On 2 Jul 2007 at 09:33:36 +0100, "Tony Sidaway" tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/2/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
and a matter to be considered in future elections. as a reference point, Fred's term expires at the end of 2007.
My! You're a nasty bit of work, aren't you? Fred didn't make that decision alone.
Given that the pro-link-ban side has been known to use their cliquish power to torpedo people's election (in RfAs) using political litmus tests, why is it so absurd to do the same on the other side? The time I declined to descend to the same tactics, and supported rather than opposing ElinorD for admin despite disagreeing with her position on the issue, it came back to bite me when she made enforcement of the so-called policy a top priority, even taking it to levels beyond other pro-link-ban admins by actually deleting talk pages and recreating them with offending link insertions removed from the history. This makes me inclined to emulate the other side and take a zero tolerance approach to electing anybody to any position if they are involved in making or enforcing this link ban. That would likely include others in the next election in addition to Fred, so he wouldn't be singled out, though lately he seems to be taking the most visibly ridiculous stance on the issue.
The way Fred is currently extending the original ArbCom decision, it's like because a Supreme Court decision once observed that yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater wasn't protected by the First Amendment, now judges at all levels were enforcing this as a ban on saying or writing the word "fire" in all contexts, like for instance censoring the show "The Apprentice" because Trump says "You're Fired".
On 7/2/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Given that the pro-link-ban side has been known to use their cliquish power to torpedo people's election (in RfAs) using political litmus tests, why is it so absurd to do the same on the other side?
Well it makes *you* look as petty and nasty as the other side (if that's what they're doing).
On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 13:52:19 +0100, "Tony Sidaway" tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Given that the pro-link-ban side has been known to use their cliquish power to torpedo people's election (in RfAs) using political litmus tests, why is it so absurd to do the same on the other side?
Well it makes *you* look as petty and nasty as the other side (if that's what they're doing).
Tony, surely you must know: /we/ are consensus, /you/ are a clique, /they/ are a cabal.
Fact is, WR was never a reliable source. Just look at the ravings of Jonathan Barber (JB196, editing WR as Looch) and you'll see that in an instant. The reason we should not link to it is not the attacks or the outing, it's because no collection of banned trolls and frustrated vanity spammers will ever have anything like a neutral commentary on anything, and also because it's a forum not a wiki, so crap either stays or is deleted, it's not subject to any process of editing or refinement. It simply fails any rational sourcing guideline.
Unfortunately it is hard to critique admin actions on Wikipedia, unless they stray into outright abuse. This list is not a bad place for critique, but tends to degenerate into a game of spot-the-cabal.
Guy (JzG)
On 0, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net scribbled:
On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 13:52:19 +0100, "Tony Sidaway" tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Given that the pro-link-ban side has been known to use their cliquish power to torpedo people's election (in RfAs) using political litmus tests, why is it so absurd to do the same on the other side?
Well it makes *you* look as petty and nasty as the other side (if that's what they're doing).
Tony, surely you must know: /we/ are consensus, /you/ are a clique, /they/ are a cabal.
Fact is, WR was never a reliable source. Just look at the ravings of Jonathan Barber (JB196, editing WR as Looch) and you'll see that in an instant. The reason we should not link to it is not the attacks or the outing, it's because no collection of banned trolls and frustrated vanity spammers will ever have anything like a neutral commentary on anything, and also because it's a forum not a wiki, so crap either stays or is deleted, it's not subject to any process of editing or refinement. It simply fails any rational sourcing guideline.
That is precisely the issue with [[Essjay controversy]]: WR may not be a RS about anything else in the world - but is it a reliable source about what happens on WR? More generally, is any site with user-generated content a RS about what happens on that selfsame site? Obviously some people don't think the answer is yes.
Guy (JzG)
-- gwern Type I Type II VFCT VGPL WHCA WSA WSP WWABNCP ZNI1 FSK FTS2000 GOSIP GOTS SACS
On 03/07/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
That is precisely the issue with [[Essjay controversy]]: WR may not be a RS about anything else in the world - but is it a reliable source about what happens on WR? More generally, is any site with user-generated content a RS about what happens on that selfsame site? Obviously some people don't think the answer is yes.
Well, not really. It was edited greatly after the attempt to get Phil Sandifer in trouble with the police so as to cover their trail.
- d.
G'day David Gerard,
On 03/07/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
That is precisely the issue with [[Essjay controversy]]: WR may not be a RS about anything else in the world - but is it a reliable source about what happens on WR? More generally, is any site with user-generated content a RS about what happens on that selfsame site? Obviously some people don't think the answer is yes.
Well, not really. It was edited greatly after the attempt to get Phil Sandifer in trouble with the police so as to cover their trail.
That's odd. The Mangoe was gloating in the thread over there ------> that WikiAbuse[0] is necessary because everyone In The Know knows that Wikipedia can't be trusted not to engage in widespread cover-ups of its own history.
When Wikipedians do stupid shit (including supporting BADSITES), they generally do it in good faith[2], because they think (wrongly, but there you go) that their actions will help the project and their colleagues. When Wikipedia critics do stupid shit, their motives aren't nearly as pure[3].
Of course, ideally, nobody would do stupid shit, particularly Wikipedians. We're not likely to see that happen under the current system though, especially now that so many Clueless Newbies have achieved administrator status. Eternal September, anyone?
[0] I don't have a problem with that site. I have yet to see anything wrong with WikiAbuse ... *yet*. I do feel a sense of vague disquiet[1] given
a) Its stated purpose of keeping track of Wikipedia administrators. As a Wikipedia administrator, and further an administrator who considers his Wikipedia conduct rather honorable, I say: bring it on! But at the same time, the ghosts of Daniel Brandt and WikiTruth hover ever-so-spookily on Joe's shoulders.
b) It was Joe's idea. I mean ... *dude*. If a banned Wikipedian wants to set up somewhere he can whine in public, good for him, and there's no reason why the site can't be worthwhile. It's just that we have so many examples of how this sort of thing can fail ...
[1] That's right, boy, I think phrases I would never say.
[2] With one Notable Exception, a lass who was attempting to abuse Wikipedia to support the cause of Animal Rights(TM). Thank God she was discovered and exposed in time!
[3] That includes the Phil Sandifer thing. No, don't try lying about that again, it didn't work last time, it won't work this time either.
On 7/4/07, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
That's odd. The Mangoe was gloating in the thread over there ------> that WikiAbuse[0] is necessary because everyone In The Know knows that Wikipedia can't be trusted not to engage in widespread cover-ups of its own history.
Um, not what I said. At least, not what I meant to say.
It is inevitable that some people will abuse their admin powers. There will always be other people who accuse them of such, rightly or wrongly. So sites like Wikiabuse may not be necessary (to whom?), but they are inevitable.
On 0, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com scribbled:
On 03/07/07, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
That is precisely the issue with [[Essjay controversy]]: WR may not be a RS about anything else in the world - but is it a reliable source about what happens on WR? More generally, is any site with user-generated content a RS about what happens on that selfsame site? Obviously some people don't think the answer is yes.
Well, not really. It was edited greatly after the attempt to get Phil Sandifer in trouble with the police so as to cover their trail.
- d.
Fortunately, I foresaw exactly this objection and in my original edits provided links to the [[WebCite]] archive of the relevant page at the date I was citing it; unless you want to suggest their archival service is not reliable?
Also note that not long ago we were discussing on this very list how newspapers quietly modified their articles, which would seem to be analogous.
-- gwern Crust e95 DDR&E 3M KEDO iButton R1 erco Toffler FAS RHL K3 Visa/BCC SNT Ceridian
JzG wrote:
Fact is, WR was never a reliable source... The reason we should not link to it is not the attacks or the outing, it's because no collection of banned trolls and frustrated vanity spammers will ever have anything like a neutral commentary on anything...
Great. So we can disallow links to them from article space under RS. We don't need a special, blanket ban.