Alec Conroy alecmconroy at gmail.com Fri Nov 30 04:33:08 UTC 2007
... Now at least two arbiters decided, long before this case started, that not only was a "secret investigations" list appropriate,but they actively participated in it. Any ruling against addressing whether "secret investigations lists" are appropriate is commenting just as much on Flonight and Morven as it is on Durova ...
Members of hte Secret Investigations List shoudl have been recused from the get go. They shouldn't have been even participating, they should have been parties.
-------------------------------
Alec, you're mixing up so many issues, it's hard to know where to begin. Some points:
1. There is no suggestion that Durova, or anyone else, mentioned !! on the Investigations list. 2. I can confirm that no ArbCom member took part in the thread that Durova started with her case study of !! on the cyberstalking list. There is therefore no evidence that ArbCom members even saw it. The list can sometimes be high traffic, and not everything gets read. You wouldn't want to be held responsible for everything that happens subsequent to posts on this mailing list just because you subscribe to it. 3. I'm again confirming that Durova didn't propose to block !! on the cyberstalking list. 4. You're trying to create a "secret lists" meme, just as others tried to create a BADSITES one. Fact: there are no secret lists. There are public ones and private ones. The existence of the private ones is not a secret. It's just that the membership and the discussion is not posted. Just as your private inbox not being open to the public doesn't mean that your use of e-mail is a secret.
Sarah
On Nov 29, 2007 11:31 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
- I can confirm that no ArbCom member took part in the thread that
Durova started with her case study of !! on the cyberstalking list. There is therefore no evidence that ArbCom members even saw it. The list can sometimes be high traffic, and not everything gets read. You wouldn't want to be held responsible for everything that happens subsequent to posts on this mailing list just because you subscribe to it.
Well, certainly at least one ArbCom member saw the case study -- I did. I just didn't pay any attention to it one way or another more than a quick glance; it was, after all, a case study, not a plan of action, as far as I could tell, and I wasn't interested in spending the time a detailed analysis of it would take.
Quoting SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com:
Alec Conroy alecmconroy at gmail.com Fri Nov 30 04:33:08 UTC 2007
... Now at least two arbiters decided, long before this case started, that not only was a "secret investigations" list appropriate,but they actively participated in it. Any ruling against addressing whether "secret investigations lists" are appropriate is commenting just as much on Flonight and Morven as it is on Durova ...
Members of hte Secret Investigations List shoudl have been recused from the get go. They shouldn't have been even participating, they should have been parties.
Alec, you're mixing up so many issues, it's hard to know where to begin. Some points:
- There is no suggestion that Durova, or anyone else, mentioned !! on
the Investigations list. 2. I can confirm that no ArbCom member took part in the thread that Durova started with her case study of !! on the cyberstalking list. There is therefore no evidence that ArbCom members even saw it. The list can sometimes be high traffic, and not everything gets read. You wouldn't want to be held responsible for everything that happens subsequent to posts on this mailing list just because you subscribe to it. 3. I'm again confirming that Durova didn't propose to block !! on the cyberstalking list. 4. You're trying to create a "secret lists" meme, just as others tried to create a BADSITES one. Fact: there are no secret lists. There are public ones and private ones. The existence of the private ones is not a secret. It's just that the membership and the discussion is not posted. Just as your private inbox not being open to the public doesn't mean that your use of e-mail is a secret.
Sarah
I'll of this seems more or less correct but the last point. As far as I can tell, well before the !! incident some concern was raised by admins on that list that information from the list had been leaked to Alkivar which prompted his retirement notice mentioning SV. Now, I just have this second hand, so I may be getting some garbled information here.
On 11/30/07, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Alec, you're mixing up so many issues, it's hard to know where to begin. Some points:
- There is no suggestion that Durova, or anyone else, mentioned !! on
the Investigations list.
That's fine-- to those of us who weren't invited in, the distinctions between the two lists have been very vague and murky. At the least, the "investigations" list, by its very name and description, seems to involve "sleuthing"-- but it's totally conceivable that !! was not a target discussed.
There is therefore no evidence that ArbCom members even saw it.
Well, part of the issue is that, and part of the outrage, is that as of a few weeks ago, I thought even creating a secret list, inviting all your wikipolitical-like-minded friends to join it, and participating in such a list was prohibited. I, for one, thought just doing so was wrong, for all the reasons expressed at CANVASS and star chamber.
So, for example, to take my own pet wikipolitical issue-- certainly it had occured to me that I could set up a list of the people who had registered their opposition to BADSITES. Then, whenever a BADSITES-like deletions occurred, I could just post to the list, and the consensus could descend upon the page and restore the deletion. But I never made such a list, never even sent emails, because I thought that some sort of off-wiki coordination would basically be subverting the wiki-process-- stacking the deck.
When it came out that lists made up of people on the other side of the debate existed-- Cyberstalking and Investigations are the ones we know about so far-- it was immediately clear either people hadn't been playing by the rules or else my earlier understanding of hte rules was in error.
In considering the basic question of "Is a list like this Investigations appropriate?", clearly Arbcom members who were ON the list shouldn't be deciding the question. They should have recused themselves, and It would have been very bad for the community if any split-decisions came down where the deciding votes were cast by arbcom member who maybe should have been recused. Since that didn't happen, we lucked out.
- I'm again confirming that Durova didn't propose to block !! on the
cyberstalking list.
See, without the evidence, you could confirm that and I'd just have to believe you. But the evidence is out, and "No one could ever have known !! might be blocked" just doesn't hold water. Anybody familiar with wikipedia who read Durova's "evidence" and didn't "get" that !! was in danger of a block is either incompetent or insincere.
- Fact: there are no secret lists. There are public ones and private ones.
That just doesn't stand up in the light of day. Arbcom-l is private-- there are criteria for who can join, its existence is public, its membership is public.
Cyberstalkings and Investigations were secret. Durova repeatedly asserted this in her "evidence" that the mere EXISTENCE of the list was not known. It took days and days of asking before even the NAME of the investigations list was revealed, as the members of the list stonewalled, before finally the name came out through leaks from non-members. The membership lists of both lists have been leaked, but I still don't think they've been mentioned on-wiki.
I can assure you-- these were secret lists. ---
In the end, it doesn't matter. Obviously, at this point, the answer to "Is it appropriate to set up a secret list where you and your like-minded buddies discuss on-wiki happening" is "Yes, that is appropriate. "
Admittedly, I think if that if the question had come up in a different context-- if the anti-BADSITES people had made such a list and it came to light, we might have reached a different answer, but things are as they are, and lots of big names have vouched for the idea that these lists are appropriate, so.. barring some policy change, I guess that's that..
The end result is-- the next time I see six admins all agree on something, I have to stop for just a second and check in my head-- are they a random sample, or are they a biased sample-- rather than just assuming that of course they wouldn't be colluding in a secret/private forum. Maybe I should have been performing that sort of mental double-check all along, maybe everyone else already was.
Alec
On Dec 2, 2007 6:35 PM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/30/07, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Alec, you're mixing up so many issues, it's hard to know where to begin. Some points:
- I'm again confirming that Durova didn't propose to block !! on the
cyberstalking list.
See, without the evidence, you could confirm that and I'd just have to believe you. But the evidence is out, and "No one could ever have known !! might be blocked" just doesn't hold water. Anybody familiar with wikipedia who read Durova's "evidence" and didn't "get" that !! was in danger of a block is either incompetent or insincere.
Alec, do you think if you repeat this falsehood 100 more times it will somehow morph into a truth?
On 12/2/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 2, 2007 6:35 PM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
the evidence is out, and "No one could ever have known !! might be blocked" just doesn't hold water. Anybody familiar with wikipedia who read Durova's "evidence" and didn't "get" that !! was in danger of a block is either incompetent or insincere.
Alec, do you think if you repeat this falsehood 100 more times it will somehow morph into a truth?
How is it possible false. She accuses him of being part of a team of ripened socks, of being the reincarnation of a banned user, and even of gloating about it. Now, anyone who get that email is going to be in one of three states:
State 1: Received the email, but didn't really read it, at least not in any depth. State 2: Receives, agrees with it, and recognizes that there is a real danger of !! being blocked State 3: Receives it, disagrees with it, and immediately takes action to prevent a block.
The supposed state of "Read it in depth, but couldn't possibly have imagined that !! might be in danger of a block" just doesn't pass the giggle test
Anyway, it's a bit of a dead horse now, since the other sleuths are either fictional or permanently silent. But, "Durova didn't say ANYTHING that would make us think !! might be blocked" on the Cyberstalking list just isn't realistic-- nobody's gonna buy it, ya ought not be trying to sell it.
Alec
On Dec 2, 2007 11:54 PM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
Anyway, it's a bit of a dead horse now, since the other sleuths are either fictional or permanently silent. But, "Durova didn't say ANYTHING that would make us think !! might be blocked" on the Cyberstalking list just isn't realistic-- nobody's gonna buy it, ya ought not be trying to sell it.
I think a more realistic version is believing that Durova didn't intend to block YET because she hadn't enough evidence.
There's a difference between 'I think this person is a sockpuppet of a banned user' and being sure of it. In the former case, you try and prove or disprove, or simply sit on one's suspicions and let things unfold.
-Matt
On 12/3/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think a more realistic version is believing that Durova didn't intend to block YET because she hadn't enough evidence.
That's certainly a valid possibility-- readers might not have thought block would happen immediately. My point is just that it's clear to anyone reading the email that blocking certainly something under consideration. I mean, that's the whole point of the email-- a guide to finding users who should potentially be blocked as socks. And I'll just have to leave it to faith that had anyone actually read the email, they would have immediately had the judgment to raise a red flag and inform Durova her sleuthing was a bad idea-- certainly, the community vocally responded in that direction once THEY get to read her email.
Now, there were a lot of people on the cyberstalking- but as misfortune would have it, none of those people gave Durova's email more than a cursory glance. No recipients replied, and certainly no one 'enthusiastically' endorsed the block (except for the five figments of Durova's overactive imagination). So apparently the only one who had any judgment problem is Durova, and she's now be desysopped, so that is that.
So, recognizing that that horse is most dead, I'll just nod my head agreeably and move on-- the identities of anyone else who was involved in the incident will just remain the subject of quiet speculation rather than public confession. That's okay-- Durova has agreed to be the designated sacrificial lamb for the sleuthing meta-issue, and I'll try to shut up about the whole "who were the other sleuths" issue.
Just don't anyone try to claim Durova didn't even discuss the !! situation on the list in a way that might indicate a block was coming down the road. The evidence on that one is already out, and there's only SO much spin I can hear without overtly snickering. :)
Alec
On Dec 3, 2007 4:12 AM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/3/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think a more realistic version is believing that Durova didn't intend to block YET because she hadn't enough evidence.
That's certainly a valid possibility-- readers might not have thought block would happen immediately. My point is just that it's clear to anyone reading the email that blocking certainly something under consideration. I mean, that's the whole point of the email-- a guide to finding users who should potentially be blocked as socks. And I'll just have to leave it to faith that had anyone actually read the email, they would have immediately had the judgment to raise a red flag and inform Durova her sleuthing was a bad idea-- certainly, the community vocally responded in that direction once THEY get to read her email.
Some did, anyway. And they had the singular advantage of 20-20 hindsight.
Now, there were a lot of people on the cyberstalking- but as misfortune would have it, none of those people gave Durova's email more than a cursory glance. No recipients replied, and certainly no one 'enthusiastically' endorsed the block (except for the five figments of Durova's overactive imagination). So apparently the only one who had any judgment problem is Durova, and she's now be desysopped, so that is that.
So, recognizing that that horse is most dead, I'll just nod my head agreeably and move on-- the identities of anyone else who was involved in the incident will just remain the subject of quiet speculation rather than public confession. That's okay-- Durova has agreed to be the designated sacrificial lamb for the sleuthing meta-issue, and I'll try to shut up about the whole "who were the other sleuths" issue.
Just don't anyone try to claim Durova didn't even discuss the !! situation on the list in a way that might indicate a block was coming down the road. The evidence on that one is already out, and there's only SO much spin I can hear without overtly snickering. :)
Anybody familiar with the posts on this topic on wikien-l and who still insists that the only reasonable assumption of someone who read Durova's evidence was that !! was in danger of a block, is either incompetent or insincere.
On Dec 3, 2007 2:54 AM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/2/07, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 2, 2007 6:35 PM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
the evidence is out, and "No one could ever have known !! might be blocked" just doesn't hold water. Anybody familiar with wikipedia who read Durova's "evidence" and didn't "get" that !! was in danger of a block is either incompetent or insincere.
Alec, do you think if you repeat this falsehood 100 more times it will somehow morph into a truth?
How is it possible false. She accuses him of being part of a team of ripened socks, of being the reincarnation of a banned user, and even of gloating about it. Now, anyone who get that email is going to be in one of three states:
State 1: Received the email, but didn't really read it, at least not in any depth. State 2: Receives, agrees with it, and recognizes that there is a real danger of !! being blocked State 3: Receives it, disagrees with it, and immediately takes action to prevent a block.
The supposed state of "Read it in depth, but couldn't possibly have imagined that !! might be in danger of a block" just doesn't pass the giggle test
Anyway, it's a bit of a dead horse now, since the other sleuths are either fictional or permanently silent. But, "Durova didn't say ANYTHING that would make us think !! might be blocked" on the Cyberstalking list just isn't realistic-- nobody's gonna buy it, ya ought not be trying to sell it.
Alec, do you think if you repeat this falsehood 100 more times it will somehow morph into a truth?
It's easy enough to play the blind assertion game. Here you go: Anybody familiar with the posts on this topic on wikien-l and who still insists that the only reasonable assumption of someone who read Durova's evidence was that !! was in danger of a block, is either incompetent or insincere.