No, it's that MONGO attracts trolls. Really, the RFC had no basis. There's a huge difference between trying to solve a dispute and saying you have.

Vee <vee.be.me@...> writes: Unfortunately, we cannot review the RfC anymore, because it was censored. Could anyone provide a copy?

I don't want to use names that people think forbidden, but anyone who has been following the discussions here should realize where they might be found. On 7/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.

G'day Guy, <many snips/> That reminds me of something my mother once said when I got into fights with those who teased me. It took me a few years to grow up and realise she was right. I suspect, despite appearances, that I am younger than MONGO. Perhaps his mother never said the things mine did. -- Mark Gallagher "'Yes, sir,' said Jeeves in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten in the leg by a personal friend." - P G Wodehouse, /Carry On, Jeeves/

on 7/12/07 8:32 AM, Mark Gallagher at fuddlemark(a)gmail.com wrote: Keep in mind, Mark, WE teach people how to treat us. And, when shouting is met with silence, all that's left is the echo. Marc Riddell

On 7/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: No. It's not that simple. With all due respect to MONGO, and I respect him a lot, there's a reason that he's attracted ten times more flak than the next most controversial good guy. His interactions with the trolls, and the snipes he takes at them, are part of a vicious circle. He's antagonized by them, he antagonizes them. Unfortunately, his objective in editing Wikipedia is not to frustrate them. Their objective is to frustrate him, because he blows up so spectacularly when provoked. They think it's fun. The only ways that this ends are either with him leaving the project, complaining that we didn't defend him enough, or he learns how to not engage the trolls. As long as he's an attractive and reactive target, he will never get away from it. Lacking the apparent power or authority to effectively permanently ban (identify, and ban) every person who seeks to troll him or poke at him somehow, we can't solve the problem for him. There's a difference between blaming the victim, and observing that the victim and victimizers are trapped in a behavioral loop. Defending him doesn't mean that we should never take a step back, look at the situation, and observe such behavioral interactions. In fact, defending him effectively demands it. He has become his own worst enemy; the attackers aren't able to actually cause him harm, but they cause him to blow up in arguments on ANI and so forth which do serious damage, over and over again. I want him to stay, and be a productive editor, and eventually maybe he'll want admin bit back. I think success in those endeavors ultimately depends on having a few more of "us" try and talk him out of the response behaviors that keep him in the EDers crosshairs. I'm proving spectacularly ineffective at pointing it out to him, probably because of our history. It would help if more of you joined in. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 7/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG &lt;guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net&gt; wrote: Without disagreeing that they're barking mad (and scientifically and engineeringally incompetent, as well), there have been tendencies by him and others on WP to overly marginalize any 9/11 conspiracy discussion. There are many barking mad things we have articles and sometimes whole topic trees on. I think we serve the project and readers badly by marginalizing it. A lot of people are curious about it; showing the theories openly and exposing them to the light of day is more effective. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: Maybe there are others who would be more effective in keeping this crowd contained. When someone has a mad theory attempting to disprove it is rarely successful. Negligibility and notability debates fall into the same basket of futility. A diplomatic contain and control policy may work better with these people than direct confrontational enforcement. Ec

George, I would like to join in. But I came somewhat late to all of this and know very little about MONGO's situation, and virtually nothing about MONGO himself. Would someone fill me me in (preferably, you, MONGO)? Marc Riddell

You may think 9/11 truthers are your average POV pushers. They are not. http://911research.wtc7.net/re911/wikipedia/index.html http://www.serendipity.li/wot/sft_wikipedia.htm The founder of "Scholars for 9/11 Truth", Jim Fetzer has edited pages himself on Wikipedia, as do other key leaders of this movement. Most of the 9/11 truth movement consists of younger folks who spend time on Loose Change forums, some which have edited on Wikipedia. I've been on there to check it out, but you quickly get banned if you challenge their theories at all on the discussion forum. These are the people who come to Wikipedia to spread the truth, and nearly all are single purpose accounts with the one purpose of spreading the truth. MONGO has taken more of the heat then myself, because I try to minimize discussing anything with them on the talk page unless it's absolutely necessary for working on the article. MONGO and others have carried the discussions more, and has dealt with some of the more difficult "truthers". Thus, he has become the target of trolls. Meanwhile, MONGO sticks around and edits other stuff, such as national parks articles, as do others who enforce policy. We don't suppress the "truth", but keep the articles consistent with WP:NPOV#Undue weight and WP:SUMMARY, but giving brief mention of the theories in the main articles and details in subarticles. There are quite a lot of articles about the truth movement, the people in it, some of their videos, etc. I definitely didn't come to Wikipedia to work on any of these articles, heck I didn't know much about the truth movement in the beginning, but not going to let the main Wikipedia articles on 9/11 to circumvent our policies and be used to spread the truth. Yet, despite all their gripes about Wikipedia, it's amusing... I do see them reference Wikipedia articles very often on the Loose Change forum and their other sites. It's a challenge and very time consuming to maintain these articles. MONGO has been invaluable. -Aude

On 7/13/07, Ron Ritzman &lt;ritzman(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: You must have not been around on Usenet in the late 80s and early 90s, then... 8-) -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 13/07/07, Marc Riddell &lt;michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net&gt; wrote: To anyone who'll give them attention. The obvious answer is not to pay attention, but this can then lead to unduly ignoring people, which it's asserted is what's happening on the [[WP:ANI]] thread mentioned in the subject line - ignoring people because other people saying apparently similar things were crying wolf. - d.

I hadn't focused on this mailing list thread today when I posted to a related thread on [[User talk:Richardshusr]]. My comments there may (but then again, may not) be of interest. Newyorkbrad On 7/13/07, Marc Riddell &lt;michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net&gt; wrote: