actually have to *do* anything for them to be a nuisance on a mailing list. If someone's continued presence is an ongoing distraction and interruption, with little in return, eventually you have to admit that we're better off without them.
Steve
David Gerard wrote:
On 22/02/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/22/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
CheckUser queries are logged. The only administrator to look at the CheckUser data of all three users you mention is Jpgordon, the very administrator whose CheckUser actions/results you criticise. So, unless you're in bed with a developer, I think it's safe to assume you're lying.
When do we get to the point that we don't allow this shit anymore on wikien? Putting up with all of this makes it way more tiresome than it should be to be to read the list.
Put it this way: more than me has thought he's more than one of the recent posters with a remarkably low evidence:invective ratio.
The poster in question is no longer completely useless to the list. I think we're slowly training him to write things that are relevant talking points concerning the project.
I think he has improved. There are others whom I found strident when they first arrived, but who have since become more reasonable. The training of is slow; all it takes is patience.
I fear that's all we can really do. The fundamental problem is that, as long as email addresses are free, it's impossible to keep someone entirely off the list without getting really drastic and screening just about all messages. And that would in fact make a conceptually-moderated list, which would be a failure as a list. wikien-l has to be open, as Wikipedia has to be open.
Strongly agree.
On 2/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
When you (or anybody) write like this, I have to grit my teeth and make a strong effort to find the useful content that lies behind the contempt and acid words. If your goal is to get people to take your concerns seriously, there are more effective ways to go about things.
I think this essay on meta is relevant...
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_dick
From the essay...
"Being right about an issue does not mean you're not being a dick yourself! Dicks can be right — but they're still dicks; if there's something in what they say that is worth hearing, it goes unheard, because no one likes listening to dicks, no matter how right they are."
On 2/21/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
When you (or anybody) write like this, I have to grit my teeth and make a strong effort to find the useful content that lies behind the contempt and acid words. If your goal is to get people to take your concerns seriously, there are more effective ways to go about things.
I think this essay on meta is relevant...
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_dick
From the essay...
"Being right about an issue does not mean you're not being a dick yourself! Dicks can be right — but they're still dicks; if there's something in what they say that is worth hearing, it goes unheard, because no one likes listening to dicks, no matter how right they are."
If more administrators would pay attention to this in the first place, then we wouldn't have problems with abusive administrators.
The problem is, way too many administrators feel they are free to be dicks because of their position, and then kick other people around for responding in kind.
Parker Peters wrote:
On 2/21/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
When you (or anybody) write like this, I have to grit my teeth and make a strong effort to find the useful content that lies behind the contempt and acid words. If your goal is to get people to take your concerns seriously, there are more effective ways to go about things.
I think this essay on meta is relevant...
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_dick
From the essay...
"Being right about an issue does not mean you're not being a dick yourself! Dicks can be right — but they're still dicks; if there's something in what they say that is worth hearing, it goes unheard, because no one likes listening to dicks, no matter how right they are."
If more administrators would pay attention to this in the first place, then we wouldn't have problems with abusive administrators.
The problem is, way too many administrators feel they are free to be dicks because of their position, and then kick other people around for responding in kind.
Peter,
I think that you're over-stating the problem...not just in this post but in most of your posts. Yes, the ranks of the admins are not free from "dickism", and in a sense, any dickism is too much. But I am convinced that the vast majority of the admins are well-meaning, reasonable, conscientious contributors.
However, the more I think about the way interactions take place on Wikipedia, the more I am convinced that the asymmetry in power and experience between an admin and a typical editor results in vastly different perspectives on the same actions. What seems (and in fact is) reasonable to an admin or an experienced user, can seem to be (and in fact is) a demonstration of admin "dickism" to a newbie.
Without abandoning the effort to find and appropriately deal with the admins who have (for whatever reason) run amuck, let's admit that those admins are the minority.
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> >> > > If more administrators would pay attention to this in the first place, then > we wouldn't have problems with abusive administrators. > > The problem is, way too many administrators feel they are free to be dicks > because of their position, and then kick other people around for responding > in kind. > Peter,
I think that you're over-stating the problem...not just in this post but in most of your posts. Yes, the ranks of the admins are not free from "dickism", and in a sense, any dickism is too much. But I am convinced that the vast majority of the admins are well-meaning, reasonable, conscientious contributors.
However, the more I think about the way interactions take place on Wikipedia, the more I am convinced that the asymmetry in power and experience between an admin and a typical editor results in vastly different perspectives on the same actions. What seems (and in fact is) reasonable to an admin or an experienced user, can seem to be (and in fact is) a demonstration of admin "dickism" to a newbie.
Without abandoning the effort to find and appropriately deal with the admins who have (for whatever reason) run amuck, let's admit that those admins are the minority.
Sorry, but I can't agree with your assessment.
The problem admins may be in the minority. They may not be.
Some admins are perfectly fine one day and then absolute dicks the next; there ought to be a corrective mechanism of an admin being temporarily relieved of duty, both as a form of stress relief and yes, a punitive measure should an admin act like a dick.
Right now, there is no such mechanism, and quite the reverse, admins who behave like dicks are defended by other admins.
As for the "vastly different perspectives" thing, I've touched on a few things in a long email (which I don't think has gotten past the mod queue yet) that admins in general need to stop doing, because they are most definitely forms of dickery if not worse.
Anyways, my last painkiller dose is taken for the day, so I'm off to try to sleep.
Parker
Parker Peters wrote:
The problem admins may be in the minority. They may not be.
This is one place where your arguments seem to go off the rails. I think that the vast majority of admins keep away from all the contentious issues. They are content to narrowly restrict their edits to what may relate to one WikiProject.
Some admins are perfectly fine one day and then absolute dicks the next; there ought to be a corrective mechanism of an admin being temporarily relieved of duty, both as a form of stress relief and yes, a punitive measure should an admin act like a dick.
I prefer remedial actions rather than punitive. The part-time dicks are probably the ones that would be most amenable to a regime of strict but fair enforcement of a code for admin behaviour.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Parker Peters wrote:
The problem admins may be in the minority. They may not be.
This is one place where your arguments seem to go off the rails. I think that the vast majority of admins keep away from all the contentious issues. They are content to narrowly restrict their edits to what may relate to one WikiProject.
I tend to agree with you on this - the vast majority do go unnoticed. The problem children are the ones who repeatedly do the wrong thing, and never realize it because they're rewarded for their efforts. With no realistic dispute resolution process in place, and with the worst of the bunch being applauded when they act out of line because they have enough buddies to back 'em up, there's no recourse.
This is ongoing, it's not anything new or recent. There may not be a cabal, but there's something.
I prefer remedial actions rather than punitive. The part-time dicks are probably the ones that would be most amenable to a regime of strict but fair enforcement of a code for admin behaviour.
Yeah, but the part-time dicks aren't the problem.
-Jeff
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
However, the more I think about the way interactions take place on Wikipedia, the more I am convinced that the asymmetry in power and experience between an admin and a typical editor results in vastly different perspectives on the same actions. What seems (and in fact is) reasonable to an admin or an experienced user, can seem to be (and in fact is) a demonstration of admin "dickism" to a newbie.
This is pretty much the problem. To many newbies, admins represent the power elite, The Man, and not individual volunteers, thus they think nothing of subjecting them to abuse. Any response is seen as an abuse of power, even when the incident is relatively innocuous.
On 2/22/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
However, the more I think about the way interactions take place on Wikipedia, the more I am convinced that the asymmetry in power and experience between an admin and a typical editor results in vastly different perspectives on the same actions. What seems (and in fact is) reasonable to an admin or an experienced user, can seem to be (and in fact is) a demonstration of admin "dickism" to a newbie.
This is pretty much the problem. To many newbies, admins represent the power elite, The Man, and not individual volunteers, thus they think nothing of subjecting them to abuse. Any response is seen as an abuse of power, even when the incident is relatively innocuous.
Not true.
There are any number of admin actions I do not have any problem with. Blocking of actual vandals, or even whole vandal IP ranges when there's something like a GNAA assault going on, I understand and agree with.
What I have problems with are admins who are (A) stuck up, (B) over-egoed, (C) dickish, or (D) abusive. Admins who insult users, or who fail to properly sanction other users who are insulting someone, or go over the top blocking/banning one person while excusing horrid behavior on the part of others towards that person.
Again, to use a recent example, I'll pull up RunedChozo's block list ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:Ru...).
Perhaps this will help you understand what I'm getting at:
Block #1 - Blocked by Aecis for 24 hours, for getting involved in a pagemove problem. Related to Israel/Palestine and an ongoing news item at that time, so unsurprising that new users would show up to the article. Seemed to be a good faith move, and Aecis admits as much on talk page. No major controversy, though later users have claimed he had a "fight" with Aecis, which is a quite overblown way to characterize it.
Block # 2/3 - By William M. Connolley. Block for 24 hours, Connolley accidentally hit "indef", then fixed it. Later admins being abusive would construe this as two different blocks in their "summaries" of how many blocks RC had.
Block # 4: By Future Perfect at Sunrise. Block at the "urging" of a POV editor, looks like FP has connections to. Block done for a full three days, well beyond anything stated in process and policy.
Block # 5: William M. Connolley, another 3-day (far too long by policy) block for 3RR. By this point, RC is dealing with a major POV clique that has caused repeated problems for Wikipedia and regularly start fights on articles they think they "own", but only RC is being blocked, because said POV clique has the support of admins who are members of the clique.
Block # 6/7/8/9: by Tariqabjotu (member of the POV clique) and Tom Harrison (friend of Tariq). Tag-teaming multiple extensions of block, based on some rantings by other members of the POV clique. This would later be construed as four different blocks by users trying to attack RC.
Block # 10/11/12 by Asterion: this is where ZakuSage incident was going on, ZakuSage was caught wikistalking (record of report is still in history at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AZakuSage&diff=1032... concurred by Asterion. Blocked for 1 week (which was already overkill), extended to 2, then back to 1 when Asterion was caught abusively extending the block out of process. Later assailants would again claim this as "three" blocks.
Final series, # 13/14/15: Steel359, after insulting the user for reporting Sean Barrett/The_Epopt's abusive locking of user page, sits around haunting his edits all day until he can come up with an excuse. Yamla then extends the block when RC lashes out against Steel359's abuse: Steel359 then finishes off by slapping an abusive infinite block and for good measure, locks the talk page and abusively removes the unblock request from it.
Now, let's make a few things perfectly clear here:
FACT #1: I do not disagree that RunedChozo deserved to be blocked in any of these incidents.
FACT #2: HOWEVER, RunedChozo was not the only one at fault in any of these incidents. In each case of 3RR, or worse in the case of ZakuSage, there was another party who received no sanction. ZakuSage was caught wikistalking, and in normal cases a user targeted by a wikistalker is allowed a chance to calm down and treated fairly, but in RunedChozo's case there were admins with an agenda waiting to target him when he returned.
Likewise in the rest: meatpuppetry and POV cliques who regularly try to exercise ownership of articles related to Israel/Palestine and the Middle East do this sort of thing to new users regularly, but they for some reason get defended, because there are admins in their ranks, and that's not right. When RC was blocked for 3RR, there were other users playing edit-war games who should have been blocked for edit warring, yet this was not done, which taught them that they can get away with organized edit warring.
And the end result? You've made an enemy of RunedChozo, because it wasn't just Israel/Palestine articles where he was attacked, but the moment he tried to improve ANY portion of wikipedia, he was attacked.
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Parker Peters stated for the record:
Final series, # 13/14/15: Steel359, after insulting the user for reporting Sean Barrett/The_Epopt's abusive locking of user page ...
Wrong. I have /never/ locked any user page. Given this rather fundamental error of fact, one has to wonder what else you have gotten wrong . . . or are simply lying about.
- -- Sean Barrett | A thunder of jets in an open sky, sean@epoptic.com | A streak of gray and a cheerful "Hi!" | A loop, a whirl, a vertical climb, | And once again you know it's time....
No, you're right about that ONE thing. You just abusively put on a template that the original placer had taken off.
Steel359's the one who took it a step further by locking the page.
On 2/22/07, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
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Parker Peters stated for the record:
Final series, # 13/14/15: Steel359, after insulting the user for reporting Sean Barrett/The_Epopt's abusive locking of user page ...
Wrong. I have /never/ locked any user page. Given this rather fundamental error of fact, one has to wonder what else you have gotten wrong . . . or are simply lying about.
Sean Barrett | A thunder of jets in an open sky, sean@epoptic.com | A streak of gray and a cheerful "Hi!" | A loop, a whirl, a vertical climb, | And once again you know it's time.... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQFF3nEa/SVOiq2uhHMRApnPAJ4wow4SRmAZVLdqgrsAnEr7yYc5gQCgzRf+ MVL2JsJSN61ioY96xB8qGs0= =678U -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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Sean Barrett wrote:
Parker Peters stated for the record:
Final series, # 13/14/15: Steel359, after insulting the user for reporting Sean Barrett/The_Epopt's abusive locking of user page ...
Wrong. I have /never/ locked any user page. Given this rather fundamental error of fact, one has to wonder what else you have gotten wrong . . . or are simply lying about.
A simple error of fact does not justify an accuastion of lying.
Ec
Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com writes:
Parker Peters stated for the record:
Final series, # 13/14/15: Steel359, after insulting the user for reporting Sean Barrett/The_Epopt's abusive locking of user page ...
Wrong. I have /never/ locked any user page. Given this rather fundamental error of fact, one has to wonder what else you have gotten wrong . . . or are simply lying about.
-- Sean Barrett | A thunder of jets in an open sky,
Actually, it is incorrect to say never. You have. Last year, specifically, you protected a number of user and user talk pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=The+Epopt&page=
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Gwern Branwen stated for the record:
Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com writes:
Parker Peters stated for the record:
Final series, # 13/14/15: Steel359, after insulting the user for reporting Sean Barrett/The_Epopt's abusive locking of user page ...
Wrong. I have /never/ locked any user page. Given this rather fundamental error of fact, one has to wonder what else you have gotten wrong . . . or are simply lying about.
-- Sean Barrett | A thunder of jets in an open sky,
Actually, it is incorrect to say never. You have. Last year, specifically, you protected a number of user and user talk pages. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=protect&user=The+Epopt&page=
By Jove, you're right! I completely forgot about Irismeister and his permutations. I withdraw my early statement and apologize for any inconvenience I have caused by it.
- -- Sean Barrett | But now we are faced with a new and very troubling sean@epoptic.com | assault on our fiscal security, on our very | economic life and we are facing it from a thing | called the videocassette recorder. --MPAA (1982)
Parker Peters wrote:
There are any number of admin actions I do not have any problem with. Blocking of actual vandals, or even whole vandal IP ranges when there's something like a GNAA assault going on, I understand and agree with.
I don't think you're going to get much argument about this. There is wide support for this from all sides involved in this debate.
What I have problems with are admins who are (A) stuck up, (B) over-egoed, (C) dickish, or (D) abusive. Admins who insult users, or who fail to properly sanction other users who are insulting someone, or go over the top blocking/banning one person while excusing horrid behavior on the part of others towards that person.
This is the whole problem in a nutshell. Until this fact gets properly impressed on those who sanction this kind of behaviour there will be no end to this kind of ongoing argument.
I have not directly investigsated any of the specific allegations that Parker has made, and I don't intend to. Nor am I interested in whether this or that particular admin is behaving abusively. The generally poiaoned atmosphere that these zealots are instilling is more significant than any individual guilt. The point is that it shouldn't be happening at all.
Until we can find a way to deal seriously and severely with the behaviours that Parker mentioned we cannot hope to build the collaborative community that most of us profess to support. Those of us who have invested serious amounts of time in these projects, and have thought deeply about its underlying principles despair just as much over the actions of the petty tyrants as over the actions of the vandals.
Ec
on 2/23/07 12:26 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Until we can find a way to deal seriously and severely with the behaviours that Parker mentioned we cannot hope to build the collaborative community that most of us profess to support. Those of us who have invested serious amounts of time in these projects, and have thought deeply about its underlying principles despair just as much over the actions of the petty tyrants as over the actions of the vandals.
Ray,
There are ways to solve the problems you present to. Companies and other organizations are recognizing, confronting and dealing with them every day.
But, in the context of Wikipedia, this is a tough one. You and I and others in this Community can identify the problems, commiserate, gnash our teeth, and go through countless other fruitless gyrations. But without the power to make change nothing can or will. Unless change is recognized as needed - and mandated - by those with the ability to do so nothing can happen. We need leadership (with teeth).
Marc Riddell
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 2/23/07 12:26 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Until we can find a way to deal seriously and severely with the behaviours that Parker mentioned we cannot hope to build the collaborative community that most of us profess to support. Those of us who have invested serious amounts of time in these projects, and have thought deeply about its underlying principles despair just as much over the actions of the petty tyrants as over the actions of the vandals.
There are ways to solve the problems you present to. Companies and other organizations are recognizing, confronting and dealing with them every day.
But, in the context of Wikipedia, this is a tough one. You and I and others in this Community can identify the problems, commiserate, gnash our teeth, and go through countless other fruitless gyrations. But without the power to make change nothing can or will. Unless change is recognized as needed - and mandated - by those with the ability to do so nothing can happen. We need leadership (with teeth).
All we get from gnashing our teeth is broken dentures. :-(
Profit-making companies have some tools that we don't have, notably control over salary.
Acknowledging leadership is difficult in a community brought together because it is such a collection of individuals. The individuality is needed to keep the project innovative. Acknowledging leadership means giving up a little power for the greater good, but that requires trust. The world around us gives us cause to not trust any kind of leadership.
Ec
On 2/23/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 2/23/07 12:26 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Until we can find a way to deal seriously and severely with the behaviours that Parker mentioned we cannot hope to build the collaborative community that most of us profess to support. Those of us who have invested serious amounts of time in these projects, and have thought deeply about its underlying principles despair just as much over the actions of the petty tyrants as over the actions of the vandals.
There are ways to solve the problems you present to. Companies and other organizations are recognizing, confronting and dealing with them every day.
But, in the context of Wikipedia, this is a tough one. You and I and others in this Community can identify the problems, commiserate, gnash our teeth, and go through countless other fruitless gyrations. But without the power to make change nothing can or will. Unless change is recognized as needed - and mandated - by those with the ability to do so nothing can happen. We need leadership (with teeth).
All we get from gnashing our teeth is broken dentures. :-(
Profit-making companies have some tools that we don't have, notably control over salary.
Acknowledging leadership is difficult in a community brought together because it is such a collection of individuals. The individuality is needed to keep the project innovative. Acknowledging leadership means giving up a little power for the greater good, but that requires trust. The world around us gives us cause to not trust any kind of leadership.
Ec
It's not quite that bad - volunteer organizations work like this all the time.
Wikipedia is very young, evolving very fast, and virtual (not people meeting and working in real life together), all of which make it harder.
But things do work out.
on 2/23/07 9:32 PM, George Herbert at george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia is very young, evolving very fast, and virtual (not people meeting and working in real life together), all of which make it harder.
But things do work out.
George,
And I honestly believe they will eventually work out here.
And the medium (which is also relatively young) is a challenge to productive group interaction. But an exciting one!
Marc
on 2/23/07 9:14 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Acknowledging leadership is difficult in a community brought together because it is such a collection of individuals. The individuality is needed to keep the project innovative. Acknowledging leadership means giving up a little power for the greater good, but that requires trust. The world around us gives us cause to not trust any kind of leadership.
Ray,
Talk is no substitute for action, but in a rational society it must exist as a prelude to it.
I came to Wikipedia for the information it provided I stayed because of the people behind it. When you first open it, it¹s like taking a book off the shelf; if you look behind the pages you can see a whole life force in action. This life force consists of people and these people have pride, intelligence and monumental egos (for the most part, healthy ones but egos nonetheless). In post after post I read of these egos colliding. This, in itself, is certainly not the problem if, ultimately, some good comes from it. The problem becomes one, when these collisions result in nothing but name-calling and impasse.
But, as I have said before, there must be a common acknowledgement (yes, consensus) that such problems exist.
I believe there is an acknowledgment of leadership within WP. And, from what I¹ve gathered from various posts, that leadership does have the majority of the Community¹s trust. We need that someone with this trust (and, yes, clout) to say, ³OK gang, there¹s trouble in paradise and we need to deal with it before it starts to resemble that other place.²
I am not suggesting anyone dropped a ball here simply that it is time to acknowledge it and to pick it up.
Yes, it is very hard to build a case in support of the need for leadership, living in the world that we do. As a people we have come up with some real losers! These leaders [insert your own example] have proven more destructive to their people than any enemy could ever have been. But every once in a while a [insert your own example] comes along and proves the great exception to that rule.
Marc Riddell
On 22/02/07, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
However, the more I think about the way interactions take place on Wikipedia, the more I am convinced that the asymmetry in power and experience between an admin and a typical editor results in vastly different perspectives on the same actions. What seems (and in fact is) reasonable to an admin or an experienced user, can seem to be (and in fact is) a demonstration of admin "dickism" to a newbie.
This is pretty much the problem. To many newbies, admins represent the power elite, The Man, and not individual volunteers, thus they think nothing of subjecting them to abuse. Any response is seen as an abuse of power, even when the incident is relatively innocuous.
Yeah. Being an admin is to some degree a public relations role and can in fact require the patience of a saint on-call. (I am myself highly imperfect at this.)
- d.
Rob wrote:
On 2/21/07, Rich Holton wrote:
However, the more I think about the way interactions take place on Wikipedia, the more I am convinced that the asymmetry in power and experience between an admin and a typical editor results in vastly different perspectives on the same actions. What seems (and in fact is) reasonable to an admin or an experienced user, can seem to be (and in fact is) a demonstration of admin "dickism" to a newbie.
This is pretty much the problem. To many newbies, admins represent the power elite, The Man, and not individual volunteers, thus they think nothing of subjecting them to abuse. Any response is seen as an abuse of power, even when the incident is relatively innocuous.
You can't be accused of lacking in self-righteousness, or of not having a flair for the melodramatic.
Ec