I would like to start by applauding Mr. Wales for his wonderful idea of writing a free online encyclopedia by the contribution of volunteers. I am hoping that it can be improved to a reliable source of information as time goes.
At this point, it is evident that, there are some structural problems in Wikipedia. Ignoring these problems doesn't lead to a reasonable solution and doesn't help.
The main problem I can see is the unbalance between the user rights and admin privileges. It can be adjusted and corrected but the problem needs to be identified first. It might not seem to be a serious issue for one who is not effected, but it really is. It is of paramount importance to realize that motivation of ordinary users from any background can be stimulated only by a fair treatment of their edits.
It is also equally important to realize that the conjuncture has a strong influence on the editors without an exclusion of the admins. Some people feel marginalized and faced to bias actions from some admins. Isn't this important enough to address? The answer to the question is strongly related to the strategic call of being inclusive or exclusive.
Please note that any person leave Wikimedia is not only a minus to the community, in general, is a plus to the anti-Wikipedia community. I, myself, am at or around that border line and before crossing it I wanted to make a friendly call for a discussion of the issue. I would be glad to discuss the issue and make some suggestions for the solution if you are interested.
Best,
Resid
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"Resid Gulerdem" wrote
Some people feel marginalized and faced to bias actions from some admins. Isn't this important enough to address? The answer to the question is strongly related to the strategic call of being inclusive or exclusive.
There has never been a shortage of criticism of certain admin actions. A high proportion of this has always been mud-slinging by those rightly the target of admin sanctions.
The issue of 'bias' is better phrased another way. Do admins apply admin powers in attempts to control article content, in a way that is negative from the point of view of compliance with fundamental policies on content? It turns out that it is much harder to make a good case of this kind, than to make general accusations on 'bias'. (I was accused myself like this last week.) Admin action is there to defend the project, and you have to look at the effects in particular with respect to NPOV.
It is of course not ruled out that admins make mistakes (it happens often). Usually, though, our admins understand the policies much better than their accusers, and are not the ones trying to game the system, or apply 'wikilawyer' tactics against the spirit of policy.
Charles
* charles matthews wrote:
There has never been a shortage of criticism of certain admin actions. A high proportion of this has always been mud-slinging by those rightly the target of admin sanctions.
While that is certainly true I think it should be noted that those who are "rightly" dealt with seldom (if ever) have much impact on Wikipedia as a whole... the user base looks on and finds the action generally equitable and unworthy of further comment. That's not the problem. It's the times when an admin or group of admins takes action that the community finds unjustified or contemptuous... and nothing is done about it.
The fact is that we have high standards of civility (which IMO includes avoidance of personal attacks, respect for consensus, consistent treatment, et cetera) for users - placing blocks when a line is crossed... even higher standards for becoming an admin... and very very low standards once you HAVE become an admin. There are admins who are routinely incivil, make personal attacks on a regular basis, and thumb their noses at consensus... and that IS damaging Wikipedia. People always go on about 'tougher standards to become an admin', but I don't see that making any difference... , many people will always do what they can get away with doing. If they have to be saintly to become an admin they will be saintly... right up to the point they get that sysop bit.
Look around at your fellow admins from time to time and ask yourself... is there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Look around at your fellow admins from time to time and ask yourself... is there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.
I don't think that is a particularly fair test. As is obvious, admins are occasionally called upon to perform actions that upset people -- I don't think admins should shrink from making those hard choices.
I can think of several thoroughgoingly solid admins, people who temper a good knowledge of policy with a healthy dose of knowing that what we're here to do is write an encyclopaedia, who I doubt would pass an RfA because they've done things that have made them controversial or unpopular in certain sectors of the community.
The community giveth, and the community taketh away -- but it taketh away under the auspices of proper consideration by the arbitration committee, not by having unpopular admins strung up by a baying lynchmob.
Cheers,
N.
On 5/29/06, Nick Boalch n.g.boalch@durham.ac.uk wrote:
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Look around at your fellow admins from time to time and ask yourself... is there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.
I don't think that is a particularly fair test. As is obvious, admins are occasionally called upon to perform actions that upset people -- I don't think admins should shrink from making those hard choices.
I can think of several thoroughgoingly solid admins, people who temper a good knowledge of policy with a healthy dose of knowing that what we're here to do is write an encyclopaedia, who I doubt would pass an RfA because they've done things that have made them controversial or unpopular in certain sectors of the community.
The community giveth, and the community taketh away -- but it taketh away under the auspices of proper consideration by the arbitration committee, not by having unpopular admins strung up by a baying lynchmob.
I agree with this. Funnily enough, I originally read RFA as "request for arbitration" and agreed with the comment. I don't think admins necessarily need to enjoy broad-based popularity, but they do need the support of the most experienced Wikipedians, including arbitors. No one expects police to be popular - but you do expect them to have the support of the people who appoint them.
Steve
* Steve Bennett wrote:
I don't think admins necessarily need to enjoy broad-based popularity, but they do need the support of the most experienced Wikipedians, including arbitors.
You know... there is a term for that kind of an organizational structure. One we go to some lengths to deny exists here.
No one expects police to be popular - but you do expect them to have the support of the people who appoint them.
Admins are appointed by the community... and when the police lose the support of the people they are policing they generally get replaced... or the neighborhood goes to hell.
"Conrad Dunkerson" wrote
Admins are appointed by the community... and when the police lose the support of the people they are policing they generally get replaced... or the neighborhood goes to hell.
Well then, where is objective evidence that the neighbourhood is going to hell? I don't mean general bitching. I mean evidence that vandals sweep through Wikipedia, or edit wars take over.
I know where to look for entirely credible evidence of people who would like to see admin powers diminished to the point of ineffectiveness, and to have admins looking constantly over their shoulders at what the People's Commissar might be thinking.
This thread was started on the proposition about imbalance 'between the user rights and admin privileges'. It is really not the same question, whether unpopular admins should still be in the job. Note that correcting the purported imbalance would affect all admins, righteous and popular or not.
En-WP's Arbitrators have been quite prepared to de-sysop people. But relatively few cases have been brought on that, which stand up at all. And numerous which look like general attempts to pressurise admins who are doing just what they should be.
Charles
On 5/29/06, Conrad Dunkerson conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net wrote:
- charles matthews wrote:
Well then, where is objective evidence that the neighbourhood is going to hell?
See [[User:Katefan0]] and related.
See [[Wikipedia:List_of_administrators#Inactive]] we always lose admins. Somehow we muddel through.
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
- charles matthews wrote:
Well then, where is objective evidence that the neighbourhood is going to hell?
See [[User:Katefan0]] and related.
Charles was replying to you saying that the "neighbourhood is going to hell" due to too much power being given over to sysops and not enough to the community at large; I fail to see how highly distasteful (and illegal) off-wiki activity by banned users is of any relevance. Can we not get yet further distracted?
Yours, -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
* James D. Forrester wrote:
Charles was replying to you saying that the "neighbourhood is going to hell" due to too much power being given over to sysops and not enough to the community at large; I fail to see how highly distasteful (and illegal) off-wiki activity by banned users is of any relevance. Can we not get yet further distracted?
I was suggesting that PART of the reason for the excessive hatred directed at Wikipedia and the admin community in particular are the actions of some admins. The original poster said that a lost Wikipedia user can also be a new anti-Wikipedia crusader. They're right. Obviously there will always be people who are dis-satisfied and disruptive. But the fact is that we sometimes go out of our way to antagonize them and it only makes things worse. Wikipedia is becoming more and more a battleground (does anyone disagree with that assessment?)... and in part that is because we no longer treat the 'problem' users with as much respect as we once did. They cause problems... sooner or later someone comes along and stomps them... and instead of slowly learning to fit in or drifting away with mildly bad feelings they gain an intense hatred of Wikipedia or those they see as the 'abusers'. It's a problem we are contributing to and ought to make more concerted efforts to avoid.
"Conrad Dunkerson" wrote
I was suggesting that PART of the reason for the excessive hatred directed at Wikipedia and the admin community in particular are the actions of some admins.
Well, and I'm suggesting that you are busy dragging red herrings right over this issue. It is pretty much tautologous that criticism of the administration of the English Wikipedia is criticism of the admins, plus Jimbo. I think it is very naive about the Internet and its denizens to assume 'no smoke without fire applies'. Criticism of admins does not imply, necessarily, that there are admins who deserve such criticism. You do concede that some very difficult 'customers' are rightly banned from WP? And that subsequent comment from them may have a malicious component?
Charles
* charles matthews wrote:
I think it is very naive about the Internet and its denizens to assume 'no smoke without fire applies'.
Heh... two decades on the 'net' and still "naive" ("very" so no less) about it and its denizens. Somehow, I don't think that's it.
Criticism of admins does not imply, necessarily, that there are admins who deserve such criticism.
Necessarily? No. You can have criticism without justification. However, seething hatred from former contributors? An entire community of them? And complaints of admin behaviour commonplace amongst the ACTIVE contributors? Perhaps these are indications that there just might be some small thing which ought to be done differently.
You do concede that some very difficult 'customers' are rightly banned from WP? And that subsequent comment from them may have a malicious component?
Also, that the sun is hot. :]
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediansEditsGt100.htm
I am not sure why these stats are incomplete after January. But they do confirm what many of us felt about what was going on in December and January...
from November to December, the number of "very active users" in en went from just over 2000 to just under 3000. That 50% jump included a fair number of people who were new to the process, and coincides with the start of some "old timer" versus "newcomer" cultural fights about things like userboxes.
This is why there is a perception that at times there have been conflicts between "admins" and "the community". In the past, there was no question at all that "the community" and "the admins" were just about exactly the same people.
--Jimbo
On 6/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediansEditsGt100.htm
I am not sure why these stats are incomplete after January.
Due to a shift in how the data is stored. I think there is a signpost article on it somewhere.
from November to December, the number of "very active users" in en went from just over 2000 to just under 3000. That 50% jump included a fair number of people who were new to the process, and coincides with the start of some "old timer" versus "newcomer" cultural fights about things like userboxes.
That conflict has been going on for a long time. Userboxes isn't about old timer vs newtimers. The real oldtimes have mostly stayed out of things. More midtimers vs a mixture.
This is why there is a perception that at times there have been conflicts between "admins" and "the community". In the past, there was no question at all that "the community" and "the admins" were just about exactly the same people.
--Jimbo
Been a devide of sorts for as long as I have been around. However admins are a lot stonger than they used to be. The community could control admins through policy. Now the number of admins means they can pretty much get what policy they want and mid timers are starting a trend of ignoreing it in any case. Non admins are becomeing increaseingly powerless.
On 6/4/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Non admins are becomeing increaseingly powerless.
Funny you should see it as power v. no power. Not being an admin affects your ability to write an encyclopedia in the most of miniscule ways. Just write the encyclopedia. Any "power" that you speak of is ridiculous. All this other crap happening... not writing an encyclopedia. Being an admin shouldn't really matter to people. --LV
On 6/4/06, Lord Voldemort lordbishopvoldemort@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/4/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Non admins are becomeing increaseingly powerless.
Funny you should see it as power v. no power. Not being an admin affects your ability to write an encyclopedia in the most of miniscule ways. Just write the encyclopedia. Any "power" that you speak of is ridiculous. All this other crap happening... not writing an encyclopedia. Being an admin shouldn't really matter to people.
It has no impact on editing articles. I for one have a goal of spending a majority of my WP time doing that. I often fail 8-( Though, to be fair, checking articles on my watchlist for updates is a big part of the non-adding-material time.
I care about how other people are editing articles, and in some cases how people are responding to what other people edit in articles and in secondary discussions. For the most part, having some history of the situation and how policy has evolved, and knowing where to look for things, has been the hard part. Not having admin bit set doesn't affect my ability to put my two cents in on any of the discussions I have cared about.
There are a few persistent vandals who have wandered by pages I care about and I would have blocked if I could, but the people doing automated checks are generally responding a lot faster than I do with reverts and warnings on talk pages, so presumably they're more effective than I could be with blocking anyways, since I don't have time to sit and monitor in realtime during the day. Bravo to those writing the software.
I can recall once that someone called me on "But you're not even an admin", followed by them being dogpiled by several other people in the discussion including several admins. So I can't even complain that the perception issue as a non-admin is really causing me any issues.
"Sometimes"?
Excuse me while I have a good laugh. You've been trying to drive people like me, who honestly want wikipedia reformed, onto wikipediareview (so that you can say "oh it's just whining from wikipediareview, we should destroy them") for months now.
I'm just going to sit back and eat some popcorn and enjoy watching them make fun of YOU now, Conrad, because that's all they're doing. You've raised valid points just as I did, and they're not taking you seriously, just reiterating the same old Judge Dredd "I AM THE LAW" bullshit.
A. Nony Mouse
On 5/29/06, Conrad Dunkerson conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net wrote:
I was suggesting that PART of the reason for the excessive hatred directed at Wikipedia and the admin community in particular are the actions of some admins. The original poster said that a lost Wikipedia user can also be a new anti-Wikipedia crusader. They're right. Obviously there will always be people who are dis-satisfied and disruptive. But the fact is that we sometimes go out of our way to antagonize them and it only makes things worse.
* A. Nony Mouse wrote:
Excuse me while I have a good laugh. You've been trying to drive people like me, who honestly want wikipedia reformed, onto wikipediareview (so that you can say "oh it's just whining from wikipediareview, we should destroy them") for months now.
As none of that sounds remotely familiar I'll assume you are using some sort of collective form of "you".
I'm just going to sit back and eat some popcorn and enjoy watching them make fun of YOU now, Conrad, because that's all they're doing.
That's ok. I'm a big boy. I can take it.
You've raised valid points just as I did, and they're not taking you seriously, just reiterating the same old Judge Dredd "I AM THE LAW" bullshit.
Bizarrely enough, >I< am also 'the law'... making these generalizations perhaps somewhat simplistic. Wikipedia and its administration are made up of a wide variety of people with different backgrounds and viewpoints. Thus, attacking the institution or members/admins in general based on the actions of individuals will always include an element of unjustified criticism. Deal with individual problems rather than trashing the whole.
On May 29, 2006, at 3:11 PM, Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Wikipedia is becoming more and more a battleground (does anyone disagree with that assessment?)
This is only natural... an unsuccessful project does not attracts criticism. It is only because the project is *so* successful that it is unavoidable we will encounter opposition. And what was the basis for the project success so far? Wikipedia content policies, the strength of the community and the application of these polices by the latter.
So, on the face of criticism against WP and admins, we ought to continue doing what we have done successfully so far.
After all, failure is the discrepancy between the expected and the observed. People may need to adjust their expectations of WP and re- read WP:NOT from time to time.
-- Jossi
On May 29, 2006, at 3:11 PM, Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
I was suggesting that PART of the reason for the excessive hatred directed at Wikipedia and the admin community in particular are the actions of some admins. The original poster said that a lost Wikipedia user can also be a new anti-Wikipedia crusader.
I just want to note that I agree with this. We do have a problem with sometimes inflaming "problem users" rather than educating them into good contributors or deflating and wearing them out until they leave. Is this primarily due to the growth of the site? In my opinion, yes. What can we do about this without making our problems (this and/or others) worse? I don't know. Conrad, do you have any suggestions? In any case, I do appreciate you bringing this up, it is good that we are (once again) having this discussion. This *is* the sort of "good response to critics" that we hope to practice.
Jesse Weinstein
* Jesse W wrote:
I just want to note that I agree with this. We do have a problem with sometimes inflaming "problem users" rather than educating them into good contributors or deflating and wearing them out until they leave. Is this primarily due to the growth of the site? In my opinion, yes.
Absolutely. It is easier to remain patient when dealing with a handful of 'less than perfect' users than it is when dealing with hundreds... but that's an explanation rather than an excuse. As the job gets more difficult the need to keep a cool head becomes all the more important.
What can we do about this without making our problems (this and/or others) worse? I don't know. Conrad, do you have any suggestions? In any case, I do appreciate you bringing this up, it is good that we are (once again) having this discussion. This *is* the sort of "good response to critics" that we hope to practice.
Ultimately I think the answer is to maintain standards of civility / no personal attacks / consensus building / et cetera NO MATTER WHAT. Far too many admins sometimes act as if civility only applies to 'good' users or 'users who agree with me'. HOW do we change that? Bring it up when people start disregarding civility (a quick glance at AN/I of late should give you an idea what prompted me to comment NOW) and look for ways to nudge the culture. I really DO think that 'admin re-affirmation' could work in some form (e.g. requires X signatories to open, cannot be called for sooner than Y months after adminship/last re-affirmation, need roughly Z% approval to remain admin, et cetera) and plan to make a self-test of it once I've been an admin long enough to have built up a respectable sized collection of people who hate me. :]
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Wikipedia is becoming more and more a battleground (does anyone disagree with that assessment?)... and in part that is because we no longer treat the 'problem' users with as much respect as we once did. They cause problems... sooner or later someone comes along and stomps them... and instead of slowly learning to fit in or drifting away with mildly bad feelings they gain an intense hatred of Wikipedia or those they see as the 'abusers'. It's a problem we are contributing to and ought to make more concerted efforts to avoid.
This is possible. However, I am not really sure about it. As ever, when I am asked to look into cases of "admin abuse" and I choose to do so, I generally find myself astounded at how nice we are to complete maniacs, and for how long.
--Jimbo
Jimbo wrote:
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Wikipedia is becoming more and more a battleground (does anyone disagree with that assessment?)... and in part that is because we no longer treat the 'problem' users with as much respect as we once did. They cause problems... sooner or later someone comes along and stomps them... and instead of slowly learning to fit in or drifting away with mildly bad feelings they gain an intense hatred of Wikipedia or those they see as the 'abusers'. It's a problem we are contributing to and ought to make more concerted efforts to avoid.
This is possible. However, I am not really sure about it. As ever, when I am asked to look into cases of "admin abuse" and I choose to do so, I generally find myself astounded at how nice we are to complete maniacs, and for how long.
Actually, I agree with both Conrad and Jimbo. I think we're seeing several intersecting trends here.
One is that "problem" users seem to be getting more aggressive in asserting their "right" to be, well, complete maniacs. When the community was younger and smaller and more cohesive, the maniacs had much less "wiggle room"; they either changed their ways or left for good. Today, however, many of them display a breathtaking level of arrogance and defiance, and if they're ever subjected to any actual sanction, they immediately appeal it on Jimbo's talk page or this list. And I suspect that the natural frustration on the part of the rest of us, when confronted with this escalating arrogance and defiance, is sometimes to, as Conrad put it, just stomp on somebody.
But at the same time, as we become ever larger and more visible, we need to be more and more concerned abut the degree to which appearances matter. Intense, festering hatred can of course be a real problem, too, especially when it fuels real-world personal attacks on our editors. We've got to keep working to find ways to carry out our "judicial" actions politely and diplomatically, even if it means, as the old saying goes, overriding our desperate urge to choke the living shit out of some asshole who desperately needs it.
Unfortunately, no matter how polite we are about it, it's going to keep getting harder to get rid of the maniacs, now that Wikipedia has gotten Big and Significant. Once upon a time, if you were a maniac who had been raking muck on Wikipedia but got blocked or banned, you probably didn't care so much; there were plenty of other equally interesting sites on the 'net where you could stalk off to torment instead. Today, however, although the "plenty of other interesting sites on the 'net" are all still there, they're no longer as equally interesting; Wikipedia is now much, much more interesting. If you're a POV-pusher with a vengeance, you're not content to just go and push your POV somewhere else; it's vital that you find ways to keep pushing it *on Wikipedia*, since your potential audience is so much bigger.
This is a tricky problem, and it's not going to get any easier.
On Jun 4, 2006, at 1:49 PM, Steve Summit wrote:
Unfortunately, no matter how polite we are about it, it's going to keep getting harder to get rid of the maniacs, now that Wikipedia has gotten Big and Significant. Once upon a time, if you were a maniac who had been raking muck on Wikipedia but got blocked or banned, you probably didn't care so much; there were plenty of other equally interesting sites on the 'net where you could stalk off to torment instead. Today, however, although the "plenty of other interesting sites on the 'net" are all still there, they're no longer as equally interesting; Wikipedia is now much, much more interesting. If you're a POV-pusher with a vengeance, you're not content to just go and push your POV somewhere else; it's vital that you find ways to keep pushing it *on Wikipedia*, since your potential audience is so much bigger.
... and that is why those to whom we need to override "our desperate urge to choke the living shit out of [them]", not only want to raise a racket outside WP and engage in personal attacks against our editors, they also want at the same time to continue attempting to push their POV, expecting we treat them with respect and accept their edits in good faith!
-- Jossi
On 5/29/06, Nick Boalch n.g.boalch@durham.ac.uk wrote:
The community giveth, and the community taketh away -- but it taketh away under the auspices of proper consideration by the arbitration committee, not by having unpopular admins strung up by a baying lynchmob.
The community has no power to take away, other admins are the only ones who have any power to take away rights, and the threat of being told not to wheel war seems to be stopping admins from making hard decisions about other admins.
Peter Ansell
Peter Ansell wrote:
The community giveth, and the community taketh away -- but it taketh away under the auspices of proper consideration by the arbitration committee, not by having unpopular admins strung up by a baying lynchmob.
The community has no power to take away, other admins are the only ones who have any power to take away rights, and the threat of being told not to wheel war seems to be stopping admins from making hard decisions about other admins.
The community has the power indirectly through the dispute resolution process. In something of an analogy to representative democracy, we've appointed arbitrators to do the hard work for us.
Cheers,
N.
On May 29, 2006, at 5:11 AM, Peter Ansell wrote:
The community has no power to take away, other admins are the only ones who have any power to take away rights, and the threat of being told not to wheel war seems to be stopping admins from making hard decisions about other admins.
Peter,
Can you show me *one* example in which you made a complaint against an administrator at WP:ANI and you were not listened, to or the complaint not addressed.
Thanks,
-- Jossi
* Nick Boalch wrote:
I don't think that is a particularly fair test.
I can't speak to 'fair' only the realities of the situation. Our documentation says that admins have extra powers because they are trusted by the community. Should we change that to 'users who were ONCE trusted by the community'?
As is obvious, admins are occasionally called upon to perform actions that upset people -- I don't think admins should shrink from making those hard choices.
Neither do I... but there is a difference between making hard choices and disrespecting the community. Couldn't those "solid admins" you mention, who have become 'controversial or unpopular' have handled things in a different way to avoid the animus? Mightn't they have been more likely to if there were clear consequences of not doing so?
To put it another way... if something would have been so disruptive as to prevent a person from ever being appointed an admin in the first place why is it suddenly ok AFTER they become an admin? It makes the 'community appointment' of admins into something of a smokescreen... community approval is required for seven days, and not a minute more.
On 5/29/06 9:55 AM, "Conrad Dunkerson" conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net wrote:
To put it another way... if something would have been so disruptive as to prevent a person from ever being appointed an admin in the first place why is it suddenly ok AFTER they become an admin?
One does not have to be "disruptive" to be prevented from becoming an admin. All it takes is to make any decision on-wiki which in any way creates controversy, and it then becomes ridiculously easy to votestack the RFA with opposition.
Admins are routinely called upon to make precisely the sort of controversial decisions on-wiki that will inevitably leave someone pissed off. Deletion and verifiable/reliable sourcing questions quite often result in the people making the choices being called censors, Nazis and all sorts of vulgar names.
Admins are appointed by the community... and when the police lose the support of the people they are policing they generally get replaced... or the neighborhood goes to hell.
Ah, no. One cannot fire a police officer merely because he "loses the support of the people," whatever that means. One must go before a review board, such as a Police Commission, and demonstrate that the officer has committed wrongful acts - abuse of power, misuse of force, etc. Similarly, we have a procedure to allow review of administrative decisions through the Arbitration Committee. Several admins have lost their sysop bit due to ArbCom actions, so this is not some sort of paper tiger but a real check on administrative abuses.
I agree that admins cannot and should not be seen as untouchable and perhaps we need to make clearer to people who feel wronged that they do have recourse to appeal. At the same time, to expect the people that we call upon to make controversial and contentious decisions about the encyclopedia to be somehow subject to the arbitrary whim of the "support of the people" at any time is the height of insanity.
-Travis Mason-Bushman
Our administrators are not police officers. I see no problem with requiring them to be reaffirmed every 2 years or so. If they are unpleasant that is reason enough not to reaffirm them.
Fred
On May 29, 2006, at 1:12 PM, Travis Mason-Bushman wrote:
Ah, no. One cannot fire a police officer merely because he "loses the support of the people," whatever that means. One must go before a review board, such as a Police Commission, and demonstrate that the officer has committed wrongful acts - abuse of power, misuse of force, etc. Similarly, we have a procedure to allow review of administrative decisions through the Arbitration Committee. Several admins have lost their sysop bit due to ArbCom actions, so this is not some sort of paper tiger but a real check on administrative abuses.
I agree that admins cannot and should not be seen as untouchable and perhaps we need to make clearer to people who feel wronged that they do have recourse to appeal. At the same time, to expect the people that we call upon to make controversial and contentious decisions about the encyclopedia to be somehow subject to the arbitrary whim of the "support of the people" at any time is the height of insanity.
-Travis Mason-Bushman
On Mon, 29 May 2006, Fred Bauder wrote: [snip]
Our administrators are not police officers.
You're right, it would be overly simplistic and inaccurate to characterise administrators as police. However, we do have duties on the Wiki that could be described as 'enforcement' -- copyright violations, speedy deletions, blocking, enaction of ArbCom rulings.
All of these duties are things that are quite capable of pissing people off however polite the administrator is.
I see no problem with requiring them to be reaffirmed every 2 years or so. If they are unpleasant that is reason enough not to reaffirm them.
I do. One can do things without being unpleasant that nevertheless make you unpopular. Look at the administrators who have been vilified for attempting in all good faith to deal with the userbox problem.
Cheers,
N.
Nick Boalch wrote:
On Mon, 29 May 2006, Fred Bauder wrote:
I see no problem with requiring them to be reaffirmed every 2 years or so. If they are unpleasant that is reason enough not to reaffirm them.
I do. One can do things without being unpleasant that nevertheless make you unpopular. Look at the administrators who have been vilified for attempting in all good faith to deal with the userbox problem.
Indeed. I have grave doubts that a confirmation system would be anything other than absolutely disasterous, at least in the short term, to the wikilove principle in favour of which it's apparently being proposed (let alone the actual practical functioning of the site).
Yours sincerely, -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
On 5/29/06, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Indeed. I have grave doubts that a confirmation system would be anything other than absolutely disasterous, at least in the short term, to the wikilove principle in favour of which it's apparently being proposed (let alone the actual practical functioning of the site).
I doubt I'd survive any sort of reconfirmation vote. Then again, that might work out well in the long run, since I think the owners of Wikipedia would rather that I were an admin.....
Kellyt
On 5/31/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I doubt I'd survive any sort of reconfirmation vote. Then again, that might work out well in the long run, since I think the owners of Wikipedia would rather that I were an admin.....
Kellyt
Things generaly don't work out too well when the foundation tries to involve itself in the day to day running of en.wikipedia.
I would not expect to survive either, but I still think it's a good idea. Actually I think it does not hurt for a new wave of hard asses to take over and let the old tired wore out hard asses regenerate for a while. As Stephen Gaskin once said (with respect to those who hoarded paper during the Caravan) "You are not the only one who knows how to keep toilet paper dry."
Fred
On May 30, 2006, at 8:13 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:
On 5/29/06, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Indeed. I have grave doubts that a confirmation system would be anything other than absolutely disasterous, at least in the short term, to the wikilove principle in favour of which it's apparently being proposed (let alone the actual practical functioning of the site).
I doubt I'd survive any sort of reconfirmation vote. Then again, that might work out well in the long run, since I think the owners of Wikipedia would rather that I were an admin.....
Kellyt _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 5/29/06, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Indeed. I have grave doubts that a confirmation system would be anything other than absolutely disasterous, at least in the short term, to the wikilove principle in favour of which it's apparently being proposed (let alone the actual practical functioning of the site).
I doubt I'd survive any sort of reconfirmation vote. Then again, that might work out well in the long run, since I think the owners of Wikipedia would rather that I were an admin.....
Did you write something different from what you meant?
I fully support you as an admin, if that is what you were wondering about.
On 6/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Did you write something different from what you meant?
I fully support you as an admin, if that is what you were wondering about.
No, it's more along the lines of what would happen if I were to be desysoped by a "community process"... in the long term, it might help to undermine that process and our admin promotion process generally, which I think would be a good thing.
I occasionally think about running for bureaucrat, but realize that by doing so I would be implicitly supporting the RfA system, which I have grave objections to and which I think should be reformed or eliminated entirely.
Kelly
Hear hear!
:P -Stevertigo
--- Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Did you write something different from what you
meant?
I fully support you as an admin, if that is what
you were wondering about.
No, it's more along the lines of what would happen if I were to be desysoped by a "community process"... in the long term, it might help to undermine that process and our admin promotion process generally, which I think would be a good thing.
I occasionally think about running for bureaucrat, but realize that by doing so I would be implicitly supporting the RfA system, which I have grave objections to and which I think should be reformed or eliminated entirely.
Kelly _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 6/9/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I occasionally think about running for bureaucrat, but realize that by doing so I would be implicitly supporting the RfA system, which I have grave objections to and which I think should be reformed or eliminated entirely.
If you want to start a formal discussion about it, I'm all ears and mouths.
Steve
On 6/9/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
No, it's more along the lines of what would happen if I were to be desysoped by a "community process"... in the long term, it might help to undermine that process and our admin promotion process generally, which I think would be a good thing.
Not really. No one wikipedian could really effect something with that much inertia. With admins picking up increaseing control RFA is one of the last ways none admins can really infulence the project. Realisticaly you are looking at a cold dead hands situation if you want to remove it.
I occasionally think about running for bureaucrat, but realize that by doing so I would be implicitly supporting the RfA system, which I have grave objections to and which I think should be reformed or eliminated entirely.
you did run:
[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_bureaucratship/Kelly_Martin]]
On 6/9/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Not really. No one wikipedian could really effect something with that much inertia. With admins picking up increaseing control RFA is one of the last ways none admins can really infulence the project. Realisticaly you are looking at a cold dead hands situation if you want to remove it.
Exactly why it needs to be removed now before it becomes completely entrenched. First we started getting people who wanted adminship to have control, and now they have adminship, and are taking control. We should have stopped this a year ago, but we weren't paying attention, and now we have a lot of bad admins to show for it.
I occasionally think about running for bureaucrat, but realize that by doing so I would be implicitly supporting the RfA system, which I have grave objections to and which I think should be reformed or eliminated entirely.
you did run:
[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_bureaucratship/Kelly_Martin]]
That was, um, what, seven months ago? My attitudes have changed rather significantly since then, as have those of the project.
Kelly
On 6/9/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
We should have stopped this a year ago, but we weren't paying attention, and now we have a lot of bad admins to show for it.
Uhh... "a lot of bad admins"? Care to clarify "bad admins"? Care to provide evidence of "a lot" of them? --LV
On 6/9/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
Exactly why it needs to be removed now before it becomes completely entrenched. First we started getting people who wanted adminship to have control, and now they have adminship, and are taking control.
In the end there is no certian way of telling how people will turn out until they become admins. for the most part RFA works.
Admins are not meant to be able to exercise a significant degree of control over the project. That they can is not RFA's fault.
We should have stopped this a year ago, but we weren't paying attention, and now we have a lot of bad admins to show for it.
Not really. 721 fully active admins. Number of those doing things I regard as negative comes in single figures.
That was, um, what, seven months ago? My attitudes have changed rather significantly since then, as have those of the project.
Kelly
Project hasn't changed much in seven months. Deletionist/inclusionist wars have largly ended. Userbox issue has appeared. FRA and FC standards have gone up but real chnage has been pretty minimal certianly compared to say my first 7 months on the project (arbcom just starting up introduction of the template namespace and the lose of msg:)
On Jun 9, 2006, at 9:44 AM, geni wrote:
Project hasn't changed much in seven months.
Deletionist/inclusionist wars have largly ended. Userbox issue has appeared.
And, IMO, that's the single biggest evidence in favor of the idea that the userbox issue is far less a substantive issue, and far more simply the current Wikipedia-wide "conflict du jour". Not that there are not real issues (there were real issues behind the deletionist/inclusionist fight too), but they are far less important than fighting for the sake of fighting by the large majority of partisans on both sides.
Jesse Weinstein
On 6/9/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
On Jun 9, 2006, at 9:44 AM, geni wrote:
Project hasn't changed much in seven months.
Deletionist/inclusionist wars have largly ended. Userbox issue has appeared.
And, IMO, that's the single biggest evidence in favor of the idea that the userbox issue is far less a substantive issue, and far more simply the current Wikipedia-wide "conflict du jour".
Pretty much. The real conflict on wikipedia is between the pro and rather less pro process groups but for the most part that involves less shouting. Instead both sides write highly detailed essays at each other.
Not that there are not real issues (there were real issues behind the deletionist/inclusionist fight too),
Deletionist/inclusionist issue is real. Largly due to the problem that prior to wikipedia no one appears to have given much though to what an encyopedia is. but hwta we should include/what we should not include is a serious issue.
On 6/9/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/9/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
....
Not that there are not real issues (there were real issues behind the deletionist/inclusionist fight too),
Deletionist/inclusionist issue is real. Largly due to the problem that prior to wikipedia no one appears to have given much though to what an encyopedia is. but what we should include/what we should not include is a serious issue.
-- geni
That's close, but not quite it. I think what it is more about is that previously encyclopedias were written by fairly homogenous "elites", if you will, and that the inherent economic limits meant that they were forced to stay within the area of "no-brainers", subjects which were to them obviously encyclopedia-worthy, which they could easily reach consensus on, being fairly homogenous elites. But by the same token, that means that they never had to grapple with any edge issues, whereas we do, as en has by and large exhausted a good many of the obviously encyclopedia-worthy articles (though not all, or else we wouldn't have the missing encyclopedia article project), and so must confront the margins; and of course, Wikipedia is hardly written by a fairly homogenous elite, regardless of whatever it may have started life as, or the realities of its power structure.
~maru
On 6/9/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
That's close, but not quite it. I think what it is more about is that previously encyclopedias were written by fairly homogenous "elites", if you will, and that the inherent economic limits meant that they were forced to stay within the area of "no-brainers", subjects which were to them obviously encyclopedia-worthy, which they could easily reach consensus on, being fairly homogenous elites. But by the same token, that means that they never had to grapple with any edge issues, whereas we do, as en has by and large exhausted a good many of the obviously encyclopedia-worthy articles (though not all, or else we wouldn't have the missing encyclopedia article project), and so must confront the margins; and of course, Wikipedia is hardly written by a fairly homogenous elite, regardless of whatever it may have started life as, or the realities of its power structure.
Also, we have large numbers of people extremely willing and ready to write detailed articles on topics of dubious interest. We have articles on every single episode of most major TV shows, and lots of minor ones. You would never see that in any encyclopaedia.
Steve
On Jun 9, 2006, at 4:32 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
We have articles on every single episode of most major TV shows, and lots of minor ones. You would never see that in any encyclopaedia.
You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century American Television? Really? Or do you mean in any "general" encyclopedia. Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows - but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
Jesse Weinstein
On 6/9/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
On Jun 9, 2006, at 4:32 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
We have articles on every single episode of most major TV shows, and lots of minor ones. You would never see that in any encyclopaedia.
You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century American Television? Really? Or do you mean in any "general" encyclopedia. Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows - but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
Out of curiosity, why?
Obviously storage space becomes a limit at some point, but there seems to be little visible limit to the interest of people in documenting things.
What, exactly, does an end-state Wikipedia project look like, to those who would want us to stop adding new articles at some point? How and when would you say "stop"?
On Jun 9, 2006, at 5:09 PM, George Herbert wrote:
On 6/9/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
On Jun 9, 2006, at 4:32 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
We have articles on every single episode of most major TV shows, and lots of minor ones. You would never see that in any encyclopaedia.
You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century American Television? Really? Or do you mean in any "general" encyclopedia. Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows - but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
Out of curiosity, why?
I'll turn the question on it's head - what's an example, in your opinion, of a article topic that would be "beyond a specialized encyclopedia devoted to a subject to which the topic is a part" (sorry, little convoluted there, but I hope you get the gist) I ask, because, I can't think of a topic like that that would not be, at the same time, obviously "not encyclopedic", in the opinion of any random person you cared to ask. Certainly, an article consisting only of polemic on Macedonian independence is "beyond a specialized encyclopedia", no matter what it's subject, but it's also obviously wrong for Wikipedia. I can't think of a topic which fails the first criteria, without being obviously unsuitable for Wikipedia. Can you come up with some examples?
What, exactly, does an end-state Wikipedia project look like, to those who would want us to stop adding new articles at some point? How and when would you say "stop"?
When we have articles on every topic for which reputable sources can be found. Of course, we'd have to start up adding new articles in a year or so, when a lot of new material has been published, but we could stop adding articles for a period, while enough new material was published.
Jesse Weinstein
There will always be that news story about 28 murders in po-dunk Kansas and that city will suddenly shoot from a stub to a featured article. The creation of human knowledge never ends, and we will never stop gathering it.
mboverload
On 6/9/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
On Jun 9, 2006, at 5:09 PM, George Herbert wrote:
On 6/9/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
On Jun 9, 2006, at 4:32 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
We have articles on every single episode of most major TV shows, and lots of minor ones. You would never see that in any encyclopaedia.
You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century American Television? Really? Or do you mean in any "general" encyclopedia. Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows - but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
Out of curiosity, why?
I'll turn the question on it's head - what's an example, in your opinion, of a article topic that would be "beyond a specialized encyclopedia devoted to a subject to which the topic is a part" (sorry, little convoluted there, but I hope you get the gist) I ask, because, I can't think of a topic like that that would not be, at the same time, obviously "not encyclopedic", in the opinion of any random person you cared to ask. Certainly, an article consisting only of polemic on Macedonian independence is "beyond a specialized encyclopedia", no matter what it's subject, but it's also obviously wrong for Wikipedia. I can't think of a topic which fails the first criteria, without being obviously unsuitable for Wikipedia. Can you come up with some examples?
What, exactly, does an end-state Wikipedia project look like, to those who would want us to stop adding new articles at some point? How and when would you say "stop"?
When we have articles on every topic for which reputable sources can be found. Of course, we'd have to start up adding new articles in a year or so, when a lot of new material has been published, but we could stop adding articles for a period, while enough new material was published.
Jesse Weinstein
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On 6/9/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
What, exactly, does an end-state Wikipedia project look like, to those who would want us to stop adding new articles at some point? How and when would you say "stop"?
When we have articles on every topic for which reputable sources can be found.
Sure that's your criteria? I can, with a little effort, get multiple reputable sources to document my travels to and from work every day (I could drive by multiple Caltrans, TV and Radio station traffic cams, take my own GPS log of the trip, video blog it, publish an ISBNed print-on-demand book of it every day, etc). I would certainly hope that nobody felt it Wikipedia-worthy to create [[George William Herbert's drive to work on Friday, June 10, 2006]]. Much less the drive home, or the rest of the week and month.
We're past the point that lots of truly mundane boring stuff gets reputably reliably recorded in an accessable manner, which would pass the verifyable source test for WP.
We'll get to the point that most truly mundane things in public are so recorded (hint: England has security cameras everywhere in most major cities already).
On 6/10/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Sure that's your criteria? I can, with a little effort, get multiple reputable sources to document my travels to and from work every day (I could drive by multiple Caltrans, TV and Radio station traffic cams, take my own GPS log of the trip, video blog it, publish an ISBNed print-on-demand book of it every day, etc). I would certainly hope that nobody felt it Wikipedia-worthy to create [[George William Herbert's drive to work on Friday, June 10, 2006]]. Much less the drive home, or the rest of the week and month.
The basic implicit criteria that most people seem to use are: - to be an article, some relatively notable third party news source (take very broadly) must have found it worth writing a story about - all information in the article must be verifiable
Therefore your trip would satisfy the second criteria (the information could be added to the article) but would fail the first, because no one else found your trip notable.
Steve
On 6/10/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century American Television? Really? Or do you mean in any "general" encyclopedia. Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows - but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
I still find it hard to imagine a specialised encyclopaedia listing all the couch gags in Simpsons episodes, or detailed plot summaries with "quotes" for every episode of Futurama or "Clerks: The Animated Series" etc etc. If someone can prove me wrong, go for it.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/10/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century American Television? Really? Or do you mean in any "general" encyclopedia. Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows - but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
I still find it hard to imagine a specialised encyclopaedia listing all the couch gags in Simpsons episodes, or detailed plot summaries with "quotes" for every episode of Futurama or "Clerks: The Animated Series" etc etc. If someone can prove me wrong, go for it.
Steve
That's my beef with a lot of our pop culture articles, TBH. The quotes section should go to Wikiquote. If any quotes (I imagine Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" would be a good example) are notable enough to be in an encyclopaedia, we should have some commentary on them and their impact. Plot summaries aren't that bad - at least they're prose. The worst ones, IMO, are pop culture references sections (last time I checked, [[Alan Turing]] is a good example of this) which don't add anything meaningful to the article and act as a magnet for info that most people won't care about at all (relativists who suggest that this is none of our business ought to note that we're an encyclopaedia - when we collect information, we ought to comment on it), and also trivia sections which serve the same purpose on pop culture articles (look at the article on [[House, M.D.]] before I trimmed the trivia section).
John
On 6/10/06, John Lee johnleemk@gawab.com wrote:
prose. The worst ones, IMO, are pop culture references sections (last time I checked, [[Alan Turing]] is a good example of this) which don't add anything meaningful to the article and act as a magnet for info that most people won't care about at all (relativists who suggest that this
What I like about cultural references sections is that they stop the rest of the article being polluted. They do act as a magnet for trivial information, but fortunately, from time to time we can just throw that magnet in the bin, with all the trivial iron filings it has gathered.
This is one of the real arts in managing Wikipdia: letting people contribute in such a way that wey can easily discard the least helpful contributions without offending anyone.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/10/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century American Television? Really? Or do you mean in any "general" encyclopedia. Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows - but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
I still find it hard to imagine a specialised encyclopaedia listing all the couch gags in Simpsons episodes, or detailed plot summaries with "quotes" for every episode of Futurama or "Clerks: The Animated Series" etc etc. If someone can prove me wrong, go for it.
Perhaps the proof lies in the simple fact that others DID imagine doing such things. :-)
Pop culture needs to be given credit for being popular.
Ec
On 6/11/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Perhaps the proof lies in the simple fact that others DID imagine doing such things. :-)
Pop culture needs to be given credit for being popular.
Popular but uncritical, and rarely studied to any significant degree.
Steve
I would disagree. An incredible amount of money is spent every year trying to figure out what is popular. "Popular culture" encompasses so many things I think it would be hard to say "IT" isn't studied.
mboverload
On 6/11/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/11/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Perhaps the proof lies in the simple fact that others DID imagine doing such things. :-)
Pop culture needs to be given credit for being popular.
Popular but uncritical, and rarely studied to any significant degree.
Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/12/06, mboverload mboverload@gmail.com wrote:
I would disagree. An incredible amount of money is spent every year trying to figure out what is popular. "Popular culture" encompasses so many things I think it would be hard to say "IT" isn't studied.
Studied, analysed, critiqued, and written about in an academic framework, if you prefer.
Steve
G'day Steve,
On 6/10/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
You would not see that in the Encyclopedia of Late 20th Century American Television? Really? Or do you mean in any "general" encyclopedia. Because certainly, Wikipedia reaches the level of a specialized encyclopedia in a number of areas, like television shows - but (I hope), we don't go too much beyond that.
I still find it hard to imagine a specialised encyclopaedia listing all the couch gags in Simpsons episodes, or detailed plot summaries with "quotes" for every episode of Futurama or "Clerks: The Animated Series" etc etc. If someone can prove me wrong, go for it.
While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/ encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not). It included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is, their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1], etc.
There was also a detailed listing of all TNG episodes, with plot summary, credits, a very short review, interesting technical details, and occasionally a photograph. At the end was a detailed "making of" of /Generations/, since that film had just been released, or was about to be released, at the time of publication.
I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with fan theories and other such crud.
[0] I think a lot of our fiction articles could be dramatically improved by taking a real-world approach: "here is what this fictional entity should look like to people who aren't wrapped up in the fictional universe". Our /Doctor Who/ articles largely get this right; our /Star Wars/ and particularly /Gundam/ articles often don't. As a Trekkie, I haven't bothered looking at our /Star Trek/ collection, for fear it would only depress me.
Compare [[Light saber]] with [[Dalek]]. Then choose any Gundam article at random, and marvel at the statistics presented therein, instantly forgetting any criticisms you may have had for [[Light saber]].
[1] There was a lot of emphasis on Captain Picard being French, and why he stayed that way even after Patrick Stewart, the most British British actor the Brits have produced, was cast to play him.
On 6/11/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/ encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not). It included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is, their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1], etc.
I own the 1999 version of the Star Trek Encyclopaedia, covering the four series and the nine movies up to that point. It's just like the one you describe, it's concise and accessible for non-fans (although I doubt how many non-fans would be reading it - but the point is they could read it if they wanted).
Importantly, it treated the fictional stuff as "true", like a reader of an encyclopaedia within the fictional universe would expect, but it simultaneously presented information about the shows, the actors, etc alongside the fictional stuff, without each trying to pretend that the other didn't exist. It's hard to describe, but I think it's a marvellous example of how encyclopaedias should address fictional matters.
I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with fan theories and other such crud.
Indeed. WP is of course a generalist encyclopaedia, and although it is not paper, and can include much more material than other generalist works, we should always be writing for a generalist audience [1]. There are now, of course, specialist wiki encyclopaedias for these subjects (like Memory Alpha and Wookiepedia) which are a much better place for specialist content.
[1] Science articles are another area where there are some excellent articles written so that they can be broadly understood, and others which are far too detailed for the generalist reader.
On 6/11/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
[1] Science articles are another area where there are some excellent articles written so that they can be broadly understood, and others which are far too detailed for the generalist reader.
Science is difficult. There are areas that eirther require a hight level of background knowlage to understand or would have to be several hundread pages long. [[Biaxial nematic]] for example.
Sorry to be a geek, but 4 series? It must be more than that. 3 TOS, 7 TNG, 6/7 DS9, around 4 VOY.
On 6/11/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/11/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/ encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not). It included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is, their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1],
etc.
I own the 1999 version of the Star Trek Encyclopaedia, covering the four series and the nine movies up to that point. It's just like the one you describe, it's concise and accessible for non-fans (although I doubt how many non-fans would be reading it - but the point is they could read it if they wanted).
Importantly, it treated the fictional stuff as "true", like a reader of an encyclopaedia within the fictional universe would expect, but it simultaneously presented information about the shows, the actors, etc alongside the fictional stuff, without each trying to pretend that the other didn't exist. It's hard to describe, but I think it's a marvellous example of how encyclopaedias should address fictional matters.
I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with fan theories and other such crud.
Indeed. WP is of course a generalist encyclopaedia, and although it is not paper, and can include much more material than other generalist works, we should always be writing for a generalist audience [1]. There are now, of course, specialist wiki encyclopaedias for these subjects (like Memory Alpha and Wookiepedia) which are a much better place for specialist content.
[1] Science articles are another area where there are some excellent articles written so that they can be broadly understood, and others which are far too detailed for the generalist reader.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
G'day Joe,
[aaargh, top-poster! Get 'im!]
Sorry to be a geek, but 4 series? It must be more than that. 3 TOS, 7 TNG, 6/7 DS9, around 4 VOY.
Americans call a programme's series a "season", and the programme itself a "series". It actually makes sense. Australians tend to use an inconsistent mix of American and British terminology in this regard; personally (and this is one of the few cases you'll hear me say this), I prefer the American version: /Star Trek/ is divided up into series, each of which has many seasons ...
And before TNG but after TOS, we had TAS --- /Star Trek: The Animated Adventures/. No, I didn't watch it either. I read some comic books (sorry, sorry: "graphic novels") based on it, though.
I wonder if this divide has lead to any confusing articles on Wikipedia?
* Mark Gallagher wrote:
Americans call a programme's series a "season", and the programme itself a "series".
You have no idea how much this confused me when I heard the recent Doctor Who episodes (Rose Tyler & Captain Jack and the Bad Wolf and all that) repeatedly called "the first series". I eventually figured out that they meant 'first year of the latest television show about Doctor Who'... but to us West-ponders it sounds like they are claiming the first Doctor Who show was aired in 2005... rather than decades ago.
On 6/11/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/ encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not). It included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is, their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1], etc.
Ok, that's interesting, because that's even more "specialised" than I was thinking. I was imagining a "encyclopaedia of US sitcoms" or something. I think your example would struggle to really qualify as an "encyclopaedia" though, as it sounds like it was really written for fans to provide interesting "behind the scenes" info etc. As opposed to being a comprehensive reference for researchers in the field, say.
I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with fan theories and other such crud.
It has to meet WP:V too, though, which I doubt most of our articles about TV episodes do. References are few and far between. By comparison with written literature, say, each episode would seem to me equivalent to a chapter, meaning we shouldn't have articles on every chapter, because there just isn't enough interesting to say. After you've summarised the plot, what can you really say about an episode? Its effect on mainstream popular culture? I doubt it. Its significance outside that TV show? The history of production of the episode? Umm...
Compare [[Light saber]] with [[Dalek]]. Then choose any Gundam article at random, and marvel at the statistics presented therein, instantly forgetting any criticisms you may have had for [[Light saber]].
[[Dalek]] is a shining example to all others of what a fancruft article should be like. It constantly places the Dalek in the real world, talking about how they were produced, what the producers were thinking etc. As opposed to getting caught up in how Dalek 2348 got blown up in episode XIV by Doctor Who's pet monkey.
[1] There was a lot of emphasis on Captain Picard being French, and why he stayed that way even after Patrick Stewart, the most British British actor the Brits have produced, was cast to play him.
Sounds ok. Steve
On 6/9/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/9/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
That's close, but not quite it. I think what it is more about is that previously encyclopedias were written by fairly homogenous "elites", if you will, and that the inherent economic limits meant that they were forced to stay within the area of "no-brainers", subjects which were to them obviously encyclopedia-worthy, which they could easily reach consensus on, being fairly homogenous elites. But by the same token, that means that they never had to grapple with any edge issues, whereas we do, as en has by and large exhausted a good many of the obviously encyclopedia-worthy articles (though not all, or else we wouldn't have the missing encyclopedia article project), and so must confront the margins; and of course, Wikipedia is hardly written by a fairly homogenous elite, regardless of whatever it may have started life as, or the realities of its power structure.
Also, we have large numbers of people extremely willing and ready to write detailed articles on topics of dubious interest. We have articles on every single episode of most major TV shows, and lots of minor ones. You would never see that in any encyclopaedia.
Steve
Well, that's sort of what I meant. The usual run-of-the-mill elites would not concern themselves with such things (although I have heard of *some* encyclopedias of TV shows and such starting to emerge in the past half-century), and being homogenous, there would not be a subfaction interested in such things. Whereas we...
~maru
On 6/9/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/9/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Not really. No one wikipedian could really effect something with that much inertia. With admins picking up increaseing control RFA is one of the last ways none admins can really infulence the project. Realisticaly you are looking at a cold dead hands situation if you want to remove it.
Exactly why it needs to be removed now before it becomes completely entrenched. First we started getting people who wanted adminship to have control, and now they have adminship, and are taking control. We should have stopped this a year ago, but we weren't paying attention, and now we have a lot of bad admins to show for it.
What do you want to use instead? Personally I don't mind RFA that much. Although I do think the editcountis is getting out of hand. When I started looking at it in september I think, the limit most people used was 1000 edits, now I already see oppose votes for less then 3000 edits.
If we have bad admins, perhaps it should be made easier to de-admin them. I do agree that this should not be done by the community, since that could turn out to be a lynching. (userbox issue for instance) Perhaps by arbcom? They don't seem to be that busy anyway. :)
Garion96
Several months ago the [[WP:NPOV]] policy was edited declaring this and two other policies "non-negotiable": http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANeutral_point_of_view&...
This is true in article space, but seemed to restrict future consensus in project space. After discussion on the [[WP:NPOV]] talk page I've edited the three policy pages and hope the changes wil stick/be improved: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANeutral_point_of_view&...
I'm posting this here to hopefully get some additional input. Please let me know your thoughts.
I also have a not unimportant related question for Jimbo: Am I right in interpreting "NPOV is absolute and non-negotiable" as only applying to Wikipedia's being written from the neutral point of view as a fundamental principle? Or does it also apply to (parts of) [[WP:NPOV]] and related policies?
Thanks,
Arie [[User:Avb]]
Arie van Buuren wrote:
I also have a not unimportant related question for Jimbo: Am I right in interpreting "NPOV is absolute and non-negotiable" as only applying to Wikipedia's being written from the neutral point of view as a fundamental principle? Or does it also apply to (parts of) [[WP:NPOV]] and related policies?
That seems like the reasonable interpretation to me, especially since Jimbo didn't even write that specific text---it's the principle of NPOV that's non-negotiable, not the specific sentences currently on [[WP:NPOV]].
-Mark
On May 29, 2006, at 2:11 PM, Nick Boalch wrote:
I see no problem with requiring them to be reaffirmed every 2 years or so. If they are unpleasant that is reason enough not to reaffirm them.
I oppose this... since becoming an admin a few months ago, my user page has been vandalized 98 times by those users that I have blocked for disruption and vandalism, or those that believed that a page protection or closing an AfD against their POV were admin abuse . All I need is 98 "against" votes on such reaffirmation.
The peer review process that can be initiated by posting a complaint at WP:ANI, or as a last resort presented to de ArbCom, is sufficient recourse for those that have a complaint against an administrator.
-- Jossi
"Conrad Dunkerson" wrote
The fact is that we have high standards of civility (which IMO includes avoidance of personal attacks, respect for consensus, consistent treatment, et cetera) for users - placing blocks when a line is crossed... even higher standards for becoming an admin... and very very low standards once you HAVE become an admin. There are admins who are routinely incivil, make personal attacks on a regular basis, and thumb their noses at consensus... and that IS damaging Wikipedia.
That is technically untrue, since every syllable of policy on civility applies to admins; and morally has even greater force. There is not the slightest reason to lapse in _civilty_ while talking and acting tough. In fact it undermines the impression. Any admin who is 'routinely incivil' can expect little support.
Charles
On May 29, 2006, at 4:13 AM, Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Look around at your fellow admins from time to time and ask yourself... is there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.
Wikipedia admins are appointed for life (or at least until resignation or disciplinary dismissal) for a very important reason-- they can't properly do their job if they have to worry about being re- appointed or re-elected. Tenured professors and Supreme Court justices fall under the same model for the same reason.
I think the sheer volume of unpleasantness admins have to deal with -- vandalism, verbal abuse, etc -- might tend to sour some of them toward interactions in general. I've seen a few admins acting in jarring ways ("better not mess with me -- do you have any idea who I am?", etc.)
On 5/29/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
On May 29, 2006, at 4:13 AM, Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
Look around at your fellow admins from time to time and ask yourself... is there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.
Wikipedia admins are appointed for life (or at least until resignation or disciplinary dismissal) for a very important reason-- they can't properly do their job if they have to worry about being re- appointed or re-elected. Tenured professors and Supreme Court justices fall under the same model for the same reason.
-- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Conrad Dunkerson wrote:
There are admins who are routinely incivil, make personal attacks on a regular basis, and thumb their noses at consensus... and that IS damaging Wikipedia.
Give some examples? File an arbcom case?
Look around at your fellow admins from time to time and ask yourself... is there ANY way this person could pass an RFA at this point? If the answer is 'no' then the de facto situation is that a person who does NOT have the support or respect of the community has powers which are only supposed to be held by those who DO... and that inherently breeds disruption and resentment and ongoing damage to Wikipedia as a whole.
I think it would be reasonable to have some sort of process other than ArbCom whereby admins are from time to time or upon particular circumstances renominated for adminship. The danger, of course, is that such a process could be used by trolls as a hammer against some of our more active admins. I can see endless repeats of renominations for adminship every time an admin does something sensible but bold.
That seems worse than whatever problems we may have now.
--Jimbo
There has never been a shortage of criticism of certain admin actions. A high proportion of this has always been mud-slinging by those rightly the target of admin sanctions.
The issue of 'bias' is better phrased another way. Do admins apply admin powers in attempts to control article content, in a way that is negative from the point of view of compliance with fundamental policies on content? It turns out that it is much harder to make a good case of this kind, than to make general accusations on 'bias'.
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs. There was absolutely no reason for that ban, and had Saladin1970's political views been better aligned with theirs, he wouldn't have been blocked at all. Since virtually all his edits were reverted solely because they were made by a blocked user, it should be painstakingly clear that (some) admins apply admin powers in attempts to control article content and that that is negative for Wikipedia.
And it won't change, because despite the probably hundreds of policies wikipedian-en has, not a single one of them says that when an admin fucks up that bad, s/he shouldn't be an admin. So while Saladin1970 is stuck with some weird arbitration thing with Fred Bauder, the admins can continue their free roll. Saladin1970 is far from the only case, he just happened to be particularly persistent and polite when complaining in this list.
On 6/4/06, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
There has never been a shortage of criticism of certain admin actions. A high proportion of this has always been mud-slinging by those rightly the target of admin sanctions.
The issue of 'bias' is better phrased another way. Do admins apply admin powers in attempts to control article content, in a way that is negative from the point of view of compliance with fundamental policies on content? It turns out that it is much harder to make a good case of this kind, than to make general accusations on 'bias'.
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs.
You mean the one who kept insisting that Britain's most prolific mass murderer be identified as a "Jew" in the lead, the one who kept inserting copyvios in other articles, kept logging out and using his IP to violate 3RR, etc? That one?
There was absolutely no reason for that ban, and had Saladin1970's political views been better aligned with theirs, he wouldn't have been blocked at all.
Well, aside from his sly 3RR violations, his poorly written, unsourced, POV, and arguably anti-Semitic insertions, his copyvios, etc.
Since virtually all his edits were reverted solely because they were made by a blocked user, it should be painstakingly clear that (some) admins apply admin powers in attempts to control article content and that that is negative for Wikipedia.
Actually, what is painstakingly clear is that not only were his edits a net detriment to Wikipedia, but also that your posts on this list are pretty much the same; uninformed, POV, and almost always factually incorrect. What is also painstakingly clear is that the only reason you defend him (apart from your inevitably choosing the wrong-headed position on any situation) is that his political views coincide with your own.
BJorn, you've been asked to stop projecting your own faults on others; if you cannot desist from this, at least please stop using this list for doing so.
And it won't change, because despite the probably hundreds of policies wikipedian-en has, not a single one of them says that when an admin fucks up that bad, s/he shouldn't be an admin.
Well, except for all the admins who have been de-sysopped.
So while Saladin1970 is stuck with some weird arbitration thing with Fred Bauder,
Saladin1970 is not involved "with some arbitration thing with Fred Bauder". Can you not even get the simplest facts straight? He is involved in an arbitration case with the Arbitration Committee.
the admins can continue their free roll. Saladin1970 is far from the only case, he just happened to be particularly persistent and polite when complaining in this list.
Actually, Saladin1970 indundated this list with a series of lengthy, dubious, and often factually false e-mails; for example, his copyvios would be pointed out to him time and again, yet he would still post further lengthy diatribes insisting he had never been shown them, and also insisting on apologies. Much like you, he seems to have completely missed (or avoided reading) every e-mail which detailed the actual behavioral reasons he was blocked, and instead concocted a bizarre conspiracy theory which blamed admins for blocking him for political reasons. This, in fact, accords with his political views in general - the world is controlled by a conspiracy of secret forces (and you can guess exactly who those secret forces are) - but there's no reason why this list (or Wikipedia) need be subjected to them.
Jay.
So when jaygy does one alledged incident of sock puppetry used against wikipedia policy result in an indefinate ban?? and when jaygy does citing someones ethnicity on their wikipedia biography result in that person being antisemetic , and henced banned indefinately on wikipedia
if i were to trawl through your posts it would not be difficult to see a pattern emerging of extreme POV pushing, reverting posts to ensure your POV held.
I think it is quite clear that BJorn has hit on a very sensitive and important point. That certain administrators abuse their position by banning or reverting posts to ensure their POV remains on wiki pages that are close to their life view. And that there is NO wiki policy to protect the neutrality of wiki pages from these abuses, or of the victims of these administration abuses.
I give you a simple example of the extreme POV pushing that goes on by certain administrators I attempted to include in the "further reading" section of the zionism page, the 5-10 year academically researched book "zionism the real enemy of the jews" by Alan Hart. Now this was disallowed on the grounds of POV, yet if we look at the list on the zionism further reading section one has to wonder why these aren't POV yet the alan hart book is
Sholom Aleichem. Why Do the Jews Need a Land of Their own?, 1898 Paul Charles Merkley. The Politics of Christian Zionism 1891 1948 (London: Frank Cass, 1998) A. Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, Wiley, 2003 ISBN 0-471-46502-X.
etc. yet of course my attempts to include it whilst it being repeatedly removed by slimvirgin, jaygy and humus sapien, are examples of my 'anti semitism'.
If i were you jaygy i would be extremely embarassed by the episode of my ban, and be questioning whether such a clear case of injustice actually helps your goals.
From: jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 11:15:45 -0400
On 6/4/06, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
There has never been a shortage of criticism of certain admin actions.
A
high proportion of this has always been mud-slinging by those rightly
the
target of admin sanctions.
The issue of 'bias' is better phrased another way. Do admins apply
admin
powers in attempts to control article content, in a way that is
negative
from the point of view of compliance with fundamental policies on
content?
It turns out that it is much harder to make a good case of this kind,
than
to make general accusations on 'bias'.
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs.
You mean the one who kept insisting that Britain's most prolific mass murderer be identified as a "Jew" in the lead, the one who kept inserting copyvios in other articles, kept logging out and using his IP to violate 3RR, etc? That one?
There was absolutely no reason for that ban, and had Saladin1970's political views been better aligned with theirs, he wouldn't have been blocked at all.
Well, aside from his sly 3RR violations, his poorly written, unsourced, POV, and arguably anti-Semitic insertions, his copyvios, etc.
Since virtually all his edits were reverted solely because they were made by a blocked user, it should be painstakingly clear that (some) admins apply admin powers in attempts to control article content and that that is negative for Wikipedia.
Actually, what is painstakingly clear is that not only were his edits a net detriment to Wikipedia, but also that your posts on this list are pretty much the same; uninformed, POV, and almost always factually incorrect. What is also painstakingly clear is that the only reason you defend him (apart from your inevitably choosing the wrong-headed position on any situation) is that his political views coincide with your own.
BJorn, you've been asked to stop projecting your own faults on others; if you cannot desist from this, at least please stop using this list for doing so.
And it won't change, because despite the probably hundreds of policies wikipedian-en has, not a single one of them says that when an admin fucks up that bad, s/he shouldn't be an admin.
Well, except for all the admins who have been de-sysopped.
So while Saladin1970 is stuck with some weird arbitration thing with Fred Bauder,
Saladin1970 is not involved "with some arbitration thing with Fred Bauder". Can you not even get the simplest facts straight? He is involved in an arbitration case with the Arbitration Committee.
the admins can continue their free roll. Saladin1970 is far from the only case, he just happened to be particularly persistent and polite when complaining in this list.
Actually, Saladin1970 indundated this list with a series of lengthy, dubious, and often factually false e-mails; for example, his copyvios would be pointed out to him time and again, yet he would still post further lengthy diatribes insisting he had never been shown them, and also insisting on apologies. Much like you, he seems to have completely missed (or avoided reading) every e-mail which detailed the actual behavioral reasons he was blocked, and instead concocted a bizarre conspiracy theory which blamed admins for blocking him for political reasons. This, in fact, accords with his political views in general - the world is controlled by a conspiracy of secret forces (and you can guess exactly who those secret forces are) - but there's no reason why this list (or Wikipedia) need be subjected to them.
Jay. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Wrong, going through Jayjg's posts would not show a "pattern of extreme POV pushing". It would show a few instances of POV edits. There is a huge difference. I have criticized Jayjg sharply but what you are saying is not based on his record. It is a gross exaggeration.
Fred
On Jun 4, 2006, at 10:10 AM, abu hamza wrote:
So when jaygy does one alledged incident of sock puppetry used against wikipedia policy result in an indefinate ban?? and when jaygy does citing someones ethnicity on their wikipedia biography result in that person being antisemetic , and henced banned indefinately on wikipedia
if i were to trawl through your posts it would not be difficult to see a pattern emerging of extreme POV pushing, reverting posts to ensure your POV held.
I think it is quite clear that BJorn has hit on a very sensitive and important point. That certain administrators abuse their position by banning or reverting posts to ensure their POV remains on wiki pages that are close to their life view. And that there is NO wiki policy to protect the neutrality of wiki pages from these abuses, or of the victims of these administration abuses.
I give you a simple example of the extreme POV pushing that goes on by certain administrators I attempted to include in the "further reading" section of the zionism page, the 5-10 year academically researched book "zionism the real enemy of the jews" by Alan Hart. Now this was disallowed on the grounds of POV, yet if we look at the list on the zionism further reading section one has to wonder why these aren't POV yet the alan hart book is
Sholom Aleichem. Why Do the Jews Need a Land of Their own?, 1898 Paul Charles Merkley. The Politics of Christian Zionism 1891 – 1948 (London: Frank Cass, 1998) A. Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, Wiley, 2003 ISBN 0-471-46502-X.
etc. yet of course my attempts to include it whilst it being repeatedly removed by slimvirgin, jaygy and humus sapien, are examples of my 'anti semitism'.
If i were you jaygy i would be extremely embarassed by the episode of my ban, and be questioning whether such a clear case of injustice actually helps your goals.
From: jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 11:15:45 -0400
On 6/4/06, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
There has never been a shortage of criticism of certain admin
actions. A
high proportion of this has always been mud-slinging by those
rightly the
target of admin sanctions.
The issue of 'bias' is better phrased another way. Do admins
apply admin
powers in attempts to control article content, in a way that
is negative
from the point of view of compliance with fundamental policies
on content?
It turns out that it is much harder to make a good case of
this kind, than
to make general accusations on 'bias'.
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely
banned
by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs.
You mean the one who kept insisting that Britain's most prolific mass murderer be identified as a "Jew" in the lead, the one who kept inserting copyvios in other articles, kept logging out and using his IP to violate 3RR, etc? That one?
There was absolutely no reason for that ban, and had Saladin1970's political views been better aligned with
theirs, he
wouldn't have been blocked at all.
Well, aside from his sly 3RR violations, his poorly written, unsourced, POV, and arguably anti-Semitic insertions, his copyvios, etc.
Since virtually all his edits were reverted solely because they were made by a blocked user, it
should be
painstakingly clear that (some) admins apply admin powers in
attempts
to control article content and that that is negative for Wikipedia.
Actually, what is painstakingly clear is that not only were his edits a net detriment to Wikipedia, but also that your posts on this list are pretty much the same; uninformed, POV, and almost always factually incorrect. What is also painstakingly clear is that the only reason you defend him (apart from your inevitably choosing the wrong-headed position on any situation) is that his political views coincide with your own.
BJorn, you've been asked to stop projecting your own faults on others; if you cannot desist from this, at least please stop using this list for doing so.
And it won't change, because despite the probably hundreds of
policies
wikipedian-en has, not a single one of them says that when an admin fucks up that bad, s/he shouldn't be an admin.
Well, except for all the admins who have been de-sysopped.
So while Saladin1970 is stuck with some weird arbitration thing with Fred Bauder,
Saladin1970 is not involved "with some arbitration thing with Fred Bauder". Can you not even get the simplest facts straight? He is involved in an arbitration case with the Arbitration Committee.
the admins can continue their free roll. Saladin1970 is far from the only
case,
he just happened to be particularly persistent and polite when complaining in this list.
Actually, Saladin1970 indundated this list with a series of lengthy, dubious, and often factually false e-mails; for example, his copyvios would be pointed out to him time and again, yet he would still post further lengthy diatribes insisting he had never been shown them, and also insisting on apologies. Much like you, he seems to have completely missed (or avoided reading) every e-mail which detailed the actual behavioral reasons he was blocked, and instead concocted a bizarre conspiracy theory which blamed admins for blocking him for political reasons. This, in fact, accords with his political views in general - the world is controlled by a conspiracy of secret forces (and you can guess exactly who those secret forces are) - but there's no reason why this list (or Wikipedia) need be subjected to them.
Jay. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 6/4/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
Wrong, going through Jayjg's posts would not show a "pattern of extreme POV pushing". It would show a few instances of POV edits. There is a huge difference. I have criticized Jayjg sharply but what you are saying is not based on his record. It is a gross exaggeration.
Formal definition of "POV pushing" required. Anyone?
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
Formal definition of "POV pushing" required. Anyone?
Yes, oh yes, absolutely, yes please. Let's wikilawyer ourselves to death, defining anything and everything to maximal precision and minimal accuracy. I can't wait.
Yours sincerely, -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
On 6/4/06, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
Formal definition of "POV pushing" required. Anyone?
Yes, oh yes, absolutely, yes please. Let's wikilawyer ourselves to death, defining anything and everything to maximal precision and minimal accuracy. I can't wait.
Currently there seems to be confusion over the term. Maybe you could just answer these questions instead: * does POV pushing have to be intentional? * does POV pushing have to be in bad faith? * is someone who is genuinely correcting bias in an article "POV pushing"? * is someone who *thinks* they're doing the above (but is actually introducing bias) "POV pushing"? * is systematically adding examples of your own country, culture, religion, language etc to a wide range of articles "POV pushing"?
Thanks, Steve
On Jun 4, 2006, at 12:28 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/4/06, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
Formal definition of "POV pushing" required. Anyone?
Yes, oh yes, absolutely, yes please. Let's wikilawyer ourselves to death, defining anything and everything to maximal precision and minimal accuracy. I can't wait.
Currently there seems to be confusion over the term. Maybe you could just answer these questions instead:
- does POV pushing have to be intentional?
No, but discussion of the editing must prove fruitless.
- does POV pushing have to be in bad faith?
No, but again discussion of the editing must prove fruitless.
- is someone who is genuinely correcting bias in an article "POV
pushing"?
No.
- is someone who *thinks* they're doing the above (but is actually
introducing bias) "POV pushing"?
Yes; again, the test is whether discussing the situation with them corrects the problem.
- is systematically adding examples of your own country, culture,
religion, language etc to a wide range of articles "POV pushing"?
Could be. If your examples result in introduction of inappropriate or insignificant viewpoints into a number of articles it would be. To take a well known example, it is inappropriate to add the views of Lyndon LaRouche to every political or economics article. Another recent example was an editor who went through all the biographies adding the information that every Jewish person about whom there was a biography was Jewish. Sometimes nationality or race is irrelevant.
Fred
Thanks, Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/4/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
No, but discussion of the editing must prove fruitless.
So POV pushing is not simply an editing pattern, it is an edit/discussion pattern?
Steve
Yes, not only must you be doing the wrong thing; you must persist in doing it after people have talked to you about it and asked you not to do it. You got to be hardheaded. "Sustained aggressive tendentious editing" You have to keep doing it in the face of other users.
Fred
On Jun 4, 2006, at 2:39 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/4/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
No, but discussion of the editing must prove fruitless.
So POV pushing is not simply an editing pattern, it is an edit/discussion pattern?
Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Sustained aggressive tendentious editing.
Fred
On Jun 4, 2006, at 10:48 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/4/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
Wrong, going through Jayjg's posts would not show a "pattern of extreme POV pushing". It would show a few instances of POV edits. There is a huge difference. I have criticized Jayjg sharply but what you are saying is not based on his record. It is a gross exaggeration.
Formal definition of "POV pushing" required. Anyone?
Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I have copied his statement regarding his request for arbitration to the proper page and unblocked him so he can participate in arbitration. I am hopeful he is just a new user who made some newbie mistakes, but have no opinion as to whether he should be permitted another chance.
Fred
On Jun 4, 2006, at 9:15 AM, jayjg wrote:
So while Saladin1970 is stuck with some weird arbitration thing with Fred Bauder,
Saladin1970 is not involved "with some arbitration thing with Fred Bauder". Can you not even get the simplest facts straight? He is involved in an arbitration case with the Arbitration Committee.
On 6/4/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
I have copied his statement regarding his request for arbitration to the proper page and unblocked him so he can participate in arbitration. I am hopeful he is just a new user who made some newbie mistakes, but have no opinion as to whether he should be permitted another chance.
Thank you Fred. If more admins acted like you there would be much less stuff to complain about. Unfortunately, with the current environment and policies like "wheel warring," it doesn't seem easy to always do the right thing.
BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs.
Ai yi yi. I think you should take another look at this case. I see no reason to think that political views had anything to do with it.
--Jimbo
The arbitration committee will be hearing this matter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/ Saladin1970_appeal
Fred
On Jun 4, 2006, at 2:15 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs.
Ai yi yi. I think you should take another look at this case. I see no reason to think that political views had anything to do with it.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
yes, i have made my first submission, feels like a court of law :-), i knew my jury service would come in handy.
From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org CC: Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 14:49:27 -0600
The arbitration committee will be hearing this matter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/ Saladin1970_appeal
Fred
On Jun 4, 2006, at 2:15 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs.
Ai yi yi. I think you should take another look at this case. I see no reason to think that political views had anything to do with it.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 6/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs.
Ai yi yi. I think you should take another look at this case. I see no reason to think that political views had anything to do with it.
Then I guess you missed the dozens posts accusing Saladin 1970 of being an Anti-Semite, Islamist and Al-Qaeida supporter? Did you also miss SlimVirgin's statement, part of which reads "If the Arbitration Committee hears appeals from every racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic account that's blocked after 20 edits for trying to insert bigotry into Wikipedia..."?
Sorry, but I think it is you that should take a second look. It would be enough to just skim through the recent threads to see how vile and ridiculous (i.e: abumahza = Al-Qaeida) the motivations for indefinitely banning Saladin1970 has been.
On 05/06/06, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
It is not. A user named Saladin1970 was recently indefinitely banned by administrators because his political views was diametrically opposite to theirs.
Ai yi yi. I think you should take another look at this case. I see no reason to think that political views had anything to do with it.
Then I guess you missed the dozens posts accusing Saladin 1970 of being an Anti-Semite, Islamist and Al-Qaeida supporter? Did you also miss SlimVirgin's statement, part of which reads "If the Arbitration Committee hears appeals from every racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic account that's blocked after 20 edits for trying to insert bigotry into Wikipedia..."?
Sorry, but I think it is you that should take a second look. It would be enough to just skim through the recent threads to see how vile and ridiculous (i.e: abumahza = Al-Qaeida) the motivations for indefinitely banning Saladin1970 has been.
-- mvh Björn _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Racism is illegal and as well as the editor puts Wikipedia in a bad position. If people can't put bigotry aside and instead try to force articles into their personal view of the world, it's right to ban them.
-Selina
G'day geni,
On 6/5/06, Selina . wikipediareview@gmail.com wrote:
Racism is illegal
No it isn't.
That's a bit of a broad assumption. Perhaps what you meant to say was "racism is not illegal in my jurisdiction". There's a world outside America: it's a world I've heard described by Americans as terrifying and dystopian (presumably, these particular Americans were funnier in the head than the average), but it's still there.
In some countries, Australia for example, expressing racist sentiments *is* illegal. In others, like Germany, certain forms of racism are firmly stamped on.
In any case, the general thrust of Selina's comment was spot-on, so let's try not to jump on her for one clause.
On 6/5/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
In any case, the general thrust of Selina's comment was spot-on, so let's try not to jump on her for one clause.
No, indeed, let us give the hypocrite a fair trial. Then we can hang her.
Kelly
* Kelly Martin wrote:
On 6/5/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
In any case, the general thrust of Selina's comment was spot-on, so let's try not to jump on her for one clause.
No, indeed, let us give the hypocrite a fair trial. Then we can hang her.
What was that I was saying about the need for admins to maintain civility even with 'bad' users? Oh well... probably wasn't important anyway, right?
Conrad,
- Kelly Martin wrote:
On 6/5/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
In any case, the general thrust of Selina's comment was spot-on, so let's try not to jump on her for one clause.
No, indeed, let us give the hypocrite a fair trial. Then we can hang her.
What was that I was saying about the need for admins to maintain civility even with 'bad' users? Oh well... probably wasn't important anyway, right?
[Note: I'm talking in generalities here, and mean no slight against either Selina or Kelly]
While I agree with the general idea of what you've been saying since your RfA passed, I think you could do with being a little less smug while you're saying it.
You haven't dealt with the same sorts of issues that other admins have. Now, it's not necessary to fight trolls, regularly clean up heavy vandalism, mediate bloody disputes, etc., to be an admin, so that's no slight on you. You seem to be more focused on editing the encyclopaedia, and that's an unvarnished Good Thing. However, it also means that you have no idea what the rest of us actually *do*. It's incredibly easy to stand, smugly, on the sidelines, and criticise your fellows --- and it's very poor form to do it from a platform of "I'm an admin, I know about these things," (as I've seen on ANI) when you know nothing of the sort.
I think admins have a responsibility to be civil and polite *on Wikipedia* at all times; I think the better admins out there go one better and are actually *pleasant* to deal with. This is what I aim for; I often fall short of that goal, but it's there nevertheless. It can be very difficult to maintain one's temper when dealing with problematic users. That's a Bad Thing, true, but it would be nice if those criticising had some understanding of the difficulty.
I, too, cringe when I see other admins behaving in a manner less than ideal, particularly on Wikipedia, and have been known to take the issue up with them on many occasions. Often a polite, private message will work wonders. Standing by and pointing the finger and saying "you see what bastards these people on Wikipedia are?" is *not* going to improve anyone's behaviour, administrator or not. It is an oft-repeated tragedy that people who are absolutely correct can be ignored, simply because the way that they make their points gets people off-side immediately. Please consider this; if the point you're making is important to you, it will be worth your while to change your mode of delivery.
Cheers,
* Mark Gallagher wrote:
While I agree with the general idea of what you've been saying since your RfA passed, I think you could do with being a little less smug while you're saying it.
Heh, 'since my RFA passed'... and well before it. As to 'smug', not my intent, but someone once told me that I 'use sarcasm the way most people use punctuation'. I'm not sure they meant it to be the great compliment that I took it for. Accuse me of arrogance and I'll accuse >you< of perceptiveness. :]
You haven't dealt with the same sorts of issues that other admins have. Now, it's not necessary to fight trolls, regularly clean up heavy vandalism, mediate bloody disputes, etc., to be an admin, so that's no slight on you.
You are mistaken. I have dealt with heavy vandalism and bloody disputes and trolls in great degree for many years. Granted, much of that was off Wikipedia or before I became an admin for the stuff ON Wikipedia, but this image you project of me as someone unfamiliar with such conflict and dispute would be shocking to those who know me better. As you noted, I've been dealing more with article issues of late, but that isn't the sum of my background nor my only area of involvement on Wikipedia.
I think admins have a responsibility to be civil and polite *on Wikipedia* at all times; I think the better admins out there go one better and are actually *pleasant* to deal with. This is what I aim for; I often fall short of that goal, but it's there nevertheless. It can be very difficult to maintain one's temper when dealing with problematic users. That's a Bad Thing, true, but it would be nice if those criticising had some understanding of the difficulty.
Again, you seem to think I DON'T have, "some understanding of the difficulty"... at which point I'd invite you to review my interactions with Pigsonthewing, Karmafist, Selina, Freestylefrappe, et cetera. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I've been kicking around on the 'net for a couple of decades now. It is not >possible< to do that and NOT gain an 'understanding' of the difficulty of keeping your temper in check when dealing with some netizens. I've been stalked around the net, received threats and real life harassment, and have the special 'privilege' of being despised above all others by an infamous 'net kook. Trust me... I 'get' it. We're all human and sometimes people get under our skin. I don't exempt myself from that... if anything I'm 'by nature' of the same sort as the admins I'm objecting to, I've just had alot (really really really ALOT) of practice in phrasing, 'Die you farging bastage!' as, 'I see and appreciate your point, but feel there may be other issues you might wish to consider'.
Often a polite, private message will work wonders. Standing by and pointing the finger and saying "you see what bastards these people on Wikipedia are?" is *not* going to improve anyone's behaviour, administrator or not. It is an oft-repeated tragedy that people who are absolutely correct can be ignored, simply because the way that they make their points gets people off-side immediately. Please consider this; if the point you're making is important to you, it will be worth your while to change your mode of delivery.
Entirely true. However, I am not (primarily) TRYING to nudge individual admins towards greater civility. It is inevitable that admins will from time to time be uncivil. The greater problem, in my opinion, is that the admin COMMUNITY largely accepts and allows these incidents without comment or repercussion... to the point that they have become somewhat commonplace. I would like to see a collective rather than individual change... and that requires public demonstration of the problem. It simply isn't possible to make a case for a global shift through individual appeals. I believe that a change in the culture and standards of adminship would do more to reduce such incidents than I could possibly accomplish through 'individual counseling'. Not that there is no merit in such... I do that quite a bit also, but I think a different method is needed for this issue.
On 6/6/06, Conrad Dunkerson conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net wrote:
- Kelly Martin wrote:
On 6/5/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
In any case, the general thrust of Selina's comment was spot-on, so let's try not to jump on her for one clause.
No, indeed, let us give the hypocrite a fair trial. Then we can hang her.
What was that I was saying about the need for admins to maintain civility even with 'bad' users? Oh well... probably wasn't important anyway, right?
Well, considering that Ms. "Racism-is-illegal" has been spouting some pretty ugly and bigoted crap over on her little pet playground (and some of it directed at me personally), I think she's just about run out of rope.
Kelly
On 06/06/06, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/06, Conrad Dunkerson conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net wrote:
- Kelly Martin wrote:
On 6/5/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au
wrote:
In any case, the general thrust of Selina's comment was spot-on, so let's try not to jump on her for one clause.
No, indeed, let us give the hypocrite a fair trial. Then we can hang
her.
What was that I was saying about the need for admins to maintain
civility
even with 'bad' users? Oh well... probably wasn't important anyway,
right?
Well, considering that Ms. "Racism-is-illegal" has been spouting some pretty ugly and bigoted crap over on her little pet playground (and some of it directed at me personally), I think she's just about run out of rope.
Kelly
Perhaps what you meant to say was "racism is not illegal in my jurisdiction". There's a world outside America: it's a world I've heard described by Americans as terrifying and dystopian (presumably, these particular Americans were funnier in the head than the average), but it's still there.
Well said. ;)
I replied defending myself from the personal attacks Kelly was making in the above posts in WR (General Discussion) as I'm not allowed to here apparently - Judge for yourself, I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as the nastiness from her towards me in this topic...
I'm not sure why it seems acceptable for some people to be above the rules...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Selina . stated for the record:
Racism is illegal...
{{citation needed}}
- -- Sean Barrett | So many stupid people, so few asteroids. sean@epoptic.com |