On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:31:16 -0500, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
I stand corrected. In any event the point- removal of an edit by a banned user is distinct from the original claim and in any event is not "quiet".
Not to mention that, in this case, the original link removal was done by another banned user, so anybody truly following a policy of "revert all links by banned users" would need to go back to the version before any of the trolling sockpuppets got to it... which happens to be the version that includes the link. Selectively reverting one of the banned users may suit an ideology that says that the link is bad, but don't pretend it's a simple enforcement of the policy on banned users.
See David's reponse to this. The fact hat Will seemed to maintain well after the fact that this was still a problem and the fact that Tony, Mongo and Thuranx continued to push for some form of BADSITES means that it wasn't nearly as much a strawman or as dead as it should have been.
Not to mention that, as recently as the ArbCom case on attack sites, an admin (ElinorD) attempted to suppress commentary that included a link to Making Light:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration... rkshop&diff=next&oldid=160118695
It's clear that abuse of the pseudo-policy on "attack sites" did not end with the failure of BADSITES or the apology of BeBack on the Making Light issue.
Dan Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:44:11 -0500, "Daniel R. Tobias" dan@tobias.name wrote:
I stand corrected. In any event the point- removal of an edit by a banned user is distinct from the original claim and in any event is not "quiet".
Not to mention that, in this case, the original link removal was done by another banned user, so anybody truly following a policy of "revert all links by banned users" would need to go back to the version before any of the trolling sockpuppets got to it... which happens to be the version that includes the link. Selectively reverting one of the banned users may suit an ideology that says that the link is bad, but don't pretend it's a simple enforcement of the policy on banned users.
No, Dan, that is not really fair. The sockpuppet that replaced the link was identified almost immediately as such, having gone to some lengths to ensure that would happen; the sock who removed it was only identified as a sock a week later.
What is absolutely clear here - *absolutely* clear - is that we were deliberately trolled by Wikipedia Review. And a major part of the success of that trolling was: you, I'm afraid. Your consistent and persistent assertion that any removal of any link was necessarily BADSITES, the fact that even now you are raising BADSITES despite numerous attempts by others to move on from that, this is what makes a silly mistake into a drama. As Jayjg noted above, it's the reinsertion as ZOMG! CENSORSHIP! NO BADSITES! that usually starts the whole festival of stupid.
Jayjg characterises BADSITES as a very effective strawman. This is spot in, I think. And you've been one of the people most obviously taken in by that.
Not many of us are guilt free here, of course. But some of us are engaged in trying to make actual progress and a workable guideline (nothing, of course, can be proof against the well-intentioned but clueless or the determined abuser). You, on the other hand, still seem to be standing there shouting "And another thing!" after the departing crowd.
This is, of course, a slight exaggeration for the sake of picturesque language, but only a very slight exaggeration. Why not just sit back for a week and see what emerges on the various talk pages, now that we're finally nailing some of the more disruptive single-purpose and sockpuppet accounts?
Guy (JzG)
On 11/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
What is absolutely clear here - *absolutely* clear - is that we were deliberately trolled by Wikipedia Review. And a major part of the success of that trolling was: you, I'm afraid. Your consistent and persistent assertion that any removal of any link was necessarily BADSITES, the fact that even now you are raising BADSITES despite numerous attempts by others to move on from that, this is what makes a silly mistake into a drama. As Jayjg noted above, it's the reinsertion as ZOMG! CENSORSHIP! NO BADSITES! that usually starts the whole festival of stupid.
Well, yeah: the only thing that makes it controversial, obviously, is the controversy, for which it takes two to tango. Please accept 50% of the blame.
As for why *I* didn't put the text or link in (since after all I was the one who put in the timeline that was the context for all this): It' because I felt-- and still feel-- that you cannot be trusted.
By "you" I mean all the admins on the side of erasing these links. Based upon threats I received in earlier rounds, I assumed that if I provided citations for the timeline, one of them would take advantage of the lapse and block/ban me. I gave enough information to find the referenced material, in case someone wanted to check up on it or read the material for themselves, so the lack of actual links wasn't an issue for me anyway, though the irony of not being able to provide them was not lost on me at all. If someone wanted to link to them, that was fine by me; without sufficient references, accusations about what is on websites are hearsay and of no real merit, and I had no problem with the links being there. So if one of the targets/victims of administrative wrath wanted to take up a new account and put the links in, I didn't (and still do not) care. The other side of the coin is that your faction was blatantly trying to keep people from evaluating the matter for themselves, to the point where the WR "trolls" could hardly err in accusing you of a cover-up!
And the flip side is that Will Beback was approximately as guilty of trolling in that specific case. I mean, hell, if you can attribute motives, so can I: I can concoct a theory of how dredging up a deeply buried 3 week old blog comment was really s scheme to rile up the BADSITES opponents and discredit them. Upon turning down the paranoia to a more realistic level, I contend that he was absolutely guilty of dragging an off-Wiki spat with TNH back into WIkipedia.
One of the things you seem to miss, Guy, is that I (and I'm pretty sure that Dan holds the same opinion) don't really care about the running vendetta between Wikipedia Review and and The Cabal. At least, not as to the issues behind it. The thing that's annoying us is that The Vendetta keeps causing collateral damage in other parts of Wikipedia that don't have anything to do with the topics that started the whole rucus. It is the basis of the tactic of avoiding confronting the abstract principles of the matter by stirring up controversy about the "trolls" whenever one of those principles comes to the fore of the discussion. The various detractors keep getting hit with personal attacks (in this case, the insinuation that Dan is too thick to catch on the Real Motives) which keep shifting around when previous versions (e.g. the more forthright but equally dubious claim that Dan and I are partisans specifically acting as defenders of WR itself) become to obviously implausible.
To my mind, this business of "having" to know the history of the conflict is the root of the problem. If the history has to be known, then the whole thing is about institutionalizing the conflict even to the point of collateral damage. I think the issue would go away entirely if the history were compeltely forgotten.
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:53:37 -0500, "The Mangoe" the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
One of the things you seem to miss, Guy, is that I (and I'm pretty sure that Dan holds the same opinion) don't really care about the running vendetta between Wikipedia Review and and The Cabal. At least, not as to the issues behind it. The thing that's annoying us is that The Vendetta keeps causing collateral damage in other parts of Wikipedia that don't have anything to do with the topics that started the whole rucus.
I have to correct a fundamental misconception here. The cabal (TINC) has no vendetta. The admin community has a job to do, and that job includes protecting editors from being harassed and threatened, protecting Wikipedia form being vandalised and protecting the content from being biased by people aggressively pushing an agenda.
The "vendetta" you describe is nothing more than a small group of individuals frustrated in their attempts to do one of those things that admins must stop them from doing.
Nobody held a gun to JB196's head and forced him to create over 500 sockpuppets, vandalise hundreds of articles, subvert an admin and pursue a vendetta against Wikipedia in general. That was his choice. Our choice was that we were not interested in being the venue for his self-promotion. It wasn't a very difficult choice to make, this was not a controversial ban. Neither was the ban of Judd Bagley. Bagley threatened to harass the admin who stopped him pushing his employer's agenda, and made good on that threat. If you look at ASM you'll see that he has threatened and harassed many people. This is not specific to Wikipedia, it is simply a function of how important it is to the abusers to get their agenda published on Wikipedia.
You've also missed another crucial point, which is that having taken opposite positions for most of the debate, David Gerard and I are actively collaborating on writing a Clue-based guideline to avoid the trivial mistakes which triggered the acute over-reaction which triggered the massive festivals of Stupid in which we all (and here I am certainly not excluding myself) took part. Hopefully we can also write it to avoid the hysterical over-reactions as well.
And I know full well that some participants in that debate will ascribe the hysteria only to their opponents. They are the ones who are *most* wrong and probably most to blame.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/23/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I have to correct a fundamental misconception here. The cabal (TINC) has no vendetta. The admin community has a job to do, and that job includes protecting editors from being harassed and threatened, protecting Wikipedia form being vandalised and protecting the content from being biased by people aggressively pushing an agenda.
All of those are more or less noble goals, but it can be argued as to how they interact with the ultimate intent of the project. The point that Dan T. and I have made over and over is that the zeal in pursuing these people is itself disruptive and has resulted in a string of incidents where the admins have acted contrary to the interests of the *encyclopedia* in their deference to (some, maybe most) of its contributors.
What you call a misconception, I call a failure on your part to see some parts of the picture. Indeed, a great deal of the heat produced whenever someone tries to reintroduce BADSITES comes from two inevitable responses from the adminstrator/Cabal faction. Inevitably ED and WR are brought up, and inevitably someone in The Cabal insinuates if not states that one of the opponents is working for those sites. For those of us who came in after the original MONGO case, it seems absurdly disproportionate. Stomping out Jon Aubrey's accounts is one thing. A quick tour through some of them leads me to the conclusion that one needs to rule against multiple identities to justify banning them. What is more striking is what appears to me to be an inability or refusal to distinguish between "erroneous" positions and the way they are presented. Anyone who appears and argues against BADSITES is presumed by The Cabal of having a *political* relationship to the WR/ED people and is thus attacked for who they are presumed to be. My feeling is that if the WR people appear in disguise and present reasonable arguments, I don't care who they are; and if the admins make dubious arguments, I don't care that they are admins. Heck, if Joe Freshman makes a good argument on his first edit in Wikipedia, that's fine with me too. But instead, the perniciousness with which the assumption of association with Certain Bad Guys leads me to conclude that there is a vendetta, even if those pursuing it don't believe it.
Nobody held a gun to JB196's head and forced him to create over 500 sockpuppets, vandalise hundreds of articles, subvert an admin and pursue a vendetta against Wikipedia in general.
Well, and nobody put a gun to WIll Beback's head and made him vandalize every article using TNH as a reference either. Either way, the phrase "put a gun to his head" is excessive; and besides, as long as it's phrased in these "us vs. the lawless them", every kind of excess or for that matter self-serving abuse by admins is authorized. There are a lot of "thin blue line" dramas, and there are a lot of "cop gone bad" dramas too. If we can bring this back to earth and accept the possibility that Admins are tempted to be overzealous, and that groups of admins are tempted to informally form into a faction tempted into valuing self-defense over proportionality, I think the drama could be brought to an end.
Part of my perspective on this is that in being active on the internet back before it even existed as such, I've been put through a lot of invective. I accept that posting in public makes one a target, and I don't accept guarantees to anonymity to the degree that BADSITES proposed because they are promises that cannot be kept. It's already annoying enough to have POV-pushers and random jerks damaging the articles, that I also have to ride herd on the policy-cops damaging articles and discussions too.
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:52:49 -0500, "The Mangoe" the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
I have to correct a fundamental misconception here. The cabal (TINC) has no vendetta. The admin community has a job to do, and that job includes protecting editors from being harassed and threatened, protecting Wikipedia form being vandalised and protecting the content from being biased by people aggressively pushing an agenda.
All of those are more or less noble goals, but it can be argued as to how they interact with the ultimate intent of the project. The point that Dan T. and I have made over and over is that the zeal in pursuing these people is itself disruptive and has resulted in a string of incidents where the admins have acted contrary to the interests of the *encyclopedia* in their deference to (some, maybe most) of its contributors.
I don't think it's quite that simple.
For example:
* link added to article * link removed * discussion * consensus * link replaced
Or:
* link added to article * link removed * link reinserted "ZOMG! CENSORSHIP!" * link removed "ZOMG! ATTACK!" * (discussion starts) * link reinserted "ZOMG! CENSORSHIP!" * link removed "ZOMG! ATTACK!" : : : * link reinserted "ZOMG! CENSORSHIP!" * link removed "ZOMG! ATTACK!" * link reinserted "ZOMG! CENSORSHIP!" * link removed "ZOMG! ATTACK!" * consensus * link replaced * link removed "ZOMG! ATTACK!" * link reinserted "ZOMG! CENSORSHIP!"
etc. etc.
You see, I think it's the *internal argument* that's poisonous, not the argument with the idiots. The idiots just exploit our internal divisions, as trolls always do.
What you call a misconception, I call a failure on your part to see some parts of the picture.
- - -8<- - - - - -
Wait a minute. You are attributing all fault to one side here. A big part of the problem is also the absolute determination of a small number of people - the most prominent of whom are actually members of WR and ED - to protect the right to link to sites which just about everybody agrees are of negligible;e to zero value as sources for encyclopaedic content.
But this is beside the point. The point is, we have by now a pretty good idea of what actual consensus is, which is that we don't use crap sites as sources, we don't link to harassment in discussions, we sit down and talk rather than edit war. That's what's happening in the discussion at WP:LINKLOVE right now.
Nobody held a gun to JB196's head and forced him to create over 500 sockpuppets, vandalise hundreds of articles, subvert an admin and pursue a vendetta against Wikipedia in general.
Well, and nobody put a gun to WIll Beback's head and made him vandalize every article using TNH as a reference either.
You what?
Either way, the phrase "put a gun to his head" is excessive; and besides, as long as it's phrased in these "us vs. the lawless them", every kind of excess or for that matter self-serving abuse by admins is authorized. There are a lot of "thin blue line" dramas, and there are a lot of "cop gone bad" dramas too. If we can bring this back to earth and accept the possibility that Admins are tempted to be overzealous, and that groups of admins are tempted to informally form into a faction tempted into valuing self-defense over proportionality, I think the drama could be brought to an end.
Er, but it *is* us versus the lawless them. They are banned, but they keep coming back and vandalising Wikipedia.
Part of my perspective on this is that in being active on the internet back before it even existed as such, I've been put through a lot of invective. I accept that posting in public makes one a target, and I don't accept guarantees to anonymity to the degree that BADSITES proposed because they are promises that cannot be kept. It's already annoying enough to have POV-pushers and random jerks damaging the articles, that I also have to ride herd on the policy-cops damaging articles and discussions too.
I was running internet seminars in 1995, which was pretty early in the UK's net use.
But you are concerned about a problem that essentially does not exist. The number of articles from which attack site links were improperly removed is, as far as I can make out, below 5. Which is, what, one quarter of one thousandth of one percent of all articles? If only all our problems were that small!
It's a very small problem, and it's very easily solved, using the tried and tested [[WP:BRD]] model. Rather than the [[WP:BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR and argue endlessly]] model which seems to have prevailed more recently.
Guy (JzG)
JzG wrote:
But this is beside the point. The point is, we have by now a pretty good idea of what actual consensus is, which is that we don't use crap sites as sources, we don't link to harassment in discussions, we sit down and talk rather than edit war.
Um: yes, no, yes.
On Nov 23, 2007 5:16 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Wait a minute. You are attributing all fault to one side here. A big part of the problem is also the absolute determination of a small number of people - the most prominent of whom are actually members of WR and ED - to protect the right to link to sites which just about everybody agrees are of negligible;e to zero value as sources for encyclopaedic content.
Must we recapitulate this? It is certainly true that Dan T. and I have accounts on WR, and that Dan is still moderately active there (I am not, as I tired of having to wade through Jon Aubrey's fake incoherence to find anything worth reading, much less responding to). We would never have looked at WR in the first place if the controversy hadn't arisen, since we would not have needed to confirm that the erasures were legitimate (and in the case I was monitoring, it manifestly wasn't).
Encyclopedic content is where you find it, so I have no truck with a whole-site assessment. Even openly hostile sites such as WR are potentially the source of useful material. There's a lto more that could be said, and we've said it many times, and come to about the same end each time. But the seeming consensus around LIKELOVE has nonetheless been undercut by MONGO going in and putting much the same old verbiage into NPA.
Well, and nobody put a gun to WIll Beback's head and made him vandalize every article using TNH as a reference either.
You what?
Come now. I cannot believe you are unaware that one round of this was initiated by Will Beback erasing links to 21 articles referencing Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blog because it was an "attack site" (i.e., there was a one line comment giving his supposed real name).
Er, but it *is* us versus the lawless them. They are banned, but they keep coming back and vandalising Wikipedia.
The problem is that the "them" in this case consists of anyone who criticizes Wikipedia and doesn't play by Wikipedia's rules in doing so. One can only expect that such sites are going to criticize Wikipedia by their own standards, both for research and composition, and for conduct.
I can understand that the core WR group is pestilential. Overreaction against them, however, simply advances their cause.
I was running internet seminars in 1995, which was pretty early in the UK's net use.
I go back to usenet around 1985.
But you are concerned about a problem that essentially does not exist. The number of articles from which attack site links were improperly removed is, as far as I can make out, below 5. Which is, what, one quarter of one thousandth of one percent of all articles? If only all our problems were that small!
Twenty-one is not five, and that's just the one incident. Nobody really knows how many "legitimate" links to WR were erased because I don't think anyone went to the trouble of checking all of DennyColt's changes and recording what they found (and certainly not the many erasures that have been made more recently). And really, all problems involving any given editor or even admin are small, on that scale. Even Jon Aubrey is a small problem, on that scale.
It's a very small problem, and it's very easily solved, using the tried and tested [[WP:BRD]] model. Rather than the [[WP:BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR and argue endlessly]] model which seems to have prevailed more recently.
Don't you mean the "Bold/argue/rest-for-some-months/Bold-again" formula? I dunno: perhaps the WP:LINKLOVE formula will work. But it isn't going to work if someone comes along every few months and tries to but BADSITES back into NPA.