Hi everyone,
to those I've known at Wikipedia and worked well with, thanks for the good times. I used to believe in Wikipedia. It was worth a lot to me, it was fun, it was good to work on articles.
But I'm quitting. It's sad to say, I know, and even sadder that due to my reasons for quitting, I can't trust leaving a goodbye message on my user page or mailing from my normal account. But for the things I am about to say, I know that several admins and possibly those higher up in the project would ban me just for saying it. I know this message may never reach this list either, but I'm at least going to try. I'm doing it this way because someday, I might want to come back, and I'd like to be able to come back under the same username I left.
I'm quitting wikipedia because I don't like what I've seen too many admins become. Self-righteous, arrogant, self-centered, conceited... jerks.
I've seen too many admins who believe that our civility policies only apply to the normal editors. Too many admins whose first course is to insult a new user in order to see if they get a "reaction" so that they can spank the new user for talking back to an admin.
I've seen too many admins block accounts for infinite duration on flimsy evidence or mere whim.
I've seen admins block accounts with the reason of "name..", and then block another account for the reason that it was a "suspected sockpuppet" - of the offensive username block.
I've seen more accusations thrown around of someone being a "sockpuppet" of another user. Time and again, I looked through the edits, and I didn't see it. Instead, what I saw were users who were systematically hounded until they finally broke down and broke the civility rules, and then as an afterthought someone came up and said "oh, it doesn't matter, they were a sockpuppet of X anyways", thereby removing all culpability on the part of the abusive users who had spent time hounding and abusing the newbie to the point of cussing or vandalizing.
I've seen the way accusations of "sockpuppet" have become a way of life in content disputes, and I've see how the admins on wikipedia do absolutely nothing about it. Too many despicable pov warriors spend their time accusing anyone they disagree with on one article or another of being a "sockpuppet", and never does a CheckUser come back innocent. The one time I ever saw CU come back inconclusive, the admin blocked them for being a sockpuppet anyways, claiming they had "proof" in the form of edit summaries, which is to say that the user was editing on the same article where the admin's friends had previously harassed someone.
I saw a thread earlier today which I thought was monstrous - a user whose talk page was locked for "unblock template abuse", whose only crime or "abuse" of the template was removing the template after the blocking admin consistently and maliciously removed it. This thread was stopped by the assertion of David Gerard that the person who started the thread was "Enviroknot." I don't give a damn who started the thread, if the question is valid, the question is valid. I looked at the user in question, and I see plenty of problems with the way it was handled, and at least two admins who deserve at the least a stern censure and at the most, de-adminning for abusive behavior. We NEED users to bring these problems up. We NEED to cull the herd of abusive administrators.
But there's no way in hell I can say that with my normal username, because David's terms are clear: the usage of the term "sockpuppet" stops all rational discussion, and anyone disagreeing with David gets banned.
Anyone who says that there are abusive administrators out there, or speaks out against a specific one they've had a run-in with? The cry of "Rouge Admin lololol lets see how can I pwn this noob today, take that and stop annoying the admins" is the cry that goes out, not "that sounds serious, I'll take a look."
We are too arrogant. I've seen Jimbo use the excuse of "well troll X doesn't like it so they are doing right" or "well you must be correct because the wikipediareview crowd doesn't like you" as a way to justify bad behavior in the wikimedia IRC room and even on this list. I've seen countless times where good users are attacked for speaking up and saying this same thing: We, the overwhelming number of admins on the project, are too arrogant. Too self-centered.
We spend too much time "defending" wikipedia and not enough time bringing new users into the fold, being polite, being nice. Teaching them about policies, about the manual of style. Editing alongside them. Admins are supposed to be "just another editor with a few extra buttons", but too many admins today get drunk on that power. They insist that normal editors are "beneath" them, that they should be able to own articles and give their friends a hand up when content disputes arise. If you're friends with an admin, rest assured that your buddies will call someone a name, get one called back, and then ask you to punish the other guy for "incivility." And you'll do it, too, without a moment's hesitation, simply because you have the power to do it.
I've sat in the IRC channel watching a user come in to ask for help only to be rebuffed, attacked, insulted, and finally booted because "no new user could ever find the IRC chat room, they are obviously a sockpuppet of some disruptive user." I sat by silently because I knew if I spoke out, they'd just boot me too for being "disruptive."
And you know what? I'm tired of it. Our articles are suffering because even the good edits of supposed "sockpuppets" are being reverted by overly-zealous admins who believe that they have to hunt for every edit made by someone they think is banned - even if it's just a typo fix - and revert it. Yes, I have watched this in action. I have watched admins put obvious page-tagging edits like an insertion of "joe is a fag" back because the user who reverted the vandalism was someone deemed a "sockpuppet" by our completely erroneous and pointless system.
The Wiki is broken. It's not the vandals who broke it. Those we could handle. It's not the edit warriors who broke it. Those we can handle.
WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up jerks. We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting full of ourselves.
And every one of the admins on wikipedia, myself included, has been guilty of it at one point. Some are more guilty than others. Some are jerks 100% of the time. Some have become so obsessed with their pet sockpuppet, be it Enviroknot, Freestylefrappe, Willy on Wheels, Entmoots, Pigsonthewing, JarlaxleArtemis, Karmafist, Lir, PoolGuy, or whatever else their pet sockpuppet of the week is that they are no longer useful.
Some never should have passed RFA to start with. Some deliberately gamed the system and pulled support from a specific interest group to get passed, then turned around and started immediately abusing their power to help the interest group and haven't stopped since. Some are likely sockpuppets of serial edit warriors.
Some are just insane.
And some of us just are human, and fail to appreciate that, and fall victim to power tripping behavior. I think that the admin behavior which made this list moderation-default falls under that. But that's another of those things that is "not up for discussion."
Too many things are not open for discussion. Too many of the verboten topics center around people who are on power trips, or were at the time they took some action. Too many times admins seeking to consolidate their power bases or trading favors with other admins have stood up for improper, abusive behavior.
So, I'm out. As long as the cult of adminship reigns here, wikipedia's not going to improve. New articles may come and edits might be made eventually, but the state of wikipedia, our accuracy, our reliability, WILL fail as long as admins are allowed to champion abusive users or be abusive themselves and simply get away with it time and again, rubber stamped by secret evidence and higher-ups who are more interested in their own power than making a better encyclopedia.
Jimbo, this might as well be an open letter to you too. None of the rest of these spineless yes-men will ever say these things to your face. Hell, I couldn't at the last meetup, because I was so afraid that you or Danny or one of the other high-ups would note down my username and ban me. That's the atmosphere you've cultivated.
Peace out.
To be honest, I fully agree with you. There are too many editors, not just sysops, who feel they are better than the rest. There are too many sysops, then, taking the wrong decisions and not worrying about it. And there are too many people following along, taking their word for it and assuming nothing has gone wrong.
Wikipedia is, as you say, broken.
However, I too am leaving as of today, for a different reason. Process is broken. Notably, AfD, RfA and DRV. These were excellent procedures, but after some close analysis on IRC with fellow editors, I can conclude that they have degraded over time. The importance of AfD and RfA is such that we cannot afford to allow them to degrade, yet we have.
For example, in the current RfA of Rory096, we have a clear case of where the process has fallen apart. I have no doubt that the closing bureaucrat could easily justify granting Rory096 sysop. In fact, I think he should. But with the way RfA is going, it is no longer the 'discuss and reach consensus' system that it was intended to be. It is a raw vote that can lose all meaning. We have editors visiting once a week and voting on every RfA. But what if the situation changes? What if an interesting diff warranting their attention is brought to light?
In this case, their vote would remain the same, as they would not revisit the RfA till it was over. Which presents an interesting point of view. The one week length of an RfA should be a time for an editor to come under the scrutiny of the community, giving fellow editors a chance to determine the worth of the candidate as a sysop. But no, RfA is a straw poll. Based on pure numbers. Numbers which could, in the case of certain RfAs (not unlike Rory's for instance), mean nothing.
My point is not to discount the votes of certain users, rather to point out the worth of a vote from a user who has analysed a users contributions, checked their edits in certain namespaces, concluded their familiarity with policy; as opposed to a user who has spent a matter of seconds reviewing their edit count and the length of their time on enwp and then voting accordingly.
The problem we have is that while there can be no difference in the worth of these votes, it is obvious that one should place more weighting on the one from the user who has taken the time to think before they vote. Naturally, this is impossible for the closing bureaucrat. Therefore, the only options are to either a) keep the current broken system of straw polls, or b) fix it and move to a system that aims for community based consensus to be achieved. (Alternatively, adopt karynn's proposal at http://nonbovine-ruminations.blogspot.com/2006/10/proposal-for-adminship-on-... - however, I don't fully agree with this and it seems a little too radical for enwp)
As you can imagine, I would err towards option (b). Some fellow editors have attempted to keep me from leaving, but unless anyone has a convincing argument as to why I should remain, or something is done about these policies, I cannot give myself enough justification to stay. Goodbye, Phaedriel, Buickid, AmiDaniel.
--Draicone
On 6 Oct 2006, at 04:27, Draicone wrote:
To be honest, I fully agree with you. There are too many editors, not just sysops, who feel they are better than the rest. There are too many sysops, then, taking the wrong decisions and not worrying about it. And there are too many people following along, taking their word for it and assuming nothing has gone wrong.
There are a few Admins who don't consider the consequences of their actions, but there are many more Admins and editors who are entirely reasonable.
I have explored the system and have not been banned, it was not initially clear what the limits of "anyone can edit" and "be bold" were. Perhaps a simple page of exceptions would be handy. Some of these issues are still being worked on by the community.
In my RfA, I put forward a strong case for Admins to behave more like mentors than judges, juries and policemen. Unfortunately, this was derailed for a completely different reason - basically a question of whether I had been too bold. Despite calls for my banning, this has not happened. In fact, the most unhelpful RfA opposer has since left Wikipedia - by giving people a hard time, she was given a hard time, which is never fun.
I do feel there is a tendency for some people to provoke a marginal situation by ignoring the needs of the out-of-line users. This can make it worse to the point they feel they can justify a banning. This is exactly the opposite of the consensus building we should be striving for. A recent example of this is the question of notability, where the "obviously right" people didn't want to discuss the issue with the "I've got a better way" person.
With a bit of goodwill, the [[WP:NOTABILITY]] page will work, and people will all have learned to listen a bit more.
Wikipedia is, as you say, broken.
Maybe. But there are many great articles and good improvements to existing articles every day.
And will I ever be made an Admin? Who can say.
Stephen Streater wrote:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 04:27, Draicone wrote:
<snip>
Wikipedia is, as you say, broken.
Maybe. But there are many great articles and good improvements to existing articles every day.
And will I ever be made an Admin? Who can say.
Do you need to be an admin? Can you be trusted as an admin?
enwiki has over 1000 administrators now - 1015 at present, although how many are "active" is another matter - who knows how many of these are sockpuppets of people who have been banned for stalking, death threats, POV pushing, and other lunacy.
On 06/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
enwiki has over 1000 administrators now - 1015 at present, although how many are "active" is another matter - who knows how many of these are sockpuppets of people who have been banned for stalking, death threats, POV pushing, and other lunacy.
Presumably none who've continued with such behaviour since.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 06/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
enwiki has over 1000 administrators now - 1015 at present, although how many are "active" is another matter - who knows how many of these are sockpuppets of people who have been banned for stalking, death threats, POV pushing, and other lunacy.
Presumably none who've continued with such behaviour since.
There's still the very slight matter of why Oversight was invented...
On 06/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Presumably none who've continued with such behaviour since.
There's still the very slight matter of why Oversight was invented...
Well, yes. There's probably one or two who've gone more than a little weird.
- d.
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:31:26 +0930, "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
There's still the very slight matter of why Oversight was invented...
When there were a hundred admins they all knew and trusted each other. That model doesn't scale. When you have a thousand admins, *someone* has to take a watching brief. The stakes are much higher now, with Wikipedia a prime target for every POV-pusher on the planet.
Guy (JzG)
David Gerard wrote:
On 06/10/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
enwiki has over 1000 administrators now - 1015 at present, although how many are "active" is another matter - who knows how many of these are sockpuppets of people who have been banned for stalking, death threats, POV pushing, and other lunacy.
Presumably none who've continued with such behaviour since.
The absent administrators have a remarkable record for good behaviour. ;-)
Ec
On 6 Oct 2006, at 14:44, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Stephen Streater wrote:
On 6 Oct 2006, at 04:27, Draicone wrote:
<snip> >> Wikipedia is, as you say, broken. > > Maybe. But there are many great articles and good > improvements to existing articles every day. > > And will I ever be made an Admin? Who can say. >
Do you need to be an admin?
No. But I could help out more if I was one.
Can you be trusted as an admin?
Yes.
enwiki has over 1000 administrators now - 1015 at present, although how many are "active" is another matter - who knows how many of these are sockpuppets of people who have been banned for stalking, death threats, POV pushing, and other lunacy.
As long as unhelpful behaviour is discouraged, the mix should be constantly improving. This is why it's so good to have a record of everything which was said and when.
On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:14:54 +0930, "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Do you need to be an admin?
Nobody *needs* to be an admin.
Can you be trusted as an admin?
I think Stephen would be an excellent sysop, but what do I know?
Guy (JzG)
From: "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org, jwales@wikia.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] Quitting Wikipedia and wanted you to know why. Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 21:38:18 -0500
There's a lot of truth in that email. I'm disappointed with David's response, which is to question the examples given, and basically evade the point. The point is not wrong, and it's that we've allowed ourselves to develop a culture of disrespect, contempt, and dickishness. We haven't made it a priority to insure that Wikipedians, especially admins, treat one another with respect and dignity at all times. We're actually developing a reputation as a place of arrogance and nastiness, a place of heavy-handed thugishness, a place where people treat each other quite badly. That's bad for the project.
Rather than defensively trying to say why Parker Peters is wrong, we should be introspectively asking what we can do to make Wikipedia a better work environment. I see no reason why Wikipedians shouldn't set a standard for excellent treatment of contributors. In Jimbo's Statement of Principles, I read #7: "Anyone with a complaint should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity." We seem to be very quick to revert to the final sentence of the paragraph, which says, "I must not let the "squeaky wheel" be greased just for being a jerk." The trouble is in being too quick to decide that someone is "just a jerk". When you decide someone's just a jerk - they often become one, and I don't blame them!
I've seen admins treat regular users like dog shit way too many times. Why doesn't ArbCom come down on admins who fail to respect contributors? Why isn't that a high priority? We're not in an early development stage at this point, where the whole cowboy, run-and-gun mentality is all that valuable. We've reached a plateau where other things start to matter a lot - things like maintaining an atmosphere in which good writers will want to contribute their valuable time. Wikipedia's grown up a bit, and we should really start acting like grownups.
The email from Parker Peters makes me sad, because it hits so close to home. If we don't start demanding civility, not in some hollow sense where we manage to avoid personal attacks, but in a real sense that involves treating people with actual dignity, we're going to start seeing a lot more fallout.
I'm not citing any examples, or getting specific, not because I can't (I could go on and on), but because I don't want people to focus on attacking whatever particular case I bring up. The point is that more and more people are thinking of Wikipedia as a place to go and get showered with abuse, with little or no provocation. Is that what we want?
I suggest we take a cue from those great philosophers from San Dimas, and make it a site policy to "Be excellent to each other".
Tony Jacobs/GTBacchus
On 6 Oct 2006, at 10:04, Tony Jacobs wrote:
From: "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org, jwales@wikia.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] Quitting Wikipedia and wanted you to know why. Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 21:38:18 -0500
There's a lot of truth in that email. I'm disappointed with David's response, which is to question the examples given, and basically evade the point. The point is not wrong, and it's that we've allowed ourselves to develop a culture of disrespect, contempt, and dickishness. We haven't made it a priority to insure that Wikipedians, especially admins, treat one another with respect and dignity at all times. We're actually developing a reputation as a place of arrogance and nastiness, a place of heavy- handed thugishness, a place where people treat each other quite badly. That's bad for the project.
Rather than defensively trying to say why Parker Peters is wrong, we should be introspectively asking what we can do to make Wikipedia a better work environment. I see no reason why Wikipedians shouldn't set a standard for excellent treatment of contributors. In Jimbo's Statement of Principles, I read #7: "Anyone with a complaint should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity." We seem to be very quick to revert to the final sentence of the paragraph, which says, "I must not let the "squeaky wheel" be greased just for being a jerk." The trouble is in being too quick to decide that someone is "just a jerk". When you decide someone's just a jerk - they often become one, and I don't blame them!
I've seen admins treat regular users like dog shit way too many times. Why doesn't ArbCom come down on admins who fail to respect contributors? Why isn't that a high priority? We're not in an early development stage at this point, where the whole cowboy, run-and-gun mentality is all that valuable. We've reached a plateau where other things start to matter a lot - things like maintaining an atmosphere in which good writers will want to contribute their valuable time. Wikipedia's grown up a bit, and we should really start acting like grownups.
The email from Parker Peters makes me sad, because it hits so close to home. If we don't start demanding civility, not in some hollow sense where we manage to avoid personal attacks, but in a real sense that involves treating people with actual dignity, we're going to start seeing a lot more fallout.
I'm not citing any examples, or getting specific, not because I can't (I could go on and on), but because I don't want people to focus on attacking whatever particular case I bring up. The point is that more and more people are thinking of Wikipedia as a place to go and get showered with abuse, with little or no provocation. Is that what we want?
I suggest we take a cue from those great philosophers from San Dimas, and make it a site policy to "Be excellent to each other".
It's the respect of other contributors which is sometimes lacking.
Ultimately, this place has to be fun.
I'll respond below for you. Thanks for taking the time to write a thoughtful response.
Parker
On 10/6/06, Tony Jacobs gtjacobs@hotmail.com wrote:
From: "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org, jwales@wikia.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] Quitting Wikipedia and wanted you to know why. Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 21:38:18 -0500
There's a lot of truth in that email. I'm disappointed with David's response, which is to question the examples given, and basically evade the point. The point is not wrong, and it's that we've allowed ourselves to develop a culture of disrespect, contempt, and dickishness. We haven't made it a priority to insure that Wikipedians, especially admins, treat one another with respect and dignity at all times. We're actually developing a reputation as a place of arrogance and nastiness, a place of heavy-handed thugishness, a place where people treat each other quite badly. That's bad for the project.
That is precisely what I was saying.
Rather than defensively trying to say why Parker Peters is wrong, we should
be introspectively asking what we can do to make Wikipedia a better work environment. I see no reason why Wikipedians shouldn't set a standard for excellent treatment of contributors. In Jimbo's Statement of Principles, I read #7: "Anyone with a complaint should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity." We seem to be very quick to revert to the final sentence of the paragraph, which says, "I must not let the "squeaky wheel" be greased just for being a jerk." The trouble is in being too quick to decide that someone is "just a jerk". When you decide someone's just a jerk - they often become one, and I don't blame them!
I don't blame them either. I've seen editors who get some incredibly insulting things put into their user pages or talk pages and respond by namecalling, to see the admin who made the original insult block them for "incivility" with a lightning fast trigger finger. The only possible explanation is that it was planned: the admin knew that the user was being targeted and prodded, and was waiting for any excuse they could come up with to drop a block.
I've seen our warning system misused and abused countless times; every POV warrior seems to think it is their duty to send a "warning" for "vandalism" if they see an edit they don't agree with, and then to abuse the person even more if they are told that a good-faith edit isn't vandalism. Even worse, thanks to the crummy and unreliable codes of "vandalism", these bad-faith "warnings" can't be removed by the user without receiving more harassment and abuse.
That is, until it escalates, when their friend the admin can be called in to block whoever the POV warrior is attacking.
I've seen admins treat regular users like dog shit way too many times. Why
doesn't ArbCom come down on admins who fail to respect contributors?
Because, by design of the system, no arbcom case can ever be brought, and even if it were, arbcom is FIRMLY on the side of the admin every time. Think about it. In order to bring a case to arbcom, you have to (A) be the aggrieved party, (B) have someone else sign on to the case at least twice (you have to RFC beforehand or arbcom will just dismiss it), and (C) be a "user in good standing."
How do the problem admins game the system? Three ways. #1 - Make sure that the aggrieved party remains blocked. There are plenty of ways to do this. Provoking them into incivility is one; the more times the better, because it makes it very easy for the admin to say "oh they're just an incivil jerk." As an added bonus, continually blocking the user makes arbcom's rubber stamps more sympathetic to the admin, because the admin's argument becomes "see how many times they've been blocked for incivility, they're just harassing me."
#2 - Make sure that nobody else signs on to the case. Easiest way? Attack solitary users, one at a time. Attack newbies as well. If they do find their way into the dispute resolution system, they'll make mistakes, they'll sign on to the wrong side or file in the wrong place, and the admin can wikilawyer it away.
And remember: contradicting another admin is "incivil." That's why our unblock policies have changed to require that the unblocking admin "talk to" the original blocking admin. Well, that and to put yet another bureaucratic roadblock into the system so that all the blocking admin has to do is stay silent and nobody will unblock before the block period is up.
#3 - Again, the "in good standing" bit. Most likely, a user will try to come back. Then, the admin gets to tag on "block evasion" or some other nonsense, even if their only "evasion" is to try to file the report with arbcom or admins noticeboard.
Why isn't that a high priority?
Again, because the system is designed so that a user being hounded has no chance to ever file the case, much less see it completed.
We're not in an early development stage at this
point, where the whole cowboy, run-and-gun mentality is all that valuable. We've reached a plateau where other things start to matter a lot - things like maintaining an atmosphere in which good writers will want to contribute their valuable time. Wikipedia's grown up a bit, and we should really start acting like grownups.
I agree. But the system is designed to protect admins at all costs, no matter how abusive.
The email from Parker Peters makes me sad, because it hits so close to home.
If we don't start demanding civility, not in some hollow sense where we manage to avoid personal attacks, but in a real sense that involves treating people with actual dignity, we're going to start seeing a lot more fallout.
We already have. We lose prospective new editors to this problem every day. Not just the worst cases: we lose editors who edit once, see someone post a derogatory comment about their edit, and walk away because wikipedia isn't a civil place.
I'm not citing any examples, or getting specific, not because I can't (I
could go on and on), but because I don't want people to focus on attacking whatever particular case I bring up. The point is that more and more people are thinking of Wikipedia as a place to go and get showered with abuse, with little or no provocation. Is that what we want?
It's not what I want, and that's why I'm leaving. Because that's what it has become.
I suggest we take a cue from those great philosophers from San Dimas, and
make it a site policy to "Be excellent to each other".
That would make an "excellent" idea.
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Because, by design of the system, no arbcom case can ever be brought, and even if it were, arbcom is FIRMLY on the side of the admin every time. Think about it. In order to bring a case to arbcom, you have to (A) be the aggrieved party, (B) have someone else sign on to the case at least twice (you have to RFC beforehand or arbcom will just dismiss it), and (C) be a "user in good standing."
Admins are never taken to arbcom? Admins are never deadminned? Welcome to 2006 where this is not the case.
- d.
Admins are only taken to arbcom by other admins.
Welcome to the basic problem: in zeal to "protect admins from harassment by trolls" we've made it nearly impossible for a normal user, being abused by an admin, to protest. Protesting on your talk page leads to being blocked for "incivility", leads to the admin's friends removing your unblock request or just denying it, and by the time it goes up to Arbcom, what you have is not a record of an admin who is pursuing a user, but rather a record of someone who "has consistently been blocked by multiple admins for incivility and vandalism and is trying to file an RFA to harass an admin."
The most egregious account I've seen was brought to us a few days ago, where an admin blocked a user and then tag-teamed with a non-admin to repeatedly remove the user's unblock requests, and finally got a third party to lock the user's talk page for "unblock abuse."
I call that abusive. I know David came up with the red herring that the reporter is "enviroknot", but I don't care who brought it up: that is abusive behavior.
On 10/6/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/10/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Because, by design of the system, no arbcom case can ever be brought,
and
even if it were, arbcom is FIRMLY on the side of the admin every time.
Think
about it. In order to bring a case to arbcom, you have to (A) be the aggrieved party, (B) have someone else sign on to the case at least
twice
(you have to RFC beforehand or arbcom will just dismiss it), and (C) be
a
"user in good standing."
Admins are never taken to arbcom? Admins are never deadminned? Welcome to 2006 where this is not the case.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Parker Peters wrote:
The most egregious account I've seen was brought to us a few days ago, where an admin blocked a user and then tag-teamed with a non-admin to repeatedly remove the user's unblock requests, and finally got a third party to lock the user's talk page for "unblock abuse."
Diffs?
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:14:02 -0400, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The most egregious account I've seen was brought to us a few days ago, where an admin blocked a user and then tag-teamed with a non-admin to repeatedly remove the user's unblock requests, and finally got a third party to lock the user's talk page for "unblock abuse."
Diffs?
My thoughts exactly. "Parker Peters"' last example turned out to be an unambiguous vandalism sock. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps Parker Peters isn't better known to us by another name...
Guy (JzG)
On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:14:02 -0400, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The most egregious account I've seen was brought to us a few days ago,
where
an admin blocked a user and then tag-teamed with a non-admin to
repeatedly
remove the user's unblock requests, and finally got a third party to
lock
the user's talk page for "unblock abuse."
Diffs?
My thoughts exactly. "Parker Peters"' last example turned out to be an unambiguous vandalism sock. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps Parker Peters isn't better known to us by another name...
"Unambiguous"? Hardly. Unless you didn't bother to read my reply earlier?
Your definition of "vandalism" seems to be that you disagree with an edit. That's not a definition of "vandalism" that anyone at Wikipedia is supposed to follow, and the last person I met who followed that was a definite pov warrior.
Parker
On 10/9/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 14:14:02 -0400, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
The most egregious account I've seen was brought to us a few days
ago, where
an admin blocked a user and then tag-teamed with a non-admin to
repeatedly
remove the user's unblock requests, and finally got a third party to
lock
the user's talk page for "unblock abuse."
Diffs?
My thoughts exactly. "Parker Peters"' last example turned out to be an unambiguous vandalism sock. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps Parker Peters isn't better known to us by another name...
"Unambiguous"? Hardly. Unless you didn't bother to read my reply earlier?
Your definition of "vandalism" seems to be that you disagree with an edit. That's not a definition of "vandalism" that anyone at Wikipedia is supposed to follow, and the last person I met who followed that was a definite pov warrior.
Parker
Re-reading my own comments, this might have been phrased in a less flammatory manner. If I crossed a line, I apologize.
However, I still take issue with your calling what I believe to be good-faith and sourced edits vandalism, especially when the same sources are just fine for another related article on the same topic.
I don't believe we can allow ourselves to fall into the trap of calling any edit we disagree with "vandalism", or we do the whole project a disservice.
Parker
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 16:49:56 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
My thoughts exactly. "Parker Peters"' last example turned out to be an unambiguous vandalism sock. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps Parker Peters isn't better known to us by another name...
"Unambiguous"? Hardly. Unless you didn't bother to read my reply earlier?
Yes, I read it. I also reviewed the contribution history, which is after all the main thing.
Your definition of "vandalism" seems to be that you disagree with an edit. That's not a definition of "vandalism" that anyone at Wikipedia is supposed to follow, and the last person I met who followed that was a definite pov warrior.
Nope. It was a POV warrior and a pretty blatant sock. Honestly, not worth the bytes already spilled.
Now, where are the diffs Jimbo asked for? The last case seems much more interesting.
Guy (JzG)
On 10/9/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 16:49:56 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
My thoughts exactly. "Parker Peters"' last example turned out to be an unambiguous vandalism sock. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps Parker Peters isn't better known to us by another name...
"Unambiguous"? Hardly. Unless you didn't bother to read my reply earlier?
Yes, I read it. I also reviewed the contribution history, which is after all the main thing.
As did I. And I came to the opposite conclusion. It's my opinion that the edits might have been poorly phrased but they met the standard of RS, V, and were consistent with writings in other articles we have regarding the same subject matter.
Your definition of "vandalism" seems to be that you disagree with an edit.
That's not a definition of "vandalism" that anyone at Wikipedia is
supposed
to follow, and the last person I met who followed that was a definite pov warrior.
Nope. It was a POV warrior and a pretty blatant sock. Honestly, not worth the bytes already spilled.
Again, I reached the opposite conclusion.
Now, where are the diffs Jimbo asked for? The last case seems much
more interesting.
The diffs were forwarded to Jimbo directly in a private email, before his public request for diffs. I'm waiting for his private response on the matter.
Parker
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 19:49:39 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, I read it. I also reviewed the contribution history, which is after all the main thing.
As did I. And I came to the opposite conclusion. It's my opinion that the edits might have been poorly phrased but they met the standard of RS, V, and were consistent with writings in other articles we have regarding the same subject matter.
And if you read Naconkantari's recent post you'll see that the IP address was the same each time.
The diffs were forwarded to Jimbo directly in a private email, before his public request for diffs. I'm waiting for his private response on the matter.
So we have one example which is a righteous block and one about which you are prepared to make vague arm-waving assertions but not present the evidence here.
I think I'm through with this.
Guy (JzG)
On 10/10/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 19:49:39 -0500, "Parker Peters" onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, I read it. I also reviewed the contribution history, which is after all the main thing.
As did I. And I came to the opposite conclusion. It's my opinion that the edits might have been poorly phrased but they met the standard of RS, V,
and
were consistent with writings in other articles we have regarding the
same
subject matter.
And if you read Naconkantari's recent post you'll see that the IP address was the same each time.
And, even if a sockpuppet of a "name.." editor, the important thing is to assume good faith and at least try to get a new editor to respect others and policy on wikipedia.
As the edits didn't rise to the level of vandalism (and still don't, regardless of what you or Naconkantari who was edit warring will try to claim), the blocking is still out of line.
The diffs were forwarded to Jimbo directly in a private email, before his
public request for diffs. I'm waiting for his private response on the matter.
So we have one example which is a righteous block and one about which you are prepared to make vague arm-waving assertions but not present the evidence here.
No, I'm respectfully waiting Jimbo's wishes, though that's since gone by a bit now that Naconkantari has posted, and it ought to be easy enough for you to look at the contributions lists and page history yourself instead of violating [[WP:DENSE]].
I think I'm through with this.
You appear to have been for a while and just trying to make some sad game of a real issue.
Parker
Parker Peters wrote:
I'm quitting wikipedia because I don't like what I've seen too many admins become. Self-righteous, arrogant, self-centered, conceited... jerks.
I've known a few of those.
I've seen admins block accounts with the reason of "name..", and then block another account for the reason that it was a "suspected sockpuppet" - of the offensive username block.
Perhaps we need to clarify the difference between "sockpuppet" and "suspected sockpuppet".
I've seen more accusations thrown around of someone being a "sockpuppet" of another user. Time and again, I looked through the edits, and I didn't see it. Instead, what I saw were users who were systematically hounded until they finally broke down and broke the civility rules, and then as an afterthought someone came up and said "oh, it doesn't matter, they were a sockpuppet of X anyways", thereby removing all culpability on the part of the abusive users who had spent time hounding and abusing the newbie to the point of cussing or vandalizing.
Incivility is clearly a more serious offence than sockpuppetry.
I saw a thread earlier today which I thought was monstrous - a user whose talk page was locked for "unblock template abuse", whose only crime or "abuse" of the template was removing the template after the blocking admin consistently and maliciously removed it.
Where was it removed from? It's obvious that if it was on his own talk page there's absolutely nothing wrong with removing it.
This thread was stopped by the assertion of David Gerard that the person who started the thread was "Enviroknot." I don't give a damn who started the thread, if the question is valid, the question is valid. I looked at the user in question, and I see plenty of problems with the way it was handled, and at least two admins who deserve at the least a stern censure and at the most, de-adminning for abusive behavior. We NEED users to bring these problems up. We NEED to cull the herd of abusive administrators.
I've only vaguely heard the name Enviroknot, and I don't think I want to know anything more about him. In most conversations on this list David tends to be relatively moderate. Personalizing your points in this way detracts from the otherwise valid points that you make.
We are too arrogant. I've seen Jimbo use the excuse of "well troll X doesn't like it so they are doing right" or "well you must be correct because the wikipediareview crowd doesn't like you" as a way to justify bad behavior in the wikimedia IRC room and even on this list. I've seen countless times where good users are attacked for speaking up and saying this same thing: We, the overwhelming number of admins on the project, are too arrogant. Too self-centered.
It's a very real and very serious problem.
We spend too much time "defending" wikipedia and not enough time bringing new users into the fold, being polite, being nice. Teaching them about policies, about the manual of style. Editing alongside them. Admins are supposed to be "just another editor with a few extra buttons", but too many admins today get drunk on that power.
Yes. Mentorships would be a good idea. That relationship should also include guidelines for Ignoring All Rules or Being Bold since these too are an important part of Wiki life. They also need to be taught that what often passes as rules are nothing more than guidelines, and that what is in the Manual of Style can easily be ignored in certain circumstances.
And you know what? I'm tired of it. Our articles are suffering because even the good edits of supposed "sockpuppets" are being reverted by overly-zealous admins who believe that they have to hunt for every edit made by someone they think is banned - even if it's just a typo fix - and revert it. Yes, I have watched this in action. I have watched admins put obvious page-tagging edits like an insertion of "joe is a fag" back because the user who reverted the vandalism was someone deemed a "sockpuppet" by our completely erroneous and pointless system.
That's ad hominem editing. You have to admit that it is a convenient excuse to avoid applying common sense. The constructive people will take the time to look at the edits. Nobody "owns" the edits, not even a sockpuppet. Thus if an otherwise completely vile sockpuppet does nothing more to an article than fix an obvious typo he does not acquire ownership of the article. The edit should stand or fall on its own merit. If through this process a person restores vandalism, that too is an act of vandalism.
The Wiki is broken. It's not the vandals who broke it. Those we could handle. It's not the edit warriors who broke it. Those we can handle.
Easily. At a national level this pandering to paranoia is sometimes called Homeland Security.
WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up jerks. We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting full of ourselves.
This is not unusual in the history of organizations. One of my favorite Nietzsche quotes has always been, "There are no Christians alive today; the last one died on the cross." If one were to draw parallels with Christian history those in immediate contact with Jesus had the inside track on what Jesus was trying to say, but those who followed, notably Paul, immediately set about corrupting the message. Similar things happened in other religions and we end up with Sunni vs. Shia or Mahayana vs. Hinayana. In the hands of the rulemakers the initial message of liberation becomes an opiate.
And every one of the admins on wikipedia, myself included, has been guilty of it at one point. Some are more guilty than others. Some are jerks 100% of the time. Some have become so obsessed with their pet sockpuppet, be it Enviroknot, Freestylefrappe, Willy on Wheels, Entmoots, Pigsonthewing, JarlaxleArtemis, Karmafist, Lir, PoolGuy, or whatever else their pet sockpuppet of the week is that they are no longer useful.
Fair enough. The key to changing that is to recognize when you're doing it, and to go through a rational self-examination and reflection on the circumstances. Some of these "pet sockpuppets" are genuine problems (a few I never even heard of before), but when obsession overwhelms rationality it becomes more difficult to even deal with the genuine problems.
Some never should have passed RFA to start with. Some deliberately gamed the system and pulled support from a specific interest group to get passed, then turned around and started immediately abusing their power to help the interest group and haven't stopped since. Some are likely sockpuppets of serial edit warriors.
Some are just insane.
Yet Pinky is more likely to get things done.
Too many things are not open for discussion. Too many of the verboten topics center around people who are on power trips, or were at the time they took some action. Too many times admins seeking to consolidate their power bases or trading favors with other admins have stood up for improper, abusive behavior.
That sounds awfully lot like a dose of Realpolitik.
Jimbo, this might as well be an open letter to you too. None of the rest of these spineless yes-men will ever say these things to your face. Hell, I couldn't at the last meetup, because I was so afraid that you or Danny or one of the other high-ups would note down my username and ban me. That's the atmosphere you've cultivated.
That's an interesting observation. How many others are so intimidated? I don't remember meeting you in Boston, though I certainly remember meeting Jimbo and Danny. I actually found Danny easier to talk with, but that's just a personal observation. Danny does not have Jimbo's theological aura. A lot of this is a reflection on myself. As I sit here and make these comments I can pause and think as long as I want between sentences or words; I can even take time for a bite to eat. That doesn't work in a face to face conversation, when it comes down to say what you want to say or be ignored. That's not a matter of fault, but of practicality.
I am not uncritical of Jimbo, and most of my criticism is rooted in the notion that a person who develops an idea at the big picture level may not be the best person to apply his underlying principles at a level of broad participation. That dissociation between the ideas and the public is just the opportunity that the micromanagers want. A big picture person tends to make half-baked policy pronouncements. He can see a proposed solution to a problem, and in his ideal world those solutions will work. The big picture makes so much sense that it's unimaginable that anyone could see things differently.
The premise of an ideal world is shaky. It's too easy to imagine a world where nothing goes wrong. For the true disciple anything inconsistent with his narrow interpretation of the vision, must necessarily be wrong. He believes in a rigid vision, and that is antithetical to vision. A prophet deludes himself when he believes that success of his vision among the masses implies that the message has been understood.
Your overall analysis was an important one, though I think that introducing your personal squabble with David damaged its tone.
Ec
I have no personal squabbles with David, though he seems to be trying to create one.
His was just the most recent example I'd seen of an accusation stopping all rational discussion.
Parker
Your overall analysis was an important one, though I think that
introducing your personal squabble with David damaged its tone.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l