We have now been dealing with what I will term the "Brandt affair" (and the variety of subsidiary conflicts) for more than a year. In that time we have seen wheel-warring, arbitration cases, bans, harassment, attack sites, counter-attack sites, violations of just about every policy we have by any number of parties, editors leaving, editors being forced out, more than a dozen deletion nominations, a few undeletion nominations, and megabytes of pointless, ever-repeating arguments on and off Wikipedia, all for the sake of making sure that our article on Brandt stays around. I think it would be reasonable to say that this issue has become, by any measure, the single most disruptive one we've experienced in terms of damage to the community and the project as a whole.
But why do we need -- or want -- a biography of Brandt so much?
Brandt is not, in any real sense, an important individual. He has not been the subject of biographical works of any substance; he has not been profiled in magazines; he does not have a fanclub. His only claim to notoriety is that he was mentioned in a few newspaper articles dealing with broader topics than himself. Sure, this may let him fulfill our "notability" requirements -- as does every Pokemon and most models of vacuum cleaners -- but in a true historical context, he likely wouldn't even be a footnote. Had he lived a hundred years ago, his hometown newspaper probably wouldn't have bothered to run an obituary; farther back, and we wouldn't even know of his existence.
If we too were not to bother with an article on him, what would we lose? There will be no students who wish to research Brandt and lack for a resource, no curious reader that will see Brandt's name elsewhere and look him up; in practical terms, Brand is so obscure that a biography of him is not actually going to be *useful* to anyone. (Not that our current article is truly a biography, in any case; it's merely a collection of individual episodes in his life -- the ones that some newspaper happened to mention -- strung together with neither context nor connection to one another.)
The costs of trying to keep the article around, on the other hand, are immediate and substantial. Forget, even, the massive amounts of time being wasted on this by everyone involved, the bad press we've received, and all the other tangential problems; the most dramatic loss to Wikipedia are the many productive editors that have left the project as consequences of this affair. How many editors are we willing to sacrifice to keep the article? A dozen? A hundred? All of them?
Some people may consider it to be a victory on our part to have retained the article in the face of such determined opposition; if it is, it's merely a Pyrrhic one.
So why, then, have we dug in our heels so thoroughly on this? Why can't we just get rid of the article already and all go back to doing something rather more useful than this endless fighting?
Kirill
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
But why do we need -- or want -- a biography of Brandt so much?
...
So why, then, have we dug in our heels so thoroughly on this? Why can't we just get rid of the article already and all go back to doing something rather more useful than this endless fighting?
Because he's a notable figure, and we should have articles on notable subjects. Just because he's noisy about it doesn't mean we should treat it differently, and his noise level has made him the poster boy for folks who want to have subjects dictate content.
If it weren't him, it would be someone else. If you don't want to be noteworthy, don't do things that attract attention to yourself.
-Jeff
On 4/20/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
But why do we need -- or want -- a biography of Brandt so much?
...
So why, then, have we dug in our heels so thoroughly on this? Why can't we just get rid of the article already and all go back to doing something rather more useful than this endless fighting?
Because he's a notable figure, and we should have articles on notable subjects. Just because he's noisy about it doesn't mean we should treat it differently, and his noise level has made him the poster boy for folks who want to have subjects dictate content.
If it weren't him, it would be someone else. If you don't want to be noteworthy, don't do things that attract attention to yourself.
Our notability guidelines -- overly simplistic nature and permissiveness towards the utterly trivial aside --were never meant to be a suicide pact. The question to ask is not whether Brandt "meets the criteria for inclusion" or whatever the wording of the day is. It's whether having an article on him actually *benefits* anyone, and whether any benefit outweighs the frankly horrific cost we're having to pay to keep it around.
Kirill
On 4/20/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Our notability guidelines -- overly simplistic nature and permissiveness towards the utterly trivial aside --were never meant to be a suicide pact. The question to ask is not whether Brandt "meets the criteria for inclusion" or whatever the wording of the day is. It's whether having an article on him actually *benefits* anyone, and whether any benefit outweighs the frankly horrific cost we're having to pay to keep it around.
No. If we take our role as an encyclopedia seriously, then these externalities are irrelevant. I would be deeply concerned about the kind of precedent where a sufficient amount of noise alone guarantees the removal of information. Now it may be Daniel Brandt, tomorrow, some strange religious group nobody has ever heard of, then some litigious video game lawyer .. this is the wrong way to look at the problem and could seriously damage our usefulness. And if you think that you can actually close this issue by deleting Brandt's article, you've apparently not followed the debate after the last speedy deletion attempt.
I'm already concerned that we have a thin skin when it comes to legal threats. I want us to develop a legal strategy where we have the confidence to stand up against bullies and kooks, rather than folding as soon as we get a nasty letter. But that also means that we have to take more responsibility to ensure that all our BLP processes are working -- including stable version tagging, and so on.
I can understand the notion of an "opt-out" for borderline notability, but I've come to the conclusion that this cannot be implemented in a reasonable fashion. The only thing that I see viable is that the subject's wishes are, by policy, one factor to be taken into account in an AfD. That doesn't mean they necessarily outweigh the interests of the encyclopedia, but that the people debating the issue ought to make a judgment call about it. Then let the chips fall where they may.
On 4/20/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Some people may consider it to be a victory on our part to have retained the article in the face of such determined opposition; if it is, it's merely a Pyrrhic one.
So why, then, have we dug in our heels so thoroughly on this? Why can't we just get rid of the article already and all go back to doing something rather more useful than this endless fighting?
Absolutely. The truly dismaying effect of the Brandt affair is not that Brandt could ever do us any harm. He cannot. He's neither rich nor powerful enough. It's what we have done to ourselves as a community during the course of the affair.
Deleting the article may not placate Brandt, but who cares? It would be an end to this corrosive infighting.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Deleting the article may not placate Brandt, but who cares? It would be an end to this corrosive infighting.
No it wouldn't, because there are a substantial number of editors who are opposed to censoring Wikipedia like this and deleting the article would definitely not placate _them._ Look what happened the last time it was tried.
On 20/04/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/20/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Some people may consider it to be a victory on our part to have retained the article in the face of such determined opposition; if it is, it's merely a Pyrrhic one.
So why, then, have we dug in our heels so thoroughly on this? Why can't we just get rid of the article already and all go back to doing something rather more useful than this endless fighting?
Absolutely. The truly dismaying effect of the Brandt affair is not that Brandt could ever do us any harm. He cannot. He's neither rich nor powerful enough. It's what we have done to ourselves as a community during the course of the affair.
Deleting the article may not placate Brandt, but who cares? It would be an end to this corrosive infighting.
We don't delete articles solely because they cause controversy within the community, just as Jimbo has shown we shouldn't shy away from unblocking someone solely because it would cause controversy within the community.
On 4/20/07, the wub thewub.wiki@googlemail.com wrote:
We don't delete articles solely because they cause controversy within the community
Why not? How can consensus be achieved when the community is at war with itself?
On 20/04/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/20/07, the wub thewub.wiki@googlemail.com wrote:
We don't delete articles solely because they cause controversy within the community
Why not? How can consensus be achieved when the community is at war with itself?
Because we don't make such decisions based on the more convenient or 'easier' option. Just like we don't use fair use content where that is easier to obtain than free content. It compromises our integrity and our mission.
On 4/20/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
The costs of trying to keep the article around, on the other hand, are immediate and substantial. Forget, even, the massive amounts of time being wasted on this by everyone involved, the bad press we've received, and all the other tangential problems; the most dramatic loss to Wikipedia are the many productive editors that have left the project as consequences of this affair. How many editors are we willing to sacrifice to keep the article? A dozen? A hundred? All of them?
Some people may consider it to be a victory on our part to have retained the article in the face of such determined opposition; if it is, it's merely a Pyrrhic one.
Thank you for this injection of common sense.
We should block Brandt, delete his bio, and wash our hands of the whole affair. I suggested this to Jimbo in October 2005, although we agreed at the time to delete the bio and not block Brandt. The block came later, from others, because of his behavior.
The bio was duly deleted, and it would likely have stayed that way had Brandt not posted an open letter to Jimbo (before deletion, I believe). This got some bloggers interested in it, and one of them, User:Philwiki, recreated the article.
Tony Sidaway said earlier that Jimbo's decision to unblock could be seen as pragmatic, but it's the opposite, because it keeps Brandt around our necks. The pragmatic option is to get rid of the only legitimate reason Brandt has to be interested in Wikipedia. Delete the bio and have done with it.
Sarah
On 4/20/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/20/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
The costs of trying to keep the article around, on the other hand, are immediate and substantial. Forget, even, the massive amounts of time being wasted on this by everyone involved, the bad press we've received, and all the other tangential problems; the most dramatic loss to Wikipedia are the many productive editors that have left the project as consequences of this affair. How many editors are we willing to sacrifice to keep the article? A dozen? A hundred? All of them?
Some people may consider it to be a victory on our part to have retained the article in the face of such determined opposition; if it is, it's merely a Pyrrhic one.
Thank you for this injection of common sense.
We should block Brandt, delete his bio, and wash our hands of the whole affair. I suggested this to Jimbo in October 2005, although we agreed at the time to delete the bio and not block Brandt. The block came later, from others, because of his behavior.
The bio was duly deleted, and it would likely have stayed that way had Brandt not posted an open letter to Jimbo (before deletion, I believe). This got some bloggers interested in it, and one of them, User:Philwiki, recreated the article.
Tony Sidaway said earlier that Jimbo's decision to unblock could be seen as pragmatic, but it's the opposite, because it keeps Brandt around our necks. The pragmatic option is to get rid of the only legitimate reason Brandt has to be interested in Wikipedia. Delete the bio and have done with it.
Sarah
The pragmatic thing is what Jimbo has done. Brandt has managed to defeat us the only way anyone can, by turning our guns around and getting us to shoot ourselves in the face. We are an open community. The best way for someone to get another to stop attacking an open community is to get that person to see themselves as part of it. Brandt posted information about me. Minions of his heckled and harassed me off-wiki. In a minor issue, he also violated the CC liscense with my picture on his site and no liscense link, which is a jab at open-ness in general.
Brandt is an amazing editor when he participates.
No one can deny that, the man has amazing patience and thouroughness. He can scan through hundreds, thousands of articles a day with a sharp, critical mind and catch things we dont normally think about. He benefits the project when he participates.
He stops harassing wikipedians, the project gets a very seasoned, sharp mind on its team, and we all learn something about forgiveness, respect and trust.
It's all win-win if we stop tearing each other apart.
On Apr 20, 2007, at 9:17 AM, Slim Virgin wrote:
The pragmatic option is to get rid of the only legitimate reason Brandt has to be interested in Wikipedia. Delete the bio and have done with it.
There is nothing wrong with trying that strategy, but I would argue that it is wihsful thinking. As a dispassionate observer of this saga, my opinion is that this person actually enjoys the attention this has generated, and there is no action by the WP community, Jimbo, or the foundation that will appease him. Once this is over, something else will pop up. Count on it.
-- Jossi
On 22/04/07, Jossi Fresco jossifresco@mac.com wrote:
On Apr 20, 2007, at 9:17 AM, Slim Virgin wrote:
The pragmatic option is to get rid of the only legitimate reason Brandt has to be interested in Wikipedia. Delete the bio and have done with it.
There is nothing wrong with trying that strategy, but I would argue that it is wihsful thinking. As a dispassionate observer of this saga, my opinion is that this person actually enjoys the attention this has generated, and there is no action by the WP community, Jimbo, or the foundation that will appease him. Once this is over, something else will pop up. Count on it.
Agreed. He's shown himself to be a sociopath so far, with (as per Daniel Bryant's message) an ever-mutating "cause" as long as it gets him attention. If he says the sky is blue, don't call him a liar but do look out the window.
- d.
Posted on behalf of Musical Linguist, at her request:
I very strongly support the deletion of Brandt's biography. I have absolutely no love for him, and considered the administrator that he drove away last May to be perhaps the very nicest administrator we ever had. But I have always supported deleting articles that were causing distress to the subjects, and that were not on topics so notable that we'd look silly, as an encylopaedia, if we didn't have them. In that, I concur with Grace Note, who has made a similar point. We should delete the article regardless of our feelings about Brandt, simply because it's the decent thing to do. It's not as if he's someone we *have* to have an article about — like President Bush or Tony Blair.
I accept that Jimbo has the right to make decisions even if we don't like them. But I think in this case, he has completely failed to give due regard to the feelings of people whose privacy has been severely violated by Brandt, and who have suffered real life consequences as a result.
The community has not agreed to delete Brandt's biography, and the community has not agreed to unblock him. So why is Jimbo invoking his privileges to unblock rather than to delete? Brandt doesn't want to edit Wikipedia if his biography is gone; he just wants to have the biography deleted.
The argument for deleting it is that it's the decent thing to do, and it might stop the stalking. An argument against deleting it is that he's notable enough to *permit* inclusion. He is not notable enough to *require* inclusion. We would not lose credibility as an encylopaedia if the article were gone. Another argument against deleting it is that some people will complain that process wasn't followed.
There is no argument for unblocking him that would not apply equally or more to deleting his biography. He wants it deleted; it might stop the stalking. So are the arguments *against* deleting more compelling than the arguments against unblocking? An argument against unblocking is that he has shown absolutely no remorse for the harm he has caused, and that the unblocking shows a colossal lack of respect for his victims. It's nothing short of creepy for people who have watched him posting their supposed photos, his speculation about their identity, where they live, where they work, who their work superiors are, how he's contacting their supposed ex-boyfriends, etc. to edit Wikipedia alongside him, both being considered as Wikipedians in good standing. It's inconsiderate and insensitive to expect them to. And it's outrageous that Brandt was unblocked without even a courtesty notification to his main victims. I don't have a reputation for being touchy, but I would feel profoundly disrespected if someone who knew about my case unblocked my stalker, and if the first I heard of it was when Tony Sidaway posted about it on the Commnuity Noticeboard. People are arguing that Brandt hasn't done anything bad on Wikipedia since he was unblocked, so there has been no disadvantage. There is a *huge* disadvantage in allowing a situation where so much ill will is generated, where victims feel undermined, where the feelings of excellent contributors who have worked tirelessly to improve the encyclopaedia are set aside like that, and where their stalker is not even told that his off-wiki harassment of them must cease.
Now, one could argue that there would be a justification for reluctantly permitting a situation in which Brandt's victims feel undermined, in the hope of bringing an end to the harassment they have suffered, if there is no other option that would achieve that end, and that would not cause so much ill feeling. But the article could have been deleted without the same amount of ill feeling, and with the same result — perhaps with a better result, since it's what Brandt actually *wants*.
Jimbo put as one of his reasons for unblocking that it had been "more than a year" since he was blocked. It is indeed more than a year since he was blocked, but it is *not* more than a year since he has been engaged in posting private information about our editors to public websites. It's more than a year since *my* stalker was blocked, but the phoncalls to my workplace, the threats to my family, the e-mails about parts of my body, the maps of my city with my workbuilding highlighted, the words "now that we have you surrounded, we start slowly tightening the ring" are all much more recent. And Brandt was still posting stuff about one of our administrator's supposed identity at another website within hours of being unblocked.
But for those who sincerely think Brandt is too notable for deletion of the article to be an option, I have my last point. I would have said all along, and I'm sure I *have* said, "Keep him banned; he can e-mail his concerns about the article to the Foundation." And I would have assumed that I was being fair. Brandt claims in his open letter (now on Talk:Daniel Brandt) that he has been sending e-mails and faxes for eighteen months, that he sent a fax to Jimbo, a fax to Brad, and a fax to Danny, and that he did not receive a reply to any. Is it true that he was informing the Foundation of his concerns with his biography, and that his messages were ignored? If so, and if deleting his biography was not an option, why was unblocking him considered, rather than having someone from the Foundation respond to his communications, and help him to have inaccuracies removed from his biography?
Ann
Musical Linguist 18:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kirill_Lokshin&curid...)
On 20/04/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Posted on behalf of Musical Linguist, at her request:
The argument for deleting it is that it's the decent thing to do, and it might stop the stalking.
"Might" isn't good enough, I'm afraid.
An argument against deleting it is that he's notable enough to *permit* inclusion. He is not notable enough to *require* inclusion. We would not lose credibility as an encylopaedia if the article were gone.
I don't recognise degrees of notability beyond the binary state of "notable enough to have an article" or "not". Talk of degrees of notability are unhelpful because you could be faced with a question of "where do we draw the line?" - we already have that line.
Deleting an article because the subject wants it deleted would set a terrible precedent. What do we do in the future if someone else wants their bio deleted? If we delete this one, we must delete all bios on request.
----- Original Message ----- From: James Farrar To: English Wikipedia Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 4:47 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Brandt, bios, and other thoughts
On 20/04/07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Posted on behalf of Musical Linguist, at her request:
The argument for deleting it is that it's the decent thing to do, and it might stop the stalking.
"Might" isn't good enough, I'm afraid.
An argument against deleting it is that he's notable enough to *permit* inclusion. He is not notable enough to *require* inclusion. We would not lose credibility as an encylopaedia if the article were gone.
I don't recognise degrees of notability beyond the binary state of "notable enough to have an article" or "not". Talk of degrees of notability are unhelpful because you could be faced with a question of "where do we draw the line?" - we already have that line.
Deleting an article because the subject wants it deleted would set a terrible precedent. What do we do in the future if someone else wants their bio deleted? If we delete this one, we must delete all bios on request.
------------------ Hmmm... no, I don't buy that. - I don't buy that this is precedent setting, even were it to happen. I simply don't think any argument that includes "we must...." is ever acceptable.
We can choose to delete for minor notables, and not for major notables. It adds a layer of decision making (who decides who's a major notable and a minor notable?), but that's not insurmountable. Frankly, I also don't buy that there are no levels of notability. Sanjaya, say, is notable today, but will he be in five years? 50 years? Whereas, Charles Darwin is notable forever.
Philippe
On 4/20/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
I don't recognise degrees of notability beyond the binary state of "notable enough to have an article" or "not".
Notability is a chimera. Either we have enough to write a decent article or we do not. We have enough for a decent start article on Brandt, a little more than a stub, which is okay.
The question here is not notability, but whether it's sensible to waste so much time and effort, and spill so much goodwill, to maintain this article. Let's kill the silly thing and move on. The content is free so deleting it from our site would not be an act of censorship.
On 4/20/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/20/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
I don't recognise degrees of notability beyond the binary state of "notable enough to have an article" or "not".
Notability is a chimera. Either we have enough to write a decent article or we do not. We have enough for a decent start article on Brandt, a little more than a stub, which is okay.
The question here is not notability, but whether it's sensible to waste so much time and effort, and spill so much goodwill, to maintain this article. Let's kill the silly thing and move on. The content is free so deleting it from our site would not be an act of censorship.
I respectfully disagree with you and Fred and others. We do set a precedent here if we delete due to the hassle and fuss raised. It's a very bad precedent.
One should not negotiate with terrorists. Terrorist-type indiscriminate destructive tactics can't be caved in to without lasting damage to credibility and ability to deter future terrorism. This is as true in online communities as it is in business and culture and geopolitics.
One can negotiate with fierce opponents who use less scorched-earth, less indiscriminate tactics, who believe that both sides are acting in good faith.
Sometimes people in category one evolve into people in category two. Right now, Jimmy's placed a bet that Brandt will make that jump. Once that has demonstrably happened, we can revisit the question. Before then, it's dangerous, and as slick a solution as it appears to be to simply appease the beast, it will set a very dangerous precedent.
For now, please don't.
On 4/21/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
One should not negotiate with terrorists.
We don't do ourselves any good by applying such labels to those with whom we are in dispute.
On 4/20/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/21/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
One should not negotiate with terrorists.
We don't do ourselves any good by applying such labels to those with whom we are in dispute.
I thought long and hard about whether the label was appropriate or hyperbole in this situation, and then decided to use it.
It's hard to describe a campaign to identify and widely publish the real-world identities of people operating pseudonymously online, and specific threats and attempts to cause termination of education or employment, as anything but terroristic online activities. The intention is to cause behavior changes in a community by wanton disproportionate destruction.
Whether we then label the perpetrator as a terrorist or not is just a matter of semantics.
There are plenty of ex-terrorists in the world who have moved on to better ways of life, both online and in real life. And online activities like this aren't comparable to the real-world life and death terrorists. But the term is a term of art for grand strategy of coersive individual and group acts, and doesn't require that the acts be loss of life.