Arkady Rose wrote:
There are enough accusations of major decision-making being made by "secret cabals" already as it is; this is just one more thing to substantiate such suspicians and conspiracy theories.
It's more a case of people using a handy real-time communication mechanism to resolve a problem quickly. In this case it's potential upside without much downside, and you can be sure lots of people will be watching them like hawks.
Most, if not all, of the accusations of cabalism are spurious. You'll also see a lot more of it on this list than is warranted, as wikien-l is pretty much the official sewer for en:. The listadmins are a lot nicer about letting people kicked off the wiki or ignored on the wiki complain here.
Not everything should go through committee committees to form a committee on the committees before someone can do something. We got a taste of this with the checkuser issue just recently, where we slogged through bureaucratic swamps for weeks, finally reached a decision, then the stewards decided it'd be a fine idea to start the entire damn discussion from scratch. Bureaucratic instruction creep.
- d.
One problem that has emerged is that the assigned person from the mentorship committee can be easily drawn into becoming an advocate of the user on probation. This recently happened in the case of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mentorship_Committee#Onefortyone
where one of the members of the committee ended up being banned for 24 hours for breaking 3RR
No one would be placed on probation by the arbitration committee if there were not other users who had been complaining about their behavior. Those parties can be expected to still be watching the articles in question and to have strong opinions on the matter.
Fred
On Nov 14, 2005, at 10:36 AM, David Gerard wrote:
Arkady Rose wrote:
There are enough accusations of major decision-making being made by "secret cabals" already as it is; this is just one more thing to substantiate such suspicians and conspiracy theories.
It's more a case of people using a handy real-time communication mechanism to resolve a problem quickly. In this case it's potential upside without much downside, and you can be sure lots of people will be watching them like hawks.
Most, if not all, of the accusations of cabalism are spurious. You'll also see a lot more of it on this list than is warranted, as wikien-l is pretty much the official sewer for en:. The listadmins are a lot nicer about letting people kicked off the wiki or ignored on the wiki complain here.
Not everything should go through committee committees to form a committee on the committees before someone can do something. We got a taste of this with the checkuser issue just recently, where we slogged through bureaucratic swamps for weeks, finally reached a decision, then the stewards decided it'd be a fine idea to start the entire damn discussion from scratch. Bureaucratic instruction creep.
- d.
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Yes - as I feel it is my role to be an advocate for someone who is on probation, in my opinion is trying to make some good faith edits in compliance with his probation (note on his Talk page my discussion with him) and is simply being endlessly reverted by two people who appear to disagree with his views.
If a person who is on ArbCom probation does the right thing (again, IMO) and is not supported for doing the right thing, then there is absolutely no incentive for that person to cooperate or continue editing the encyclopedia - and the point of ArbCom probation, if I do not miss my guess, is to correct someone who has made mistakes but could otherwise be a valuable editor.
-Travis FCYTravis @ en.wikipedia
On Nov 14, 2005, at 12:06 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
One problem that has emerged is that the assigned person from the mentorship committee can be easily drawn into becoming an advocate of the user on probation. This recently happened in the case of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mentorship_Committee#Onefortyone
where one of the members of the committee ended up being banned for 24 hours for breaking 3RR
No one would be placed on probation by the arbitration committee if there were not other users who had been complaining about their behavior. Those parties can be expected to still be watching the articles in question and to have strong opinions on the matter.
Fred
From Wiktionary: Mentor: 1. A wise and trusted counselor or teacher.
It's the Mentorship Committee, not the "Parole Officer Committee."
(Though running afoul of 3RR might not have been so wise. I needed a Wikibreak anyway. C'est la vie.)
-Travis FCYTravis @ en.wikipedia
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Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
From Wiktionary: Mentor: 1. A wise and trusted counselor or teacher.
It's the Mentorship Committee, not the "Parole Officer Committee."
You know, this only works in the probationed editor actually wants to cooperate and improve. Many of them don't.
When a person messes up the first time, we try to explain to them what they did wrong so they can behave better in the future. If that doesn't work, we try again. And again. Eventually, it goes up to RFAr. To my mind, most people who made it all the way to RFAr and got a decision against them (a months-long, difficult and painful process) already had more than enough opportunities to reform. If being on probation still isn't enough, and they continue the bad behavior, they shouldn't be met with even more patience and understanding. I am happy that Wikipedia is so open, but I think this would be going too far.
Probation, then, serves as a blanket license to treat transgressions more harshly because of past history. It doesn't mean that the probationed editor is being granted a mentor to "teach" them the ways of the Wiki. It means "shape up or ship out" -- and as ugly as it is, there are some people who have to be dealt with this way, or we will never get anything done.
Ryan
Having invented Wikipedia:Probation, let me say that yes it is ugly, the alternative was often banning. Probation will amount to banning sooner or later if they keep up whatever they were doing. However, successful change, with help from whoever is willing to offer it is also contemplated.
Fred
On Nov 14, 2005, at 3:17 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote:
Probation, then, serves as a blanket license to treat transgressions more harshly because of past history. It doesn't mean that the probationed editor is being granted a mentor to "teach" them the ways of the Wiki. It means "shape up or ship out" -- and as ugly as it is, there are some people who have to be dealt with this way, or we will never get anything done.
It may be useful in future if arbitration committee makes use of those involved on the newly formed mentorship group and nominates those who perform well as informal mentors along the lines in the Cool Cat mentorship, which effectively amounts to a controlled probation.
In the Cool Cat case, disruptive editing by Cool Cat on articles related to Turkey and Kurds (for instance, persistent pushing of a point of view) may be dealt with by blocking.
He has three mentors who can ban him from editing any article if necessary, but they also act as a court of appeal against blocks, with the power to alter or clear a block made by other administrators.
In my opinion as a mentor the effects have been helpful, enabling this editor to perform useful work for Wikipedia while checking potential problems--some of them unforeseen at the time the mentorship was set up--as soon as they arise.