Private Musings wrote: On Dec 4, 2007, at 1:07 AM, wikien-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
two journalists have contacted me to date concerning these events, and personally, whilst it may blow over, I feel there is a possibility of the story 'going mainstream' - our (your?) ability to react calmly, sensibly, and openly could be important - I'd consider it to be.
Funny, looks like you wrote the Slashdot.org article about it. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/0333252
-Swatjester
On 04/12/2007, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Private Musings wrote:
two journalists have contacted me to date concerning these events, and personally, whilst it may blow over, I
Funny, looks like you wrote the Slashdot.org article about it. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/0333252
I've booted this troll from the list as counterproductive for working on the encylopedia. I'm sure he can have lots of fun on WR.
- d.
On 12/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/12/2007, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Private Musings wrote:
two journalists have contacted me to date concerning these events, and personally, whilst it may blow over, I
Funny, looks like you wrote the Slashdot.org article about it. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/0333252
I've booted this troll from the list as counterproductive for working on the encylopedia. I'm sure he can have lots of fun on WR.
- d.
Eeek. I always wish we could make things just a little bit clearer that we're not, say, blocking, banning, or booting people just for saying bad things about us.
Obviously, those of us in the know about the PM situationr realize there's been far more involved than just somebody posting to Slashdot-- I just worry how it looks to people who aren't as in the know.
Alec
Well, I wouldn't expect that the article's going to win a Pulitzer. The article dramatically overstates things, but only to an extent. The Durova Secret List outrage is quite real-- poor Mercury got sixty straight oppose votes in less than six hours for reasons that had more to do with the secret list meta-issue than with him personally. The Register article makes it look like Wikipedia is burning, when really, we're doing fine.
That said, if I was the foundation PR peeps, I'd get a statement ready-- word on the street is that there's another story or two coming from higher up in the media food chain, and anything that would help the world understand that while this may well be a very big deal, it's not the biggest big deal in the world.
This secret list thing feeds into a bunch of different memes the media has about us-- that we're cliquish, unreliable, and amateurish. I wouldn't be shocked to see this story echo a few more times. Of course, Colbert has a writers strike to deal with, so-- that's a plus. :)
---
As far as the existence of stories LIKE this-- I actualy think it's comforting to see that Wikipedia isn't in a vacuum. We're the #1 content site on the internet-- our community can either manage it reponsibly, or else the outside world will call us on it, and the content will end up getting forked to someone who can. I for one sleep better knowing that there are those outside checks and balances.
I've always been a little bit worried in the back of my mind that Wikipedia is hierarchical, rather than totally open. Wikipedia isn't like the Internet or like the Web-- a small group of people can decide to delete something from Wikipedia, and it actually will get deleted. That is our gift, and our curse. It's both our strength and our Achilles' heel.
I've never seen any misteps from the upper echelons of Wikipedia. Except for small little thinkgs, we've always gotten it right. But I've always worried about what would happen if we started habitually getting it wrong. The fact that we have a monarch immediate beg the question-- what would happen if the monoarch went mad, or was hit by a bus, or whatever.
But, there is an outside world out there, watching over our shoulder, and if our community-system ever started failing the encyclopedia, I think the rest of the world would step in and correct us, or else fork us. That is a good thing.
Alec
On 04/12/2007, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
I've always been a little bit worried in the back of my mind that Wikipedia is hierarchical, rather than totally open.
I urge you to read 'The Tyranny of Structurelessness', which I find myself recommending here every few months:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html
Precis: Human form hierarchies naturally. If you try to suppress hierarchies from public view, they'll form out of your sight and come back to bite you in the arse.
(The paper posits votes on everything as a solution, though I've yet to see a voting procedure on Wikipedia other than the Board secret ballot that didn't turn into a lynch mob or a demonstration of "one idiot, one vote." And the Board secret ballot is getting some close questioning.)
- d.
I urge you to read 'The Tyranny of Structurelessness', which I find myself recommending here every few months:
I have read that, and it is thought provoking, and extremely appropriate for Wikipedia.
Precis: Human form hierarchies naturally.
I think a lot of the world's problems boil down to the fact that humans don't work quite right. We're built for the world of African savannah, not traveling to the moon or administering an information superhighway. There's still a few bugs in the system, but I wouldn't worry-- the planet will probably be releasing a major bugfix in a century or two.
If you try to suppress hierarchies from public view, they'll form out of your sight
A most timely observation, given the recent mailing list bruhaha. --
To come back to the task at hand-- I always wonder what wikipedia would look like if we had the right-to-fork at the article-level instead of the project level. Multiple versions of articles, some neutral, some argumentative, some simple, some complex, some verified, some speculative. Having "one official Wikipedia" article, sorta scares me-- the beauty of the internet is that you don't get just ONE of anything, you get the ALL.
Having other wikis out there is, of course, a safeguard-- if our "one" page becomes habitually not the best, people will instantly just go elsewhere. But it would be cool if could if we could somehow incorporate that sort of safeguard right into the Wikipedia system.
On the other hand, n different forks of the article would mean 1/n editors per article, so it's not as if our current system doesn't seem to be working extremely well.
Alec
On 04/12/2007, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
To come back to the task at hand-- I always wonder what wikipedia would look like if we had the right-to-fork at the article-level instead of the project level. Multiple versions of articles, some neutral, some argumentative, some simple, some complex, some verified, some speculative. Having "one official Wikipedia" article, sorta scares me-- the beauty of the internet is that you don't get just ONE of anything, you get the ALL.
http://wikinfo.org/ , Fred Bauder's fork, does this. Various articles from various POVs.
I think it's less useful to the reader than an NPOV article or attempt at such, though.
- d.
On 04/12/2007, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
To come back to the task at hand-- I always wonder what wikipedia would look like if we had the right-to-fork at the article-level instead of the project level. Multiple versions of articles, some neutral, some argumentative, some simple, some complex, some verified, some speculative. Having "one official Wikipedia" article, sorta scares me-- the beauty of the internet is that you don't get just ONE of anything, you get the ALL.
http://wikinfo.org/ , Fred Bauder's fork, does this. Various articles from various POVs.
I think it's less useful to the reader than an NPOV article or attempt at such, though.
- d.
The problem at Wikipedia is that whoever wins the editing battle gets to call their biased version NPOV.
Fred
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 09:42:30 -0500 (EST), "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
The problem at Wikipedia is that whoever wins the editing battle gets to call their biased version NPOV.
That's a little harsh. We *can*, on a good day, do a very good job indeed. But obviously there are areas where zealots drive all others away, and areas where opinion is so entrenched that new ideas are pretty close to impossible to float.
Guy (JzG)
Alec Conroy wrote:
.......
To come back to the task at hand-- I always wonder what wikipedia would look like if we had the right-to-fork at the article-level instead of the project level. Multiple versions of articles, some neutral, some argumentative, some simple, some complex, some verified, some speculative. Having "one official Wikipedia" article, sorta scares me-- the beauty of the internet is that you don't get just ONE of anything, you get the ALL. ....... Alec
*applaud* - wikiEssence, and include modding perhaps
On Dec 4, 2007 6:22 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html
Heh, great quote: "This means that to strive for a 'structureless' group is as useful and as deceptive, as to aim at an 'objective' news story". Did someone use this essay as a basis for how to design Wikipedia?
On 04/12/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Precis: Human form hierarchies naturally. If you try to suppress hierarchies from public view, they'll form out of your sight and come back to bite you in the arse.
I am fighting the urge to wave my hands around and say "case in point"!
Even with formal hierarchies, there are also informal ones--the "Kitchen Cabinet". As things develop with time and complexity, there become multiple overlapping layers of such groups. The various Open Meetings Laws in governmental organizations are an attempt to combat this tendency; I doubt they can ever really be successful. There will always be people gathering informally to come back and bite you.
On 12/4/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/12/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Precis: Human form hierarchies naturally. If you try to suppress hierarchies from public view, they'll form out of your sight and come back to bite you in the arse.
I am fighting the urge to wave my hands around and say "case in point"!
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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 Dec 4, 2007 6:13 AM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I wouldn't expect that the article's going to win a Pulitzer. The article dramatically overstates things, but only to an extent. The Durova Secret List outrage is quite real-- poor Mercury got sixty straight oppose votes in less than six hours for reasons that had more to do with the secret list meta-issue than with him personally. The Register article makes it look like Wikipedia is burning, when really, we're doing fine.
That said, if I was the foundation PR peeps, I'd get a statement ready-- word on the street is that there's another story or two coming from higher up in the media food chain, and anything that would help the world understand that while this may well be a very big deal, it's not the biggest big deal in the world.
This secret list thing feeds into a bunch of different memes the media
The "secret list" meme is fed and nurtured by drama-mongers who incessantly scream "OMG!!! SECRET LIST!!! EVERYONE KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO BLOCK!!!! 5 PEOPLE SUPPORTED THE BLOCK!! DUROVA IS TAKING THE FALL FOR THEM!!!"
Wikia currently supports over 3500 mailing lists; the question is, are those promoting the "secret list" meme deliberately malicious or irreparably clueless?
Foremost, please keep mum! They don't know this list exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
Funny how in 2002 I identified mailing lists and cabals as significant potential problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/How_to_build_Wikipedia
On Dec 4, 2007 11:01 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Foremost, please keep mum! They don't know this list exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
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 04/12/2007, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Funny how in 2002 I identified mailing lists and cabals as significant potential problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/How_to_build_Wikipedia
Yabbut, how do you stop it happening? I don't see a way to. How do you deal with the problems of mailing lists and cabals when you can't stop either from forming?
- d.
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 16:36:38 +0000, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
How do you deal with the problems of mailing lists and cabals when you can't stop either from forming?
Obviously you need to get the anti-cabal cabal together to stop it.
Guy (JzG)
On 04/12/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Obviously you need to get the anti-cabal cabal together to stop it.
There is no anti-cabal cabal.
No, really...
Earle Martin wrote:
On 04/12/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Obviously you need to get the anti-cabal cabal together to stop it.
There is no anti-cabal cabal.
No, really...
Since the anti-cabal cabal was not established to fight a cabal that does not exist, perhaps we also need a non-existent anti-anti-cabal cabal to fight all these dangerous notions.
Ec
On 04/12/2007, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Funny how in 2002 I identified mailing lists and cabals as significant potential problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/How_to_build_Wikipedia
on 12/4/07 11:36 AM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Yabbut, how do you stop it happening? I don't see a way to. How do you deal with the problems of mailing lists and cabals when you can't stop either from forming?
Their importance would depend upon what they had the power to do.
Marc Riddell
On Dec 4, 2007 11:36 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/12/2007, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Funny how in 2002 I identified mailing lists and cabals as significant potential problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/How_to_build_Wikipedia
Yabbut, how do you stop it happening? I don't see a way to. How do you deal with the problems of mailing lists and cabals when you can't stop either from forming?
"explicit safeguards in the vein of the Bill of Rights"?
On 12/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Yabbut, how do you stop it happening? I don't see a way to. How do you deal with the problems of mailing lists and cabals when you can't stop either from forming?
For one, by ENCOURAGING the people to come forward and blow whistles-- not threatening blocks when they do based on a trumped up copyright claim, ala the Giano think.
For two, you either enforce or abolish WP:CANVASS.
Durova's comment pretty clearly implies that the Secret Mailing List was used in the Miltopia incident, and god knows how many more. One path is to say that such usage is wrong, and for the leadership to actively try to find out who's been involved, and to tell them to stop.
OR, we can take the other path (the one we're currently on and probably will stay on). Off-wiki mailing Lists canvassing is now officially okay. In fact, it has always been okay. If Durova sees something she cares about, we should expect her to immediately tell anyone she thinks will agree with her. The same goes for Giano-- he should feel free to make up his own BCC list, and regularly send out alerts to anything HE thinks people should rally to. And when blocs of people show up at hot-button issues ,we dispense with the pretense that they all got there by coincidence and are independent voices. If six people who always agree show up and agree, we can just go ahead and assume they told each other about it. If you disagree, you should feel free to tell absolutely anyone you feel about it. The Anti-canvassing proliferation treaty has been suspended, and escalation to the best mailing lists is the name of the game.
Obviously, I think the FORMER path would be better than the latter, but I don't know how to return us to that track.
My best guess was to try to get arbcom to officially ask for the mailing list records, have them issue some stern warnings for canvassing, and find out who the other sleuths were and hold them accountable for their off-wiki comments. Had that worked out, that might have given people something to think about before continuing secret lists-- but, that didn't work out. it probably looked too vendetta-esque-- it probably seemed that the inquiries into the mailing lists was motivated just by vindictiveness. I'm just a interloper into project-space, the Arbs live here, and when all the arbs agree, it's clear they know better than I.
So now it seems we're destine for the latter, and the best thing we can do is to let everyone know that the lists exist, and the next time six peopel show up and agree, don't just automatically assume you got six independent opinions-- instead consider the possibility that you got one opinion and five friends.
We've always had to make such considerations when dealing with rednames or low edit count users, of course. But we (or I) used to think admins and arbiters were above suspicious for off-wiki mailing list. Now, regrettably, that can't just be assumed as a given anymore.
Alec
On Dec 4, 2007 12:57 PM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
So now it seems we're destine for the latter, and the best thing we can do is to let everyone know that the lists exist, and the next time six peopel show up and agree, don't just automatically assume you got six independent opinions-- instead consider the possibility that you got one opinion and five friends.
I'd say a better thing would be to not hold such a huge number of polls that it canvassing for people to find out about them. Alternatively, if you insist on having polls for everything, maybe a random jury selection type system would bring more independent opinions into place.
On Dec 4, 2007 10:09 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I'd say a better thing would be to not hold such a huge number of polls that it canvassing for people to find out about them. Alternatively, if you insist on having polls for everything, maybe a random jury selection type system would bring more independent opinions into place.
I agree. I think Wikipedia:Canvassing is mostly supported because people like having their own little private "consensus" off in some corner of Wikipedia.
Even then, it's never prohibited Wikipedia users talking about Wikipedia events in other forums, public or private. It mentions email, but as far as I can see it's more oriented towards abuse of 'Email this user'.
-Matt
On 12/4/07, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
But we (or I) used to think admins and arbiters were above suspicious for off-wiki mailing list.
My last two cents on this issue (I promise):
Almost everybody uses some form of off-wiki communication. This applies to arbitrators [1], regular admins, banned users, and every "user in good standing" floating somewhere in-between. Most of us use at least one private [2] form. There is nothing inherently wrong about this. The actual problem is when one says their decision was based on a private discussion, then refuses to specify whom they consulted, or what was actually said.
I could easily claim that I have At Least 100 [3] people supporting my next action, but I wouldn't expect anyone to believe a word of it. Even the most trusting observers would, inwardly, still assume I was referring to some militia of random noobs with no real idea what they're supporting, or why. If I said it was one person, I'd again be laughed at, though not as much. Five is, of course, the ideal number.
I guess the moral of this story is that it doesn't matter whether you spoke to five people, or zero, you don't want to refer to correspondence which, due to its private (or fictitious) nature, cannot be divulged or corroborated, particularly not in defense of your own actions, and even if it was the underlying reason.
The other moral is that even a half-assed lie is often more believable then the truth.
—C.W.
[1] And I can't resist asking you, Alec, to either stop saying "arbiters" or go back to playing StarCraft. [2] Though not necessarily "secret", per se (there has, as you might remember, a lengthy and needless semantic debate on this). [3] Don't even ask.
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:57:52 -0500, "Alec Conroy" alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
For one, by ENCOURAGING the people to come forward and blow whistles-- not threatening blocks when they do based on a trumped up copyright claim, ala the Giano think.
Oh brilliant, that will really help. Why not unblock all the banned users, while we're at it?
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:57:52 -0500, "Alec Conroy" alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
For one, by ENCOURAGING the people to come forward and blow whistles-- not threatening blocks when they do based on a trumped up copyright claim, ala the Giano think.
Oh brilliant, that will really help. Why not unblock all the banned users, while we're at it?
I really don't see how this follows. Giano wasn't a banned user and very few banned users were banned for reasons related to anything like this.
On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:49:28 -0700, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
For one, by ENCOURAGING the people to come forward and blow whistles-- not threatening blocks when they do based on a trumped up copyright claim, ala the Giano think.
Oh brilliant, that will really help. Why not unblock all the banned users, while we're at it?
I really don't see how this follows. Giano wasn't a banned user and very few banned users were banned for reasons related to anything like this.
Call me cynical. Encouraging people to blow the whistle in this context seems to me to equate to encouraging people to publicise their grievance as widely as possible, without regard to privacy or harassment concerns.
It seems to me that those intent on publicising supposed or actual abuse are anything but reticent. I fail to see how they need further encouragement. I have had the opportunity to view in detail what the average Wikipedia Reviewer considers administrator abuse from me, and it includes indefinitely blocking a user who created an article [[Paki bastard]] with the content: == Sweaty Cunt == i hate them all, they are all paki bastards, and they fucking smell like curry
As far as I can tell, that sort of administrator abuse is adequately covered by [[WP:ROUGE]] and is not actually a problem for the project.
Perhaps if we could persuade people to stop howling abuse whenever they are caught on the losing side in an edit war, we might be able to separate genuine abuse from the ludicrous.
It has been proposed that the admin noticeboard, which despite its assertion to the contrary is the de facto Wikipedia complaints department, be subject to some kind of informal clerking, with the more obviously trollish comments removed, uncivil or inflammatory comments refactored and so on. There is no doubt in my mind that the actions of persistent abusers of Wikipedia in trying to promote their abusive agendas have, in the past, actively hampered attempts to deal with genuine abuse.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:49:28 -0700, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
For one, by ENCOURAGING the people to come forward and blow whistles-- not threatening blocks when they do based on a trumped up copyright claim, ala the Giano think.
Oh brilliant, that will really help. Why not unblock all the banned users, while we're at it?
I really don't see how this follows. Giano wasn't a banned user and very few banned users were banned for reasons related to anything like this.
Call me cynical. Encouraging people to blow the whistle in this context seems to me to equate to encouraging people to publicise their grievance as widely as possible, without regard to privacy or harassment concerns.
Fair enough. I would hope that any mechanisms for supporting "whistleblowing" would include safeties to reduce malicious or inappropriate usage. I just don't want the rhetoric to go overboard on either side, since most people really do have good intentions behind their proposals.
Meanwhile, back to the title of this thread. Seth Finkelstein's article is now online. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/06/wikipedia
Risker
On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
It seems to me that those intent on publicising supposed or actual abuse are anything but reticent. I fail to see how they need further encouragement. I have had the opportunity to view in detail what the average Wikipedia Reviewer considers administrator abuse from me, and it includes indefinitely blocking a user who created an article [[Paki bastard]] with the content: == Sweaty Cunt == i hate them all, they are all paki bastards, and they fucking smell like curry
If you create anti-Giano type rules because you want anti-Sweaty-Cunt type rules, your rules need a little more fine tuning. Don't use extreme examples of something to justify going against the non-extreme examples.
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 11:55:41 -0800 (PST), Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
If you create anti-Giano type rules because you want anti-Sweaty-Cunt type rules, your rules need a little more fine tuning. Don't use extreme examples of something to justify going against the non-extreme examples.
Anti-Giano rules? Which rules do we have that were designed to inhibit Giano's article writing?
Guy (JzG)
On Dec 6, 2007 4:01 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 11:55:41 -0800 (PST), Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
If you create anti-Giano type rules because you want anti-Sweaty-Cunt type rules, your rules need a little more fine tuning. Don't use extreme examples of something to justify going against the non-extreme examples.
Anti-Giano rules? Which rules do we have that were designed to inhibit Giano's article writing?
These threads are so full of straw-men they're in danger of spontaneously combusting.
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
If you create anti-Giano type rules because you want anti-Sweaty-Cunt type rules, your rules need a little more fine tuning. Don't use extreme examples of something to justify going against the non-extreme examples.
Anti-Giano rules? Which rules do we have that were designed to inhibit Giano's article writing?
Please don't interpret statements with ridiculous levels of literalness. It should be clear that I meant "rules aimed at this behavior of Giano's", even if they aren't literally anti-Giano in the sense of not letting him do anything at all.
The point is that Giano *isn't* Sweaty Cunt; his behavior was much milder and had at least some justification behind it. If you have to justify preventing Giano's behavior by claiming you're preventing Sweaty Cunt's behavior, there's something wrong.
I'm sort of reminded of the spoiler warning argument. Opponents kept pointing to spoilers on Romeo and Juliet and nursery rhymes. Was the ban on spoiler warnings limited to Romeo and Juliet or nursery rhymes, or equally serious cases? Of course not. The extreme examples were used as an excuse to justify banning the less extreme examples.
David Gerard wrote:
On 04/12/2007, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Funny how in 2002 I identified mailing lists and cabals as significant potential problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/How_to_build_Wikipedia
Yabbut, how do you stop it happening? I don't see a way to. How do you deal with the problems of mailing lists and cabals when you can't stop either from forming?
A suggestion I've been pondering is to expand [[Wikipedia:Mailing lists]] to list _all_ mailing lists where Wikipedia is the topic, annotated and subsectioned to keep the "unofficial" stuff properly segregated of course. The mailing lists don't have to be public or open, IMO merely listing their existence and subject matter would be very useful for keeping paranoia levels down.
And it would change the "it's not secret, it's just private" defense from a semantic quibble into a verifiable fact; if at the beginning of all this we could have pointed to a revision of [[Wikipedia:Mailing lists]] from 2006 (or whenever) where wpinvestigations and cyberstalking got added that'd probably have calmed things down a bit. I know I would probably have been somewhat reassured.
On 04/12/2007, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
A suggestion I've been pondering is to expand [[Wikipedia:Mailing lists]] to list _all_ mailing lists where Wikipedia is the topic, annotated and subsectioned to keep the "unofficial" stuff properly segregated of course. The mailing lists don't have to be public or open, IMO merely listing their existence and subject matter would be very useful for keeping paranoia levels down.
This strikes me as hard to enforce. The cyberstalking list started as a cc: list and was then put on Wikia; anyone who feels they have something to say to more than one person without a mob inquiry and consequent Orlowskiing would just keep it as a cc: list. I don't see it as feasible to regulate cc: lists.
- d.
On 04/12/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/12/2007, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
A suggestion I've been pondering is to expand [[Wikipedia:Mailing lists]] to list _all_ mailing lists where Wikipedia is the topic, annotated and subsectioned to keep the "unofficial" stuff properly segregated of course. The mailing lists don't have to be public or open, IMO merely listing their existence and subject matter would be very useful for keeping paranoia levels down.
This strikes me as hard to enforce.
On the other hand, allowing people to do it wouldn't be an impossible step. You won't force anyone to do anything, and anyone who does want to Keep Stuff Secret will always just go ahead and do so, but if people want to deal with a touchy subject and be open about the fact that they *are* discussing it even if the details are private, having a section of a page where they can do so seems fair.
(Also, practically, there have in the past been ad-hoc mailing lists for specific subgroups or wikiprojects or whatever; these tend not to be Wikimedia-run, but are worth noting publicly and centrally regardless. Was there ever actually a Schoolwatch mailing list, for example?)
David Gerard wrote:
On 04/12/2007, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
A suggestion I've been pondering is to expand [[Wikipedia:Mailing lists]] to list _all_ mailing lists where Wikipedia is the topic, annotated and subsectioned to keep the "unofficial" stuff properly segregated of course. The mailing lists don't have to be public or open, IMO merely listing their existence and subject matter would be very useful for keeping paranoia levels down.
This strikes me as hard to enforce. The cyberstalking list started as a cc: list and was then put on Wikia; anyone who feels they have something to say to more than one person without a mob inquiry and consequent Orlowskiing would just keep it as a cc: list. I don't see it as feasible to regulate cc: lists.
I wasn't considering cc: lists at all, there isn't really anything to actually link to in those cases. I was only thinking of the sorts of mailing lists like cyberstalking or wpinvestigations, which had a mailman server and such.
"Enforcement" probably wouldn't be a hard and fast thing either, if it were simply accepted and customary that any mailing lists where Wikipedia's the topic of discussion got listed there I imagine most would wind up being listed there by someone or another.
On Dec 5, 2007 5:04 AM, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
A suggestion I've been pondering is to expand [[Wikipedia:Mailing lists]] to list _all_ mailing lists where Wikipedia is the topic,
Yes, let's take over all the world's mailing lists!
(cue sinister laugh)
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 11:01:22 -0500, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
Of course admins discuss problems in back-channels, they always have and they probably always will. You'll find that the OTRS list and IRC channel act as "teh BLP cabal" on occasion, the admin IRC channel is notorious for it.
The crucial thing always is to remember that it's your neck on the block if you take action, and asking a dozen like-minded people does not amount to a sanity check.
In Durova's case, had she actually asked, she'd have been told "hell no!" because that was *not* a group of like-minded people, it's reasonably diverse (though not as diverse as we'd like).
In PM's case, no evil cabal is needed to account for his problems, as the arbitration case makes pretty plain. Abuse of multiple accounts plus careless editing of BLPs plus ever-so-polite trolling = problem. And that's why PM is currently banned for 90 days and subject to an enduring editing and account use restriction.
You really need look no further than his own edits, because it was those that did for him.
Guy (JzG)
The "secret list" meme is fed and nurtured by drama-mongers who incessantly scream "OMG!!! SECRET LIST!!! EVERYONE KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO BLOCK!!!! 5 PEOPLE SUPPORTED THE BLOCK!! DUROVA IS TAKING THE FALL FOR THEM!!!"
Wikia currently supports over 3500 mailing lists; the question is, are those promoting the "secret list" meme deliberately malicious or irreparably clueless?
You can generally figure a few with an agenda exploiting the naive. The agenda can be as simple as having fun.
Fred
On Dec 4, 2007 12:58 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
The "secret list" meme is fed and nurtured by drama-mongers who incessantly scream "OMG!!! SECRET LIST!!! EVERYONE KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO BLOCK!!!! 5 PEOPLE SUPPORTED THE BLOCK!! DUROVA IS TAKING THE FALL FOR THEM!!!"
Wikia currently supports over 3500 mailing lists; the question is, are those promoting the "secret list" meme deliberately malicious or irreparably clueless?
You can generally figure a few with an agenda exploiting the naive. The agenda can be as simple as having fun.
Fred
There is factually a nonzero danger of small groups of people without enough outside feedback going off and doing dumb things, as viewed from the outside.
This happens all the time on the Internet. And a lot of people are sensitive to signs that that may be happening.
I assume good faith about many of those upset by this. Some are dramamongering, but I understand why one might be concerned in the abstract.
There's been a clear distinction between people who, when the details of what was really sent and what those who were on the lists did or didn't recall about it, backed off and said "Ok, thanks for clarifying.", some of whom have other ongoing concerns but who have apparently accepted the innocent communications breakdown apparent underlying truth, and those who continue to believe that we're all out to get them.
Unfortunately, the latter becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy eventually.