-----Original Message----- From: William Pietri [mailto:william@scissor.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 1, 2007 08:35 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator flameout: Naconkantari
Fred Bauder wrote:
The warning signs were when the Arbitration Committee decided that continual agitation was just "free speech". We all know the users who have taken the lead. The precipitating event is at:
Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Kelly Martin 4
So after reading that and rummaging, I've got a couple of questions.
It seems like Naconkantari had recently taken some heat for too-vigorous blocking. Then he blocked several people on the RFC you link to above, shortly before the RFC was deleted. Doc Glasgow, one of the people blocked, offers this as an explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
Yes, I see it, the above link leads to a rather plain exchange which sets forth the essence of the problem we face. The bad guys are winning. And further down there is a call to punish those who try to do something about it.
Fred
Thanks,
William
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Fred Bauder wrote:
Yes, I see it, the above link leads to a rather plain exchange which sets forth the essence of the problem we face. The bad guys are winning. And further down there is a call to punish those who try to do something about it.
The irony here is that people are only noticing the "bad guys are winning" NOW? There's a vocal number of us who have been asserting as such with evidence for months now, if not longer, and somehow *this* sets off a switch?
The bad guys aren't just winning, Fred, they're in control of these situations already, which is why we keep seeing these same problems flare up.
-Jeff
On Tue, 1 May 2007 12:59:44 -0400 (EDT), "Jeff Raymond" jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
The bad guys aren't just winning, Fred, they're in control of these situations already, which is why we keep seeing these same problems flare up.
Jeff, I have to take issue with this. I suspect that you are talking about a different kind of "bad guys" from Fred, and also I have a problem with your approach to fixing your version of the problem, which is to make trouble for the janitors rather than trying to educate those who work at the firehose of crap, and get jaded, and tag articles they should not.
You sit, as you know, at the far extreme of inclusionism. Over the last couple of months you have begun to display exactly the same burnout symptoms, presumably because of the number of people who find your tireless advocacy of articles which in many cases genuinely are junk, to be tiresome. This makes you unpopular. You weathered that with some success for a long time, but you seem to be losing your equanimity.
Of course I could be wrong, and you could be referring to the same kind of bad guys, users like Giano who abuse their supporters by repeatedly and quite deliberately overstepping the mark. We have real challenges exemplified in the various Balkan articles, the agenda of people like Vintagekits who intends to write a hagiography of every IRA member to have been "martyred for the cause" and so on. But actually for the most part it kind of hangs together still. As long as those of us who remain committed to the project can bury our differences and stand shoulder to shoulder when the POV pushers, trolls and spammers attack, rather than bickering among themselves and letting them apply divide and conquer.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
Jeff, I have to take issue with this. I suspect that you are talking about a different kind of "bad guys" from Fred, and also I have a problem with your approach to fixing your version of the problem, which is to make trouble for the janitors rather than trying to educate those who work at the firehose of crap, and get jaded, and tag articles they should not.
Full stop - this has nothing to do with inclusionism/exclusionism, actually. This has nothing to do with our broken deletion processes or our unrealistic content policies. This is all about the topic at hand, and many of the players involved and on the periphiary of the situation. If I could name names without getting destroyed, I would, but this has nothing to do with content issues.
You sit, as you know, at the far extreme of inclusionism. Over the last couple of months you have begun to display exactly the same burnout symptoms, presumably because of the number of people who find your tireless advocacy of articles which in many cases genuinely are junk, to be tiresome. This makes you unpopular. You weathered that with some success for a long time, but you seem to be losing your equanimity.
I don't believe I had it to begin with, and at some point, you're right, you stop caring. But if you're truly concerned about the problem you brought up, which is separate from the problem that I was discussing, I'd appreciate people being part of the solution, and not adding to the problem.
That last sentence may be the only link between my own personal Wikipedia issues and the one that the subject line refers to - we're too busy coddling the people who are adding to the problem (and Giano isn't the problem in the grand scheme of things, although he's not helping his case) instead of doing something to assist those who are looking for solutions.
But no, I'm not "burning out" - I'm just done with the bullshit. I think there's a difference, and if I were here to make friends, I'd "play nice" and sit happily in my "extremes" (another myth) while watching the walls crumble. That didn't work, so I alienate a few people for the good of the project. Ah well.
Maybe that's where Giano's at. But I'll say one thing - you want to increase the civility of this place? You want to stop this same run around? There's less than a dozen people who, if you ousted them tomorrow, these problems disappear. They, unfortunately, are a protected class, however, and won't be going anywhere. So we'll just have to sit and watch other people flame out until the rest of you wake up.
-Jeff
On 5/1/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Maybe that's where Giano's at. But I'll say one thing - you want to increase the civility of this place? You want to stop this same run around? There's less than a dozen people who, if you ousted them tomorrow, these problems disappear. They, unfortunately, are a protected class, however, and won't be going anywhere. So we'll just have to sit and watch other people flame out until the rest of you wake up.
a) How do you select these less than a dozen people? Will everyone - or even a good solid supermajority - agree with you? b) If you ousted the dozen worst troublemakers on the project - by whoever's definition - you also lose a bunch of their friends and a bunch of other people who would be pissed off by such an action. How do you handle that? Do you just write it off as the costs of fixing the place?
-Matt
meatball:Goodbye http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?GoodBye. http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?GoodBye
On 5/1/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/1/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Maybe that's where Giano's at. But I'll say one thing - you want to increase the civility of this place? You want to stop this same run around? There's less than a dozen people who, if you ousted them tomorrow, these problems disappear. They, unfortunately, are a
protected
class, however, and won't be going anywhere. So we'll just have to sit and watch other people flame out until the rest of you wake up.
a) How do you select these less than a dozen people? Will everyone - or even a good solid supermajority - agree with you? b) If you ousted the dozen worst troublemakers on the project - by whoever's definition - you also lose a bunch of their friends and a bunch of other people who would be pissed off by such an action. How do you handle that? Do you just write it off as the costs of fixing the place?
-Matt
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Matthew Brown wrote:
a) How do you select these less than a dozen people? Will everyone - or even a good solid supermajority - agree with you?
I think most of them would be clear to most people. On most, I think a good solid supermajority would agree we'd be better off without them, but there's no realistic way to guage it.
b) If you ousted the dozen worst troublemakers on the project - by whoever's definition - you also lose a bunch of their friends and a bunch of other people who would be pissed off by such an action. How do you handle that? Do you just write it off as the costs of fixing the place?
Absolutely a worthwhile cost. Chances are, if they'd leave because we lost such cancers, they weren't really all that worth having around to begin with.
-Jeff
The trouble there is, everyone has a different definition of who the "troublemakers" are that we "need to lose". I'd not be surprised if I'm on your list, Jeff. I wouldn't say you are-your views may be unpopular, and sometimes you do go a bit overboard in defending them, but we've probably all been guilty of that at one point or another.
Yes, some people are damn fine editors, but pretty blunt. You get that type of thing when you work on a collaborative project. Maybe I've got a thicker skin than most, but I can certainly tolerate the occasional snippy remark from someone who really does know what the hell they're doing. On the other hand, if it gets to the point of harassment or running others off, that's where we've got to tell them "Stop it, leave, or get helped to leave," no matter how good they are. But there is no "one standard". If a brand-new editor made an edit that totally broke five tables in a list, they'd get a test1 and a revert. If you did that, I'd figure it for an honest mistake, and set about helping to fix them. That's just how it works.
If there was anyone I'd be first in line to run off, it would be article OWNers. That type of crap causes more needless trouble and headaches, and probably a higher percentage of ArbCom cases, than anything else. If you don't want anything you submit edited by anyone who damn well wants to, you're posting it in the wrong place.
Seraphimblade
On 5/1/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
a) How do you select these less than a dozen people? Will everyone - or even a good solid supermajority - agree with you?
I think most of them would be clear to most people. On most, I think a good solid supermajority would agree we'd be better off without them, but there's no realistic way to guage it.
b) If you ousted the dozen worst troublemakers on the project - by whoever's definition - you also lose a bunch of their friends and a bunch of other people who would be pissed off by such an action. How do you handle that? Do you just write it off as the costs of fixing the place?
Absolutely a worthwhile cost. Chances are, if they'd leave because we lost such cancers, they weren't really all that worth having around to begin with.
-Jeff
-- If you can read this, I'm not at home.
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One thing which both interests and concerns me:
Relatively new-ish admin, not only not in the usual cliques but to some degree unaware of them, blocks one of the principals in this tempest in a teapot for recent actions seen as uncivil. This is then responded to along the lines of just more fuel on the fire from the usual suspects.
Time out. If an uninvolved admin, who doesn't even KNOW about the cliques, feels that there were blocks warranted, maybe just maybe there's fire under all the smoke.
Naconkantari's flameout seems to have mistargeted and caused some secondary problems. But ... maybe we DO need to block everyone legitimately involved for 24 hrs next time.
Everyone outside all the cliques is treating clique insiders as too hot to handle. That's really bad. Everyone can make mistakes. If I go off on a tear and rampage around insulting people for a bit, and a random admin whacks me with a pay-attention block, I don't want friends from here or unblock-en-L unblocking me just because they know me.
Maybe if party X who has it in for party Y blocks Y, that's something worthy of closer review, but if uninvolved admin Z does it then let's let it all stand.
Very good points made, I do believe. There shouldn't be -anyone- untouchable. We should certainly forgive an occasional loss of temper, but for my part, if anyone (up to and including Jimbo) starts flaming the hell out of someone and won't quit after being warned, I'll happily block them. And if that person was indeed out of line, it would most certainly be my expectation that the block would be left alone.
Seraphimblade
On 5/1/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
One thing which both interests and concerns me:
Relatively new-ish admin, not only not in the usual cliques but to some degree unaware of them, blocks one of the principals in this tempest in a teapot for recent actions seen as uncivil. This is then responded to along the lines of just more fuel on the fire from the usual suspects.
Time out. If an uninvolved admin, who doesn't even KNOW about the cliques, feels that there were blocks warranted, maybe just maybe there's fire under all the smoke.
Naconkantari's flameout seems to have mistargeted and caused some secondary problems. But ... maybe we DO need to block everyone legitimately involved for 24 hrs next time.
Everyone outside all the cliques is treating clique insiders as too hot to handle. That's really bad. Everyone can make mistakes. If I go off on a tear and rampage around insulting people for a bit, and a random admin whacks me with a pay-attention block, I don't want friends from here or unblock-en-L unblocking me just because they know me.
Maybe if party X who has it in for party Y blocks Y, that's something worthy of closer review, but if uninvolved admin Z does it then let's let it all stand.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
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On 02/05/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Time out. If an uninvolved admin, who doesn't even KNOW about the cliques, feels that there were blocks warranted, maybe just maybe there's fire under all the smoke. Naconkantari's flameout seems to have mistargeted and caused some secondary problems. But ... maybe we DO need to block everyone legitimately involved for 24 hrs next time. Everyone outside all the cliques is treating clique insiders as too hot to handle. That's really bad. Everyone can make mistakes. If I go off on a tear and rampage around insulting people for a bit, and a random admin whacks me with a pay-attention block, I don't want friends from here or unblock-en-L unblocking me just because they know me.
I've emailed the arbcom pointing out precisely this, and that they in fact made the mess by completely fumbling it late last year: they expressly gave one editor a free pass for vicious personal attacks and expressly marked another editor as fair game henceforth. Ignoring it hasn't made it go away.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 02/05/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Time out. If an uninvolved admin, who doesn't even KNOW about the cliques, feels that there were blocks warranted, maybe just maybe there's fire under all the smoke. Naconkantari's flameout seems to have mistargeted and caused some secondary problems. But ... maybe we DO need to block everyone legitimately involved for 24 hrs next time. Everyone outside all the cliques is treating clique insiders as too hot to handle. That's really bad. Everyone can make mistakes. If I go off on a tear and rampage around insulting people for a bit, and a random admin whacks me with a pay-attention block, I don't want friends from here or unblock-en-L unblocking me just because they know me.
I've emailed the arbcom pointing out precisely this, and that they in fact made the mess by completely fumbling it late last year: they expressly gave one editor a free pass for vicious personal attacks and expressly marked another editor as fair game henceforth. Ignoring it hasn't made it go away.
- d.
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Yes, and I speak as one of those blocked here.
I've no quarrel with Naconkantari blocking me, he was trying to make the best of a bad situation. It was foolhardy, but noble.
The problem was one editor was trolling. I removed the trolling. And that editor kept re-inserting it. We edit-warred over it. Normally, we'd simply have blocked the trolling user for a while - but he's got arbcom diplomatic immunity for that. If you block him, then you are under the microscope - and doubtless you will be guilty of some IRC conspiracy which will require your desysopping.
Naconkantari basically tried a wheeze: "If I can't block someone for trolling, maybe I can block him for edit warring". So he blocked the troll, me and two otherwise fairly uninvolved admins.
Someone called that 'equitable', yes it is - just as 'the sun shines on the righteous and the unrighteous alike'.
We live in interesting times:
Doc