No Steve. Though the current article has been roundly criticised as POV by most people who have commented, including people who make clear they have little time for Mother Teresa but still find the article blatently flawed and unfair, but one user, Erik, is determined to ignore everyone else and defend his POV text come what may. I called the vote so that people can clearly and unambiguously express their opinion on the text, what should be in and what should be out.
Though even doing that was a nightmare as Erik tried to move the vote, change the vote, add in 'disputed' to questions he doesn't approve of, etc. Though as the debate showed, notwithstanding Erik's endless lectures to everyone, the vote is going as expected, with voters stating that the current text is POV, the picture selection is POV, the caption use is POV, and that the article needs NPOVing. Maybe /this/ time Erik might get the message that there is a problem, as he has consistently ignored everyone's comments, people's attempts to fix the problem and delivered increasingly bizarre interpretations, most recently using Pol Pot (!) as an example of something or other. Even MT detesters like the author Christopher Hitchens would not attempt to prove a point about Mother Teresa by referring to a mass murderer like Pol Pot. But Erik did so! And you wonder why there is a problem trying to NPOV Erik's edits, and why so many people are so despairing of salvaging the article at this stage from Erik's agenda! I know Erik has strong views against religion (and is entitled to), but his verbage at this stage is perverse.
As Daniel Quinlan wrote, in an attempt to bring some sense to the article, "Just because the critics aren't getting to add all 45 pages of criticism and it's just half the article, does not make it okay. Only here on Wikipedia can Mother Teresa get more criticism than Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, or Moammar Al Qadhafi. Check those articles."
As Delirium observed, "* I personally think Mother Theresa's reputation is overblown, but the article as currently written is entirely unacceptable. It reads as an anti-Mother Theresa piece, and is clearly written by someone with an agenda."
Or in Andrewa's words, "I don't think I have an axe to grind either way, but my personal impression of the current article is that it is POV and anti Mother Teresa. . . . They are documents of fact, yes, but they aren't important to this article. I've probably been photographed with criminals too... actually I certainly have, I'm involved in a prison ministry! They are trivial in an article on her life. They are very important to an essay questioning the significance of her life or the validity of her likely sainthood, and they might even belong in an article reporting this debate, but they don't IMO deserve inclusion in the main article. The fact they are there is a symptom of its being used to promote a POV."
Maybe the vote will /finally/ get Erik to listen to someone other than himself and Christopher Hitchens for once. But after the last week, that is more of a hope than an expectation.
JT
"Once and for all?" LOL. Did we forget this was a wiki? -- Or did we forget the possibility of some other upstart coming along and rewriting it? Heck I may take a crack at the intro pgphs.
~S~
--- James Duffy jtdire@hotmail.com wrote:
Hi, I've called a vote on [[Talk:Mother Teresa]] to clarify once and for all what people think about the current article and what we should do about it. Please express your opinion. lol
JT
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My last edit to [[Mother Teresa]] was on October 21. It is now October 27. I have also abstained from editing other articles where Jtdirl is involved. I made a peace offer to him, trying to agree on some ground rules for editing the article and apologizing for any past offenses to him, on October 22. That offer has been ignored by Jtdirl. Instead, he has now opened a vote on whether the article is "POV" or "NPOV", with each voter who votes POV being a crown witness in his permanent attacks against me.
He does this even though I have already agreed to various modifications, including using a massive rewrite as a basis for the article. He continues attacking me on a personal level on the talk page, other users' talk pages and on the mailing list, while I have done nothing of the sort to him ever since my PO (and even before that, very little).
With the exception of Cimon avaro, no Wikipedian has challenged Jtdirl's behavior. When this happened for the first time, and I announced complaining to Jimbo about it, I was immediately attacked for "threatening" Jtdirl. I have proposed a policy to remove and refactor personal attacks. Currently there's a very slim majority in favor of it, but nothing close to consensus. Those opposing it say that this is an easy cop-out, that this behavior needs to be dealt with on a social level, with Wikipedians sending a clear signal to offenders that such behavior is not allowed.
Well, that hasn't happened.
If that continues, I will cease my active participation in this project. The principles of NPOV, Wikiquette and WikiLove have always fascinated me. But if these principles are not protected, the person who can shout the loudest eventually gets his way.
Jtdirl can shout very loudly. I don't want to shout.
I don't have energy for this, I don't have time for this, and frankly, real life is a lot more attractive.
In WikiLove,
Erik
At 10:02 PM 10/26/2003, Erik wrote:
My last edit to [[Mother Teresa]] was on October 21. It is now October 27.
<snip>
I don't have energy for this, I don't have time for this, and frankly, real life is a lot more attractive.
I must say, even though I'm personally rather fond of JT, I think he's sort of dropped the ball here. I really think the best thing to do would have been to accept Erik's peace offer, as it seemed very fair and sincere. I hope he'll see that he's not really winning a lot of converts by being so confrontational at this stage and pull back the reins a bit.
----- Dante Alighieri dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crisis." -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
Erik Moeller wrote:
My last edit to [[Mother Teresa]] was on October 21. It is now October
27.
I have also abstained from editing other articles where Jtdirl is involved. I made a peace offer to him, trying to agree on some ground rules for editing the article and apologizing for any past offenses to him, on October 22. That offer has been ignored by Jtdirl. Instead, he
has
now opened a vote on whether the article is "POV" or "NPOV", with each voter who votes POV being a crown witness in his permanent attacks
against
me.
1) Your peace offer was admirable and it is unfortunate that everyone now is not on the same page. (Or avoiding the page, as the case may be.) 2) It's possible that Jtdirl isn't trying to build a personal case against you, but in a misguided manner is trying to figure out how to deal with the article. 3) Jtdirl's actions are a prime example of the kind of broken behavior that comes from the muddled, ugly current conception of NPOV, combined with the destructive institution of voting on everything as a simplistic and biased substitute for constructing consensus.
That is to say, in my opinion, the root causes for this current upset lie in failures of the institution (Wikipedia policies and customs) rather than the individuals--though the individuals should be able to transcend the current failures of the institution by avoiding such temptations as calling for NPOV votes.
He does this even though I have already agreed to various
modifications,
including using a massive rewrite as a basis for the article. He
continues
attacking me on a personal level on the talk page, other users' talk
pages
and on the mailing list, while I have done nothing of the sort to him
ever
since my PO (and even before that, very little).
Sad, isn't it? I guess Jtdirl has to get it out of his system every so often.
With the exception of Cimon avaro, no Wikipedian has challenged
Jtdirl's
behavior. When this happened for the first time, and I announced complaining to Jimbo about it, I was immediately attacked for "threatening" Jtdirl. I have proposed a policy to remove and refactor personal attacks. Currently there's a very slim majority in favor of
it,
but nothing close to consensus. Those opposing it say that this is an
easy
cop-out, that this behavior needs to be dealt with on a social level,
with
Wikipedians sending a clear signal to offenders that such behavior is
not
allowed.
You didn't announce complaining to Jimbo. You said you wanted him to be banned. There have been failures of tone on all sides. One important difference is that you tried apologizing.
The Cunctator wrote:
That is to say, in my opinion, the root causes for this current upset lie in failures of the institution (Wikipedia policies and customs) rather than the individuals--though the individuals should be able to transcend the current failures of the institution by avoiding such temptations as calling for NPOV votes.
I agree to the point that I almost feel ashamed for having participated in some of those votes. The development of voting processes seems to lend support to the idea that voting is evil. In the wake of a highly complex process over the logo, the painful Votes for Deletion, and now NPOV votes on an individual article it becomes clear that voting is a technique for majorities to marginalize minority opinions.
I would say that there is a failure of institutional custom in the face of institutional policy. As a custom NPOV works very well; as a policy it begins to cry for clear definitions that may in reality be unachievable.
I believe that there is wide consensus that NPOV is something very positive. That tends to break down when we try to define what that means. Trying to impose NPOV is a very POV activity. NPOV is a natural by-product of open-mindedness and fair-mindedness; it's not about ensuring that critics and supporters of a particular POV have paragraphs of equal size. The latter only changes the search for NPOV into a pissing match.
Ec
Eclecticology (Ray Saintonge) wrote in part:
In the wake of a highly complex process over the logo, the painful Votes for Deletion, and now NPOV votes on an individual article it becomes clear that voting is a technique for majorities to marginalize minority opinions.
I rather like the voting procedure for the logo. It demonstrated the practical problems with voting quite well, yet led to a largely inconsequential effect on Wikipedia itself. (Largely inconsequential not because the logo is unimportant, but because there were several good logos, and any would have been fine.) When we can make a logo vote go smoothly and with minimal acrimony, /then/ we'll be in a position to adapt voting to the content!
In the meantime, have Ed and mav accepted my nominations for mediator? (Is mav even reading this list right now???)
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
In the meantime, have Ed and mav accepted my nominations for mediator? (Is mav even reading this list right now???)
Just to clarify, I have a bunch of saved emails in a folder of people who have volunteered for mediation or arbitration, and I'm slowly working my way through the huge backlog of emails from last week and the week before on the topic, refining my ideas of how this should work.
It'll be a bit longer, but then I'm going to make a more or less formal proposal for how the committees should organize themselves and what the parameters of their function should be. This will likely be 'enacted' immediately, but with the understanding that we're going to all struggle carefully and slowly and thoughtfully to a more "organic" set of operating procedures for the committees.
And I'm going to also propose that the initial appointments will be for staggered terms, with votes set in the future. And I'll be retaining a right of 'executive clemency', i.e. the ability to pardon people who the arbitration committee has seen fit to ban, although I doubt I will use it unless in my opinion the entire process has gone completely off the rails.
--Jimbo
The Cunctator wrote--
That is to say, in my opinion, the root causes for this current upset lie in failures of the institution (Wikipedia policies and customs) rather than the individuals--though the individuals should be able to transcend the current failures of the institution by avoiding such temptations as calling for NPOV votes.
The Cuncator is absolutely right.
Root causes of the "current upset" have everything to do with Wikipedia policies and customs, in particular, the absence of some sort of means for dealing with article disputes that cannot be solved within the Wiki consensus editing model. Whether this mechanism is formal (mediation and arbitration have been suggested) or social (with, for example, other Wikipedians engaging in facilitative behavior in an effort to contain and resolve the conflict), is a choice we can make.
the individuals should be able to transcend the current failures of the institution by avoiding such temptations as calling for NPOV votes.
This the latest in a number of attempts at out-of-process methods to control the content of the article. Neither Erik nor James has exactly been a model of civility and restraint, probably due to the fact that they are both passionate about the article and do not have any clear, fairly administered recourse for resolving the conflict.
Louis
Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
Root causes of the "current upset" have everything to do with Wikipedia policies and customs, in particular, the absence of some sort of means for dealing with article disputes that cannot be solved within the Wiki consensus editing model.
Is there any evidence that this is the case in the current controversy? What I mean is that the article already seems much improved over the past several weeks. So in what way is it really true that the problem can't be solved within the Wiki consensus editing model?
Whether this mechanism is formal (mediation and arbitration have been suggested)
Hmm, well, I don't think of mediation and arbitration as being means for settling run of the mill legitimate disputes about the content of the articles, but rather as a means to formalize and decentralize the _banning_ process, i.e. to deal with persistent, ongoing disruptive and counter-productive behavioral patterns.
I do not envision, and would strongly oppose, that mediation and arbitration committees get involved in ruling on the exact detailed contents of articles. (There is of course some overlap, since some behavioral problems exhibit themselves via a refusal to engage in NPOV editing over a long period of time.)
This the latest in a number of attempts at out-of-process methods to control the content of the article.
I am opposed to the use of such votes, but I don't regard this as out-of-process at all. Such votes are nothing more than expressions of opinion, and are thus non-binding in every relevant sense. Do you see what I mean? Voting is just one method (a bad one, in cases like this, I think) of _talking about the article_.
Jimbo,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my concerns.
Root causes of the "current upset" have everything to do with Wikipedia policies and customs, in particular, the absence of some sort of means for dealing with article disputes that cannot be solved within the Wiki consensus editing model.
Is there any evidence that this is the case in the current controversy? What I mean is that the article already seems much improved over the past several weeks. So in what way is it really true that the problem can't be solved within the Wiki consensus editing model?
James and Erik became frustrated to the point where they each were trying to line up support and get you involved. I consider that a failure of the "Wiki consensus editing model," and the collateral damage (that is, Erik and James' frustration and anger, and that of others who tried to help) isn't worth it, even if the article is better in the end; also, it does not scale so when we have ten times the active participation we do today, the process, such as it is, breaks down. Besides, we're not done yet (with the Mother Teresa article, that is), and several key points remain unsettled.
Hmm, well, I don't think of mediation and arbitration as being means for settling run of the mill legitimate disputes about the content of the articles, but rather as a means to formalize and decentralize the _banning_ process, i.e. to deal with persistent, ongoing disruptive and counter-productive behavioral patterns.
Perhaps there are two separate things. Most disruptive and counter-productive behavior by longstanding users has its roots in disputes over content. Provide a fair, effective means of resolving the content disputes, and >poof<, the cases of disruption requiring bans become rare.
I do not envision, and would strongly oppose, that mediation and arbitration committees get involved in ruling on the exact detailed contents of articles. (There is of course some overlap, since some behavioral problems exhibit themselves via a refusal to engage in NPOV editing over a long period of time.)
Well, anyone involved in mediation shouldn't be ruling on anything at all, since it is their role to marshall users through a group decision-making process rather than to make edicts. As for arbitration, well, if we are going to have an arbitration committee, there isn't going to be much for them to do if they aren't going to hear article disputes :-).
Ideally, we would find some way to bring about a culture change to encourage more supportive and facilitative work on the part of Wikipedians in general. Had their been a greater amount of this in the Mother Teresa article, I think the dispute would have been contained and resolved. Instead, Wikipedians reviewed the article and made their own edits; though the article may have improved, that didn't help the dispute much.
Perhaps it has something to do with the demographics of the Wikipedia participants. Somehow I don't think there's too much background in group dynamics.
This the latest in a number of attempts at out-of-process methods to control the content of the article.
I am opposed to the use of such votes, but I don't regard this as out-of-process at all. Such votes are nothing more than expressions of opinion, and are thus non-binding in every relevant sense. Do you see what I mean? Voting is just one method (a bad one, in cases like this, I think) of _talking about the article_.
Well, I think we agree that voting may not be the best choice for creating great articles. Did you read the "votes" in question? I think there was an intent to make them more or less binding. There were several different things one could vote upon, and fairly good participation.
Louis
Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
James and Erik became frustrated to the point where they each were trying to line up support and get you involved. I consider that a failure of the "Wiki consensus editing model," and the collateral damage (that is, Erik and James' frustration and anger, and that of others who tried to help) isn't worth it, even if the article is better in the end;
Well, it certainly wasn't a good thing, but other than some heated words and then some apologies, it didn't really amount to much, did it?
also, it does not scale so when we have ten times the active participation we do today, the process, such as it is, breaks down.
Well, when we had 1/10th the active participation that we do now, people said that it wouldn't scale. And yet, so far, it has.
Consider this: Erik and James are both longtime contributors, highly valued, and who have worked together and supported each other on many various times in the past. Both are strong personalities, and strong personalities sometimes clash.
Humans being human beings, the occassional unkind remark and hostile response is not something that we can design a system to completely avoid.
My point is: no system other than a mutual commitment by all of us to be kind, quiet, thoughtful, caring, loving, task-focussed, etc., is going to magically turn us all into perfect people.
Perhaps there are two separate things. Most disruptive and counter-productive behavior by longstanding users has its roots in disputes over content. Provide a fair, effective means of resolving the content disputes, and >poof<, the cases of disruption requiring bans become rare.
My point, I suppose, is that while there are certainly many ways that we can improve things, we already have a revolutionary new tool for effectively resolving content disputes, one which works far better than anything which ever existed before, and we use it daily to very good effect. What tool is that? NPOV policy tied to wiki technology.
The 'mutually assured destruction' and 'radical equality' of wiki editing *is* the fair, effective means of resolving content disputes. Abandon that and yes, we could have more peace and quiet -- like Nupedia. Keep it, and we're going to have to put up with a certain amount of noise and ruckus.
arbitration, well, if we are going to have an arbitration committee, there isn't going to be much for them to do if they aren't going to hear article disputes :-).
Well, actually, yes, there will be a lot to do. The key is that arbitration and potentially even banning have always ended up being about behavioral problems, not content problems. Yes, there is overlap between the two. And yes, a philosopher might imagine a situation where a firm position on the content is necessary to resolve the behavioral dispute.
But by and large, banning should boil down to a situation where someone refuses to try to accomodate reasonable alternative presentations, refuses to get along with others.
Ideally, we would find some way to bring about a culture change to encourage more supportive and facilitative work on the part of Wikipedians in general. Had their been a greater amount of this in the Mother Teresa article, I think the dispute would have been contained and resolved. Instead, Wikipedians reviewed the article and made their own edits; though the article may have improved, that didn't help the dispute much.
Yes, I'm very much in favor of refining and extended our culture to be "more supportive and facilitative".
Toward this end, I wish people would be a LOT less quick to talk about banning others. I wish people would be a LOT less quick to just delete stuff that they don't like, rather than editing it or adding to it.
But remember, I'm a veteran of Usenet flame wars in the old days. Compared to other environments, our culture is really astounding, even when we have our bad days.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:
I do not envision, and would strongly oppose, that mediation and arbitration committees get involved in ruling on the exact detailed contents of articles. (There is of course some overlap, since some behavioral problems exhibit themselves via a refusal to engage in NPOV editing over a long period of time.)
Arbitration of content would be pointless, since the content isn't permanent. Somebody new (or old but pretending to be new?) could change things again. So ceratinly arbitration on content would be silly.
But mediation could work here as well -- and it likely /would/ happen, if the mediation is with a user that doesn't work well with others. The mediator can start by mediating conflicts over content, because that's exactly what non working well with others is about.
Unlike arbitration, mediation makes sense when it comes to content, because mediation is merely the /facilitation/ of discussing conflict. And discussing conflict over content is exactly what we're supposed to do. Certainly I would agree that mediation is a better means than voting to facilitate discussion! As you said:
Voting is just one method (a bad one, in cases like this, I think) of _talking about the article_.
And Erik has suggested that JTD may need to be banned, so this is directly relevant to what we're dealing with here. If we had a mediation process, then as soon as Erik said that, the mediator would have a mandate to come in and try to smooth things over. To some extent, Ed Poor (my first nominee for mediator, no coincidence!) has been trying just that on this mailing list.
Not that we need to set anything up formally to have a mediation process. Keep talking, Ed!
-- Toby
--- The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
- Your peace offer was admirable and it is
unfortunate that everyone now is not on the same page. (Or avoiding the page, as the case may be.)
I proposed that the community be able to soft-ban any pair of partisans from editing an article. It got zero airplay whatsoever, and even Louis (whoever he really is) went and turned the /article ban page into a redirect. The ban idea would make both people happy I think -- keep each others hands out of the article --which in this case JT was not gracious enough to do.
Sad, isn't it? I guess Jtdirl has to get it out of his system every so often.
Yes.
With the exception of Cimon avaro, no Wikipedian
has challenged Jtdirl's
behavior.
Huh? Irish Potatoes?
You didn't announce complaining to Jimbo. You said you wanted him to be banned. There have been failures of tone on all sides. One important difference is that you tried apologizing.
Yes --but I thought we established it a long time ago -- Erik was just letting off steam, which was in terms of bright ideas, inline with Antheres and LD's "experimental accounts," or with my threatening to ban Jesus is Lord! if he didnt change his name (as the community had voted). All of these bad ideas come from the notion that time and energy can be saved if only a bit more force were applied. Well -- Vietnam 2 is going on on the other side of the planet, and I suppose its not too unusual for humans to make things worse by applying violence.
~S~
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....This behavior needs to be dealt with on a social level, with
Wikipedians sending a clear signal to offenders that such behavior is not allowed.
Well, that hasn't happened.
If that continues, I will cease my active participation in this project. The principles of NPOV, Wikiquette and WikiLove have always fascinated me. But if these principles are not protected, the person who can shout the loudest eventually gets his way.
Jtdirl can shout very loudly. I don't want to shout.
I don't have energy for this, I don't have time for this, and frankly, real life is a lot more attractive.
In WikiLove,
Erik
I think your perception is somewhat distorted due to your over-involvement in this particular issue, an issue I haven't had a lot of interest in or time for although I do believe you over-emphasised the negative aspects in your article. As to Jtdirl I have had experience with him, been denounced as a right wing bigot, etc and certainly would support banning him for ugly behavior despite being right on Mother Teresa.
Fred
Erik Moeller wrote:
I don't have energy for this, I don't have time for
this, and frankly,
real life is a lot more attractive.
Ah yes. A new girlfriend can be distracting.
Fred Bauder wrote:
I think your perception is somewhat distorted due to your over-involvement in this particular issue, an issue I haven't had a lot of interest in or time for although I do believe you over-emphasised the negative aspects in your article. As to Jtdirl I have had experience with him, been denounced as a right wing bigot, etc and certainly would support banning him for ugly behavior despite being right on Mother Teresa.
I too have had experience with JT -- if and when he actually admits to seeing someone elses point of view, it will be when things tone down.
I think part of this is, Erik -- that you have a reputation to protect -- youre generally a moderate-toned person with an almost universal respect from the community -- this kind of thing is an obstacle when edit warring with JT. You need to roll around in the dirt, basically -- and then you might get a point or two accross. Being a sysop and a devor, you would jeopardise your status here if you told people what you actually think -- which is frustrating, since whats the point, if you can speak your mind, eh?
So... to quote a guy named Erik Moeller: "Unfortunately, the best way someone can make me support a position which they oppose is "threatening to quit" over it." —User:Eloquence, From User:Stevertigo/Favorite Wikipedian quotes
~S~
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Erik Moeller wrote:
With the exception of Cimon avaro, no Wikipedian has challenged Jtdirl's behavior.
I pointed out Jtdir1 abusiveness months ago on this list, but I don't think anybody paid attention at the time. Abusive persons never change their behavior, as generations of women have learned the hard way.
Until Wikipedians agree to take a harder line on abuse of other editors, instead of always making excuses for the abuser, this is going to keep happening.
Stan