On 12/4/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)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