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first post.
after six months in WP I am totally fed up.
it is no longer worth the headache trying to write quality articles or to improve articles in this ennvironment.
but i would like to post some of my observations in hopes that it might help out somehow, someday.
WP is a meeting ground for several types of people. the main types i've observed fall under these heads:
1. accurate reporters (AR's). 2. responsible scholars (RS's). 3. infantile vandals (IV's). 4. expert disrupters (ED's)
in the present state of WP, the rules in practice and the prevailing attitudes of admins are all skewed in favor of IV's and ED's, while the AR's and RS's don't stand a chance.
by "rules in practice" i mean the way that policies and guidelines actually get enforced. the sad thing is that the "rules in principle" state all the right ideas, but people who are born and bred to check facts don't have a chance against puppet mobs of pseudo-newbies, who seem bent on nothing short of making the world safe for their current state of ignorance. "assuming good faith" and "not biting newcomers" are so much easier for admins to parrot that it has rendered them the most naive dupes of expert disrupters who have learned how it easy it is to exploit their naivete. in short, WP is like email before virus protection.
this is one of the biggest reasons that WP's reputation in responsible communities has gone from "not especially reliable source" (NERS) to "dump of popular errors" (DOPE). it is my impression from my acquaintances that more and more responsible scholars who buy into the ideals of WP in the beginning quickly find themselves disamyed by the realities, and just go way quietly after a short while of seeing their efforts go to waste here.
i really do hope that something that lives up to the stated ideals and policies of WP does come into existence someday, so i will try to put aside my present discouragement and focus on the kinds of experiences that can be converted into constructive critique.
to be continued ...
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
"Jon Awbrey" wrote
it is my impression from my acquaintances that more and more responsible scholars who buy into the ideals of WP in the beginning quickly find themselves disamyed by the realities, and just go way quietly after a short while of seeing their efforts go to waste here.
Yes, editing WP doesn't suit everybody. And it is possible to leave, without feeling a need to blacken its reputation.
Charles
On 6/18/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
- accurate reporters (AR's).
- responsible scholars (RS's).
- infantile vandals (IV's).
- expert disrupters (ED's)
What is an accurate reporter? Where do the stamp collectors (the people who write vast, presumably accurate, catalogues of all the train stations, types of trains, etc etc) fit in? What about the wikignomes, those (like me) that will happily attack any random article in the hope of improving it?
Steve
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post 2.
incorporating responses to:
CM = Charles Matthews
CM: Yes, editing WP doesn't suit everybody. And it is possible to leave, without feeling a need to blacken its reputation.
the resistance to facing unpleasant realities is perfectly human and thorougly understandable, but real situations do not improve unless people squarely face the gap between ideals and realities. i am not such a newbie on planet earth that i have not faced constant disappointment and near-utter discouragement on a recurring basis, and i have survived long enough on planet earth to know that there is nothing for it, when the transient pain has passed, but to salvage what lessons can be learned from the experience.
so, yes, it will be necessary in this parting feedback to recount a number of negative turns of events that i have experienced during my sojourn in wikipedia. but the purpose of examining these incidentals is to find some means of learning from them.
when CM says "editing WP doesn't suit everybody" does he mean WP the ideal, the ideals of WP, as set forth in its policies and guidelines, or does he mean WP the reality, its de facto way of operating in reality?
that is the question.
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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post 3.
incorporating responsess to:
CM = Charles Matthews SB = Steve Bennett
CM: Yes, editing WP doesn't suit everybody. And it is possible to leave, without feeling a need to blacken its reputation.
SB: What is an accurate reporter? Where do the stamp collectors (the people who write vast, presumably accurate, catalogues of all the train stations, types of trains, etc etc) fit in? What about the wikignomes, those (like me) that will happily attack any random article in the hope of improving it?
to continue,
i will try to stay focused on the task at hand, which is simply to provide clear feedback that might become useful at some time in the future toward the actualization of a worthy objective with which i continue to feel a certain degree of sympathy, even though my personal resources on its behalf are approaching final exhaustion.
accesses of strong feelings as i lay out this narrative are probably inevitable, and defensive reactions on the part of some of its readers are quite natural and to be expected, especially with those who share a strong bond of common identity with each other and the ideals of WP. indeed, until just a few days ago, i was commonly found to be voicing many of the same apologies and excuses to my acquaintances with regard to the rough-jeweled state and the promise of WP, so i know most of these by heart.
i do not know if the reputation of WP could be diminished any further among the acquaintances that i have discussed it with, but i do know that whether its reputation improves or worsens, it will be through the acts of the WP community as a whole, and not through my words.
after reading SB's remarks 3 or 4 times, i'm not sure i can guess what he means, so i'll just leave this as a question.
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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post 4.
incorporating responses to:
SB = Sean Barrett
SB: Perhaps we can get straight to the point:
SB: What do you hope to accomplish by repeating the standard Mk.1 Disgruntled User Rant, modified only by the Gratuitous Use of Fatuous Initialisms (GUFI)?
the purpose of an exit interview, as some organizations make use of them, is is to acquire from departing members an order of feedback information that for all sorts of humanly understandable reasons members are usually reluctant to share, or even proscribed from sharing, while still members of the group. a bit more directness, a bit more risk-taking, a lot less dancing around the bush, a lot less mincing of words, and in the case of WP, we can all drop that constant mental strain of trying to assume good faith of folk who behave like brown shirts, or brown sock-puppets in the current fashion.
the frank exchange of views so far allows me to extend my classification:
1. accurate reporters (AR's) 2. responsible scholars (RS's) 3. disgrunted users (DU's) 4. infantile vandals (IV's) 5. expert disrupters (ED's)
in order to learn from the welter of disressing phenomena that we are bound to encounter in any complex environment, and especially any system that involves large masses of interacting human beings, it helps to stand back a bit from the fray and try to guess what sorts of dynamics are driving the developments in question. lately, i have found myself spending a lot more time standing aback and a lot less time writing articles, and so i might as well share a few of my more persistent findings, plus a few more speculative guesses as to what the hell may be going on.
to be continued ...
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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post 5.
incorporating responses to:
RL = Roger Luethi
RL: I haven't run into this editor before and cannot make authoritative statements, but a quick search shows that he made over 6000 main space edits in half a year, notabene in areas that we _want_ to cover and where we need experts to help out.
RL: He does seem to be involved in disputes on quite a few pages, it's hard to see through the mess. One (apparently retracted) 3RR block on June 12.
RL: Based on my quick research I can't rule out that Jon Awbrey's problems are worth investigating.
thank you for your considerate attention. i will try to make constructive use of it, no matter how difficult the issues involved.
enough has been said about the ordinary uses of exit interviews. indeed, just before my sense of futility became terminal, i had entertained the notion of starting a wikiproject to routinely collect the last wills and feedbacks of the dearly or direly departed membership in this conflagration, but i didn't yet know the ropes well enough to do that, and it doesn't look like i ever will. i believe a lot of useful information could be garnered that way, however easy it might be in some quarters to dismiss it all as the parting shots of disgruntled usurers and the socially net-warped. still, i think it might be a good idea, if there is anybody who is up to the challenge.
i started thinking about this idea when i happened across a page that was soliciting ideas for recruiting new members to wikipedia. from the experiences of people i know who are involved in college recruitment, i know that one of the issues that develops over time is that sometimes too much attention gets devoted to recruitment at the expense of due attention being paid to retention, and it looks to me like a similar problem may be affecting WP. for sure, your rolls are no doubt padded with with many, many registered users, but how many of them are still actually participating in any significant way?
it's something to think about.
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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post 6.
JL = John Lee SB = Steve Bennett
SB: What is an accurate reporter?
JL: And do define "responsible journalist / scholar". If you arrive at Wikipedia with preconceptions of how things should be done from past experience, and don't adjust these preconceptions, then you will of course have a difficult time fitting in, especially when our editorial norms are established for good reasons.
some people just seem driven to get the facts straight, no matter what they might have believed beforehand. that's my intuitive sense of what makes someone an accurate reporter or a reponsible scholar. i think that most AR's and RS's that come to WP find that the 3 content policies embody fantastically well what they have already been born or trained to do, since the basic ideas of grounded and sourced research were hardly invented locally, but derived from standards and practices, indeed, from norms of conduct that have goverened the life of inquiry for as long as it has been alive.
so the "preconceptions" of this ethos are in pre-established harmony with the principles set forth in the 3 content-governing regulations of WP, namely, the policies of NOR, NPOV, and VER, and most folks who have been living by these rules in the grounded research portion of their intellectual lives feel themselves to be, at least, at first, very much at home.
and what some of them, i'd never say all, get disgruntled about is precisely the extent to which the WP community as a real body fails to live up to what it espouses as its ideals.
if the perceptions of these disgruntled masses are nevertheless saccurate and responsible, then it's important information for the long-term health and viability of WP.
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
I love the formatting.
On 6/19/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
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post 6.
JL = John Lee SB = Steve Bennett
SB: What is an accurate reporter?
JL: And do define "responsible journalist / scholar". If you arrive at Wikipedia with preconceptions of how things should be done from past experience, and don't adjust these preconceptions, then you will of course have a difficult time fitting in, especially when our editorial norms are established for good reasons.
some people just seem driven to get the facts straight, no matter what they might have believed beforehand. that's my intuitive sense of what makes someone an accurate reporter or a reponsible scholar. i think that most AR's and RS's that come to WP find that the 3 content policies embody fantastically well what they have already been born or trained to do, since the basic ideas of grounded and sourced research were hardly invented locally, but derived from standards and practices, indeed, from norms of conduct that have goverened the life of inquiry for as long as it has been alive.
so the "preconceptions" of this ethos are in pre-established harmony with the principles set forth in the 3 content-governing regulations of WP, namely, the policies of NOR, NPOV, and VER, and most folks who have been living by these rules in the grounded research portion of their intellectual lives feel themselves to be, at least, at first, very much at home.
and what some of them, i'd never say all, get disgruntled about is precisely the extent to which the WP community as a real body fails to live up to what it espouses as its ideals.
if the perceptions of these disgruntled masses are nevertheless saccurate and responsible, then it's important information for the long-term health and viability of WP.
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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On Jun 19, 2006, at 5:44 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
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You've made 5 posts in this "Exit Interview" but haven't gotten around to explaining the details of what prompted you to lose patience with Wikipedia. This is, I think, what would of most interest and use to the rest of us. We've heard the generalizations you've made so far many times before - not that they arn't valid, just that they arn't news to us.
However, the particular examples of problems you had probably *are* news to most of us on the list, so explaining them might be helpful.
Just glancing over your contrib list, you seem to be working on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce and various philosophy articles, like [[Truth]] and [[Propositional calculus]]
One possible issue you (and many others) have had with dispute resolution at Wikipedia is that, as intended, they give no advantage to any side, requiring possibly endless argument, and in practice, the endless argument can be short circuited either by all but one side being blocked due to violations of norms of discussion (i.e. 3RR rule, personal attacks). Factual supperiority (i.e. citing more, or having the books on your side) is only successful if you can convince most of the people who happen to be interested in editing the page. This is very frustrating for many good researchers who come across Wikipedia. Is that the sort of issue you had?
Jesse Weinstein
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post 7.
JA = Jon Awbrey JW = Jesse Weinstein
JW: You've made 5 posts in this "Exit Interview" but haven't gotten around to explaining the details of what prompted you to lose patience with Wikipedia. This is, I think, what would of most interest and use to the rest of us. We've heard the generalizations you've made so far many times before - not that they arn't valid, just that they arn't news to us.
Thank you for questions that go to the point. I thought that I went to the heart of the problem in my very first posting, namely, expanding abbrevs:
JA: In the present state of Wikipedia, the rules in practice and the prevailing attitudes of administrators are all skewed in favor of the Infantile Vandals and the Expert Disrupters, while the Accurate Reporters and Responsibe Scholars don't stand a chance.
That still seems like the best summary of my experience, but I've been spending the subsequent posts mostly just responding to what seems like a massive immune response on the part of the faithful, and it just seemed like it was necessary to go a little slower than I did at first.
I may have been stalling a little while I waited for the results of a promised sock &/or meat-puppet investigation, but it looks like I shouldn't hold my breath waiting on that, so I will just say what I currently suspect, as already posted in my answer to the 3RR action.
JW: However, the particular examples of problems you had probably *are* news to most of us on the list, so explaining them might be helpful.
JW: Just glancing over your contrib list, you seem to be working on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce and various philosophy articles, like [[Truth]] and [[Propositional calculus]]
JW: One possible issue you (and many others) have had with dispute resolution at Wikipedia is that, as intended, they give no advantage to any side, requiring possibly endless argument, and in practice, the endless argument can be short circuited either by all but one side being blocked due to violations of norms of discussion (i.e. 3RR rule, personal attacks). Factual superiority (i.e. citing more, or having the books on your side) is only successful if you can convince most of the people who happen to be interested in editing the page. This is very frustrating for many good researchers who come across Wikipedia. Is that the sort of issue you had?
I am used to controversy and dispute resolution, and if proceedings are instituted and conducted fairly, then I can take my winnings or losings and go back to work. But I do not think that the system in place in WP works that way, and I have begun to see the reasons why it never will. There are too many flaws built into the system at its very foundation, and everybody is just shutting their ears to the creaks and the moans of the structure.
It may have sounded so far like I'm blaming administrators, but all I'm faulting them for, at least, the ones that I have interacted with so far, is the fact that they seem to be acting on default assumptions that date back to another era in WP's life. It seems to me that the Expert Disrupters know the ins and outs of the system far better than any of the admins that I've encountered, and they jerk the rules around like any good Washington lobbyist. I understand that the admins are out-numbered and over-worked, but none of that would lead to despair. The thing that makes it seem so hopeless at present is that the admittedly noble principles of WP are just not embodied and insisted on by the WikiPopulace at large, and frankly no size army of WikiPolice could force that spirit into their "hearts and minds", as the fatal saying goes, if they just don't really have it imbued in them already. And that is how it looks at present. It's not a few Brown Sockpuppets that make the Reich, it's the rest of the population that thinks they see some short-term advantage to themselves in letting them do whatever the devil they want for "just a little while, and then we'll reign them in in the end". Yep.
If you have heard this before, then you should think about the fact that you keep hearing it.
Jon Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
Jon Awbrey wrote: <snip>
If you have heard this before, then you should think about the fact that you keep hearing it.
From [[WP:RAUL]]...
Extreme Unction's first law: If enough people act independently towards the same goal, the end result is indistinguishable from a conspiracy.
Corollary: In any sufficiently large social endeavor, there will always be some subset of people who fail to understand this, and who will see conspiracies and cabals around every corner whenever their views fall into the minority.
Corollary: As the number of people who independently conclude that someone is a disruptive jerk increases, the likelihood of that person actually being a positive, constructive contributor who's merely run afoul of the "ruling elite" decreases. Not that there was ever a big chance of that to begin with.
Corollary: The people who most need to understand this law and its corollaries never will.
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yes, but riddle me this:
| how many knees could a knee jerk jerk | if a knee jerk could jerk knees?
jon awbrey
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Jon Awbrey wrote:
<snip> > If you have heard this before, then > you should think about the fact > that you keep hearing it. >
From [[WP:RAUL]]...
Extreme Unction's first law: If enough people act independently towards the same goal, the end result is indistinguishable from a conspiracy.
Corollary: In any sufficiently large social endeavor, there will always be some subset of people who fail to understand this, and who will see conspiracies and cabals around every corner whenever their views fall into the minority.
Corollary: As the number of people who independently conclude that someone is a disruptive jerk increases, the likelihood of that person actually being a positive, constructive contributor who's merely run afoul of the "ruling elite" decreases. Not that there was ever a big chance of that to begin with.
Corollary: The people who most need to understand this law and its corollaries never will.
-- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
Name: signature.ascsignature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature
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I haven't run into this editor before and cannot make authoritative statements, but a quick search shows that he made over 6000 main space edits in half a year, notabene in areas that we _want_ to cover and where we need experts to help out.
He does seem to be involved in disputes on quite a few pages, it's hard to see through the mess. One (apparently retracted) 3RR block on June 12.
Based on my quick research I can't rule out that Jon Awbrey's problems are worth investigating.
Roger
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Jon Awbrey stated for the record:
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first post.
after six months in WP I am totally fed up.
it is no longer worth the headache trying to write quality articles or to improve articles in this ennvironment.
Perhaps we can get straight to the point:
What do you hope to accomplish by repeating the standard Mk.1 Disgruntled User Rant, modified only by the Gratuitous Use of Fatuous Initialisms (GUFI)?
- -- Sean Barrett | You non-conformists are all alike. sean@epoptic.com |
Jon,
thank you for putting your time and energy into Wikipedia. I hope you will return to making contributions when you feel the system has improved, or you find the patience to give it another try.
Best wishes,
Erik
Obviously, this is just a disruptive user disappointed he could not get Wikipedia to work the way he wanted.
Oh, 6000 mainspace edits. That of course changes everything. Obviously, this is a responsible editor and we must investigate why he is disappointed with working in Wikipedia.
And that's right after I point out (and get ad hominem'd for it) that social networking is more important than having a high edit count, and that having a high edit count is more important than being a responsible journalist / scholar observing policy, when it comes to being successful inside Wikipedia. I.e. being able to contribute to the "Encyclopedia" without being harassed or even forcefully removed by powerful factions that happen to share a different POV.
To the "upper management" of Wikipedia: Please, take these problems serious and act. Not doing so will simply make Wikipedia lose more and more good editors.
Dabljuh wrote:
Obviously, this is just a disruptive user disappointed he could not get Wikipedia to work the way he wanted.
Oh, 6000 mainspace edits. That of course changes everything. Obviously, this is a responsible editor and we must investigate why he is disappointed with working in Wikipedia.
And that's right after I point out (and get ad hominem'd for it) that social networking is more important than having a high edit count, and that having a high edit count is more important than being a responsible journalist / scholar observing policy, when it comes to being successful inside Wikipedia. I.e. being able to contribute to the "Encyclopedia" without being harassed or even forcefully removed by powerful factions that happen to share a different POV.
To the "upper management" of Wikipedia: Please, take these problems serious and act. Not doing so will simply make Wikipedia lose more and more good editors.
Huh? How is accepting that those with high edit counts (and thus more experience editing) are more likely to know what they're talking about than someone who just arrived yesterday making "social networking" more important than writing the encyclopaedia? Believe me, if someone had 6000 edits in userspace and nothing else, nobody would respect him or her, but if the 6000 edits are well-distributed, it's a likely indicator that the fellow either knows what he/she is talking about. (It's never an infallible one, however; some of our worst POV warriors, and of course edit warriors, will have high edit counts.)
And do define "responsible journalist / scholar". If you arrive at Wikipedia with preconceptions of how things should be done from past experience, and don't adjust these preconceptions, then you will of course have a difficult time fitting in, especially when our editorial norms are established for good reasons.
John
On Mon, 19 Jun 2006 01:42:18 +0800 John Lee johnleemk@gawab.com wrote:
Huh? How is accepting that those with high edit counts (and thus more experience editing) are more likely to know what they're talking about than someone who just arrived yesterday making "social networking" more important than writing the encyclopaedia? Believe me, if someone had 6000 edits in userspace and nothing else, nobody would respect him or her, but if the 6000 edits are well-distributed, it's a likely indicator that the fellow either knows what he/she is talking about. (It's never an infallible one, however; some of our worst POV warriors, and of course edit warriors, will have high edit counts.)
The problem here is when the actual dispute is being reduced to "edit count" and social networks. Imagine a new user makes an good addition to a controversial article, that you and I would find, while favoring one particular POV, is factual and well sourced, and do not make the article violate NPOV as a whole.
Imagine the situation when an experienced user simply reverts, criticises the new editor for POV pushing. The new editor is confused - he can either himself revert again, only to be himself reverted and now being accused of revert and edit warring. Then, on the talk page tries to explain that this is in his opinion in no way an invalid addition to Wikipedia, details why, and that removing it would equal censorship.
Next thing the newbie knows is that he's blocked from editing on Wikipedia for "being a disruptive POV pusher, edit warrior, and personal attacks such as calling 'experienced user' a censor."
And everyone goes "hey, the guy with the 6000 edits sure must know what he's talking about, that other guy is a disruptive newbie"
<sarcasm> But of course that does never happen on Wikipedia </sarcasm>
And do define "responsible journalist / scholar". If you arrive at Wikipedia with preconceptions of how things should be done from past experience, and don't adjust these preconceptions, then you will of course have a difficult time fitting in, especially when our editorial norms are established for good reasons.
I would say a responsible journalist / scholar is capable of reducing or negating his own bias, researches the topic he writes about, understands that Wikipedia is not a soapbox and makes responsible decisions when it comes to writing. You know, essentially respecting WP:NPOV / WP:V / WP:NOT. In addition to that, he should try to debate, understand and arrange with people of a different point of view, instead of trying to bully them away from the article or trying to get opposing opinions blocked, which is what WP:CIV and WP:NPA partially try to achieve (but fail).
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post 8.
response to a friendly off-list message, which i will go ahead and post here in the hopes that a different stroke might work better for different folks. ja.
thanks for the friendly response.
i'm a 50+ year old person with a solid lib arts BA, MA's in math and psych, lots of post-grad study in multiple fields, and years of cross-disciplinary experience as a statistical consultant where i specialized in constructing software and even philosophical bridges between sub-communities of researchers who had all but lost the ability to comprehend each others' ways and motivations.
i understand about high ideals and non-elitism -- i'm a onetime flower-child from a generation of non-elitists.
but WP defeats me, and it's largely because it enforces a regime of dishonest communication, and it's gotten confused about the difference between non-elitism and anti-knowledge-ism.
when i started out, i called a spade a spade. things that any mature adult, not to mention trained scholar, would call obvious vandalism, manifest disruption, uninformed statements, or malformed citation are things that i described in precisely those terms. and all i got was one dire warning after another that you just aren't allowed to say those sorts of things.
i have a life, periodic travel and the arts, i take the breaks that i need. i realized early on that some of the more generic and popular articles were a special hard case so far as their inertia against improvement goes, and i have a large number of non-pop articles that i normally go work on when the pop phil articles seem stuck in mud.
but when a gang of sophomoric meta-puppets start tracking you back to your more quiet lairs just to wreak whatever destruction they can because you committed the sin of correcting their more obvious errors of fact, that anybody can check from the cites you give, or call them on their deviance from WP policy, and when the spineless cowardice or POV-serving connivance of the rest of the local community does nothing to stop it after numerous pleadings on WQA and RFC, then it becomes clear to any non-brainwashed person that this wiki has fallen and it can't get up.
jon awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
but when a gang of sophomoric meta-puppets start tracking you back to your more quiet lairs just to wreak whatever destruction they can because you committed the sin of correcting their more obvious errors of fact, that anybody can check from the cites you give, or call them on their deviance from WP policy, and when the spineless cowardice or POV-serving connivance of the rest of the local community does nothing to stop it after numerous pleadings on WQA and RFC, then it becomes clear to any non-brainwashed person that this wiki has fallen and it can't get up.
A couple of assholes means the whole system has collapsed? I don't think so.
Steve
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post 9.
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
but when a gang of sophomoric meta-puppets start tracking you back to your more quiet lairs just to wreak whatever destruction they can because you committed the sin of correcting their more obvious errors of fact, that anybody can check from the cites you give, or call them on their deviance from WP policy, and when the spineless cowardice or POV-serving connivance of the rest of the local community does nothing to stop it after numerous pleadings on WQA and RFC, then it becomes clear to any non-brainwashed person that this wiki has fallen and it can't get up.
A couple of assholes means the whole system has collapsed? I don't think so.
Steve
if you refer to post 1, the assertion that i've made is that the system systematically defends and excuses the e-holes in preference to ones who e-lect to live by the rules, and, yes, it'll lead this body of p-articles to anti-material collapse.
jon awbrey
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On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
when i started out, i called a spade a spade. things that any mature adult, not to mention trained scholar, would call obvious vandalism, manifest disruption, uninformed statements, or malformed citation are things that i described in precisely those terms. and all i got was one dire warning after another that you just aren't allowed to say those sorts of things.
I'd agree here that 'No Personal Attacks' gets over-used at times; used to stifle criticism of edits, which it should not. I haven't looked at the specific examples of disputes you've been involved in, however.
Which is not to say that one should be impolite, but one should be allowed to be accurate.
-Matt
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Matt Brown wrote:
On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
when i started out, i called a spade a spade. things that any mature adult, not to mention trained scholar, would call obvious vandalism, manifest disruption, uninformed statements, or malformed citation are things that i described in precisely those terms. and all i got was one dire warning after another that you just aren't allowed to say those sorts of things.
I'd agree here that 'No Personal Attacks' gets over-used at times; used to stifle criticism of edits, which it should not. I haven't looked at the specific examples of disputes you've been involved in, however.
Which is not to say that one should be impolite, but one should be allowed to be accurate.
-Matt
I don't like making assertions that I'm not sure about, and so I've been waiting for more data to develop, but one of the problems that I've been alluding to here is that it's gotten where we can't really be sure anymore, and may no longer have the resources to find out, when a supposed "newbie" really is a new user, and just how many ID's, IP's, and ISP's a given (ab)user is capable of arranging these days.
So I guess I'll just try, in a very provisional way, to illustrate the general sort of near-worst-case scenario that could already be happening with the details of a concrete case that I happen to be familiar with. Here is the data of a 3RR charge that was levied against me, which will be easier to read at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#Use...
===[[User:Jon Awbrey]] reported by User:[[User:GeePriest|GeePriest]]===
[[WP:3RR|Three revert rule]] violation on {{Article|Philosophy of mathematics}}. {{3RRV|Jon_Awbrey}}: <!-- USE UNDERSCORE INSTEAD OF SPACE! -->
* Previous version reverted to, if applicable: [http://http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&a... 23:02, 10 June 2006] <!-- If this field cannot be filled in because reverts were to different sections of the article, please ensure that you provide evidence that each one really was a revert. --> * 1st revert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff... 05:44, 12 June 2006] * 2nd revert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff... 05:54, 12 June 2006] * 3rd revert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff... 06:37, 12 June 2006] * 4th revert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff... 06:42, 12 June 2006]
* I have warned the user per [[WP:3RR]]. '''[[User talk:Voice of All|<font color="blue">Voice</font><font color="darkblue">-of-</font><font color="black">All</font>]]''' 08:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
====Discussion====
JA: There is some kind of problem with the initial link given above. It should be this one:
:* [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&oldi... Revision as of 23:02, 10 June 2006]
JA: [[User:Voice of All]] (VOA) posted the following notice on [[User Talk:Jon Awbrey]]: <blockquote> '''Regarding reversions[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&acti...] made on [[June 12]] [[2006]] to [[Philosophy of mathematics]]''' <p> Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy|blocked]] from editing Wikipedia under the [[Wikipedia:Three-revert rule|three-revert rule]], which states that nobody may [[Wikipedia:revert|revert]] an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the ''effect'' of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you.<!-- Template:3RR --> '''[[User talk:Voice of All|<font color="blue">Voice</font><font color="darkblue">-of-</font><font color="black">All</font>]]''' 08:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC) </blockquote>
JA: Just got in from travelling, so I will discuss this situation tomorrow. [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 02:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: I subsequently posted the following message on [[User Talk:Voice of All]]: <blockquote> '''Revert War at [[Philosophy of Mathematics]]''' <p> JA: Dear VOA, If you check the edit history and the old WQA's, you will see that I had until yesterday been voluntarily observing a zero revert policy and repeatedly begging for community help with [[User:JJL]]'s practice of automatically mass deleting my contributions. So, thanks a lot for all your help. Insert <ironicon> here. Traveling for a few days, so radio slience until then. [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 12:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC) </blockquote>
JA: I fully sympathize with fact that WP Admins are an overworked and no doubt sleep-deprived bunch, but let me just suggest a few of the things that WP Admins might think to check before acting on a report of this type.
* I do not know if Admins routinely review the edit history links that they post in these actions, but let's now examine the instigating edit of the revert war that ensued, namely, this one:
* [[User:JJL]], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff... 05:39, 12 June 2006 "Perennial questions - rm self-indulgent babble"].
JA: It is clear from this that the initial edit by [[User:JJL]], accompanied by a derisive statement in the edit line, consisted in the mass unjustified deletion of an entire section of the article. I stipulate to the fact that it was inadvisable of me to indulge in repeated reverts, but it was late (1:45 AM) where I was, I was no doubt just a bit sleep-deprived, and JJL's edit line was not just false but inflammatory. All of my subsequent reverts were to the same point, simply attempting to remedy what I personally consider to be a type of vandalism, whether anybody else calls it that or not, namely, the mass unjustified deletion of good faith and fully cited text. [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 13:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: [[User:JJL]]'s habitual practice of automatically reverting or deleting any contribution that JJL did not personally authorize, and the personal attacks that JJL resorted to whenever challenged about this conduct, have been the subject of my repeated entreaties on the WQA noticeboard, as shown here:
* [[User:Jon Awbrey]], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts/archive5#21_May_200... Wikiquette Alerts 21 May 2006]
<blockquote> '''21 May 2006''' <p> * Desperately seeking constructive guidance at [[Philosophy of mathematics]] beginning [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff... here] on the proper use of {Verify} and {Drmmt} tags, what to do about a user who automatically reverts or deletes new material before beginning his own edits, proper application of [[WP:VERIFY]], [[WP:ATTACK]], etc. 15:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC) <p> * Addendum. I thought that a ''modus vivendi'' had been reached, but apparently not. One user continues to act as the self-appointed judge and jury of every contribution, but mostly just executioner. Some guidance, please. Thanks, 20:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC) <p> * Update. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophy_of_mathematics&diff... Reference point]. Continuing personal attacks. Nobody who knows my efforts in WP is justified in charging me with trolling or vandalism. Please, help. 11:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC) </blockquote>
JA: Needless to say, since no hint of moderation from the WP community came in answer to these pleas, the very same practices by JJL continue unmoderated to the present day. [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 15:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: Another thing that WP Admins might think to check, besides the dossier of the defendant so thoroughly put on exhibit above, would of course be the dossier of the other user or users involved a revert war, and also the dossier of the accuser, in this case, [[User:GeePriest]]. Having done so, a wide-awake WP Admin might well ask: "What sort of Ostensible Newbie is to be found on the second day of his tenure in WP reporting other editors on Adminstrative Noticeboards? It's time for my lunch, so I will leave you for a while to contemplate your most likely hypothesis. [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 15:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: I will forego further comment on some of the above issues pending a promised investigation of Puppet Attacks on a number of related pages. But there is one further sticking point that I would like to set the record straight about.
JA: The notice that [[User:Voice of All]] posted here and on my talk page is carefully worded, of course, and I realize that it comes from using a standard boiler-plate, but it implicates [[User:Voice of All]] in a misleading insinuation, at least, one that an unfamiliar reader passing by my talk page might be misled by. Specifically, the charge that I "Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly" might lead people to think that I have no respect for other editors' work, when the fact is that all I did was to revert the mass unjustified deletion of article content. Thank you, [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 18:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
JA: By way of clarification, I am not suggesting that JJL was engaging in puppeteering, merely that the entry of a 2-day old ''bona fide'' newbie on this noticeboard seems to be an event of rather low probability. I have been collecting data on this problem at the following location: [[Talk:Charles_Peirce#Last week I couldn't even spell "CONCENSUS", and today I are one]]. Thanks, [[User:Jon Awbrey|Jon Awbrey]] 21:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
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On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
(...)
Ok, I'm sorry, but I don't understand what your complaint is here that is causing you to want to withdraw.
You appear not to have been seriously or lastingly sanctioned for anything; GTBacchus warned both you and JJL not to 3RR / edit war, and then Voice of All blocked you for 24 hrs and then 2 minutes later, changed that to just a warning. I think it's clear that for the activities of the 12th and earlier, both you and JJL were in some way misbehaving, though you're the one who got slightly and temporarily bitten.
None of that concludes the underlying content issue in JJL's favor.
You essentially "got away with" a 3RR vio (block was changed back to a warning), which is unusually tolerant. You may not be very familiar with block policy, but generally only well known and apologetic editors are unblocked early after a 3RR 24 hr block. You were clearly by normal standards given the benefit of the doubt regarding whether it was serious misbehavior.
Being blocked and warned is merely a symptom that you carried on the mutual edit warring with JJL for a couple of hours too long after the warnings. That's not a decision that you were all wrong and he was all right.
I also think that you and JJL have not constructively engaged in discussion on the article talk page regarding the key points of dispute. Nor have you asked for mediation with JJL.
This is not intended as a personal attack on you, but you appear to be an ineffective editor, in that you do not appear to understand the mechanisms Wikipedia is using here. Your perception that you're being picked on or driven away is an overreaction to what are really fundamentally mild warnings and reactions to your making some mild but clearly good intentioned steps across the WP policy line.
There are cases where I believe longer experience "more popular" admins and editors have abused newer editors to some degree or another. But I think your claims here are unsubstantiated. If you cannot understand Wikipedia well enough to work with the system, then perhaps you should stop editing for the time being. But blaming the system, when it has not fundamentally mistreated you, is an excuse.
The system is not perfect, but the system isn't the problem here. You have a perfectly normal, reasonable content disupute with another editor. You haven't been abused or pushed around. If you can't work within the Wikipedia rules to resolve the problem, then that is your problem. Thousands of other active editors are able to resolve these sorts of problems routinely.
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Post 11.
Regarding the assertion:
| In the present state of Wikipedia, the rules in practice and the | prevailing attitudes of administrators are all skewed in favor | of the Infantile Vandals and the Expert Disrupters, while the | Accurate Reporters and Responsible Scholars don't stand a chance.
I don't want to argue the details of the specific 3RR charge. I have already stipulated that it was a "bad thing" for me to let myself get pulled into that, and probably wouldn't have let it happen except for the extreme circumstances.
And I am not here to defend my individual self. I am speaking for what I know to be the generic attitude of folks who take things like accuracy and verifiability seriously, who do not suffer fools gladly, as the saying goes, when it comes to that. It's clear to me that most folks like that would have walked away, probably quietly but no less disgustedly, long before putting up with the kind of sophomoric toilet-papering that I have had to put up with on this score.
I've already been told that the WP hieratchy thinks it can afford a high attrition rate among conscientious people, and that is confirming what I already said above.
The fact that nobody has yet bothered to read the stuff that I have written in those WQAs, RFCs, and my answer to the 3RR is the thing that tells me that this place is utterly beyond hope.
I will exercise the remainder of my responsibility to try and point out some obvious problems, and then I will get out of your hair.
Let the sun shine in ...
Jon Awbrey
George Herbert wrote:
On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
(...)
Ok, I'm sorry, but I don't understand what your complaint is here that is causing you to want to withdraw.
You appear not to have been seriously or lastingly sanctioned for anything; GTBacchus warned both you and JJL not to 3RR / edit war, and then Voice of All blocked you for 24 hrs and then 2 minutes later, changed that to just a warning. I think it's clear that for the activities of the 12th and earlier, both you and JJL were in some way misbehaving, though you're the one who got slightly and temporarily bitten.
None of that concludes the underlying content issue in JJL's favor.
You essentially "got away with" a 3RR vio (block was changed back to a warning), which is unusually tolerant. You may not be very familiar with block policy, but generally only well known and apologetic editors are unblocked early after a 3RR 24 hr block. You were clearly by normal standards given the benefit of the doubt regarding whether it was serious misbehavior.
Being blocked and warned is merely a symptom that you carried on the mutual edit warring with JJL for a couple of hours too long after the warnings. That's not a decision that you were all wrong and he was all right.
I also think that you and JJL have not constructively engaged in discussion on the article talk page regarding the key points of dispute. Nor have you asked for mediation with JJL.
This is not intended as a personal attack on you, but you appear to be an ineffective editor, in that you do not appear to understand the mechanisms Wikipedia is using here. Your perception that you're being picked on or driven away is an overreaction to what are really fundamentally mild warnings and reactions to your making some mild but clearly good intentioned steps across the WP policy line.
There are cases where I believe longer experience "more popular" admins and editors have abused newer editors to some degree or another. But I think your claims here are unsubstantiated. If you cannot understand Wikipedia well enough to work with the system, then perhaps you should stop editing for the time being. But blaming the system, when it has not fundamentally mistreated you, is an excuse.
The system is not perfect, but the system isn't the problem here. You have a perfectly normal, reasonable content disupute with another editor. You haven't been abused or pushed around. If you can't work within the Wikipedia rules to resolve the problem, then that is your problem. Thousands of other active editors are able to resolve these sorts of problems routinely.
-- -george william herbert gherbert@retro.com / george.herbert@gmail.com
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On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:.
I am speaking for what I know to be the generic attitude of folks who take things like accuracy and verifiability seriously, who do not suffer fools gladly, as the saying goes, when it comes to that. It's clear to me that most folks like that would have walked away, probably quietly but no less disgustedly, long before putting up with the kind of sophomoric toilet-papering that I have had to put up with on this score.
I'm sorry if you found our rules like 3RR and our dispute resolution process cumbersome and uninviting. As flawed as these may be, try to imagine what Wikipedia would be like *without* these rules. The 3RR is not that old, and prior to its implementation, edit warriors could revert a dozen times a day (I think the record I personally witnessed was 14) with impunity, a single edit warrior could essentially hold an article hostage for months. While it would be nice to summarily ban idiots or pov pushers or conspiracy nuts, etc., what metric do you propose we use to separate the wheat from the chaff? Who gets just three reverts and who gets more? How do we decide? It's not often that clear, and some trolls can talk a good game when they need to appear reasonable and sane.
I know from personal experience that it is frustrating to deal with stubborn nutjobs, and frustrating to deal with a system that treats you and the nutjob as equal players, but I haven't seen any serious proposal for a better system or one that doesn't introduce more problems, or reintroduce problems we've largely got a handle on. By and large, consensus works well. It can sometimes be difficult to get enough sane eyes on a particular article, but it can be done.
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Post 12.
Regarding the assertion:
| In the present state of Wikipedia, the rules in practice and the | prevailing attitudes of administrators are all skewed in favor | of the Infantile Vandals and the Expert Disrupters, while the | Accurate Reporters and Responsible Scholars don't stand a chance.
Rob,
If you read what I have written so far, it should be clear that I am not disputing any of the fine sentiments in [[WP:POLICY]], nor am I disputing the 3RR action. I cited those details only because people have been asking me for more concrete examples of things that are leading me to say what I've been saying from Post 1. As far as reverts go, I try to use as few as possible, and in the case of really hot disputes I try as hard as I can to observe a Zero Revert Rule. And that is what I did from 16:03 on 20 May 2006 until the incident of 12 June 2006, when I let somebody get my goat, as the saying goes.
That is not one of the problems that I am trying to point out. That is not the sort of thing that would lead me to postulate the conclusion that I've repeated for ease of reference above.
I'm pointing to the fact that Infantile Vandals and Expert Disrupters have got the Well-Intentioned Folks, WikiPeons and WikiPolitburocrats alike, totally out-snookered in the current scheme of things, and I'm not seeing the requisite awareness or gumption to do a thing about it.
Okay, maybe "totally" is too strong, but "seriously" at any rate.
Having spent some of the increasingly non-productive time that I've been having lately in the WP environment musing on why this is happening, I have accumulated some guesses as to why, but this is already too mamy posts for one day, so I will save it for tomorrow.
Jon Awbrey
Rob wrote:
On 6/20/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:.
I am speaking for what I know to be the generic attitude of folks who take things like accuracy and verifiability seriously, who do not suffer fools gladly, as the saying goes, when it comes to that. It's clear to me that most folks like that would have walked away, probably quietly but no less disgustedly, long before putting up with the kind of sophomoric toilet-papering that I have had to put up with on this score.
I'm sorry if you found our rules like 3RR and our dispute resolution process cumbersome and uninviting. As flawed as these may be, try to imagine what Wikipedia would be like *without* these rules. The 3RR is not that old, and prior to its implementation, edit warriors could revert a dozen times a day (I think the record I personally witnessed was 14) with impunity, a single edit warrior could essentially hold an article hostage for months. While it would be nice to summarily ban idiots or pov pushers or conspiracy nuts, etc., what metric do you propose we use to separate the wheat from the chaff? Who gets just three reverts and who gets more? How do we decide? It's not often that clear, and some trolls can talk a good game when they need to appear reasonable and sane.
I know from personal experience that it is frustrating to deal with stubborn nutjobs, and frustrating to deal with a system that treats you and the nutjob as equal players, but I haven't seen any serious proposal for a better system or one that doesn't introduce more problems, or reintroduce problems we've largely got a handle on. By and large, consensus works well. It can sometimes be difficult to get enough sane eyes on a particular article, but it can be done.
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I appreciate your thoughts here. Please do not let the (understandable) less-than-serious/oh-there's-nothing-wrong responses stop you from posting.
On Jun 20, 2006, at 2:02 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
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<snip>
If you read what I have written so far, it should be clear that I am not disputing any of the fine sentiments in [[WP:POLICY]], nor am I disputing the 3RR action. I cited those details only because people have been asking me for more concrete examples of things that are leading me to say what I've been saying from Post 1.
And I appreciate you doing that. However, as you said above, the specific thing that happened to you isn't the real problem. As I understand it, the real problem, in your view, is that disruptive editors are able to use our rules and practices to gain regular, consistent advantage over good editors. I believe this is possible - what would be most useful from you would be your specific, detailed thoughts on how this occurs (what methods the disruptive editors use, etc.), and (if you have them) suggestions on what we might to do solve the problem. You've hinted at such things, mentioning sockpuppet issues, but it would be great if you could lay them out in specific detail. It seems like you may be planning to do this, if so, just take this as further evidence that you should. ;-)
Thanks again for your criticism ,
Jesse Weinstein
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Jon Awbrey stated for the record:
... tells me that this place is utterly beyond hope.
Given that this place is utterly beyond hope, why do you insist at tilting at our windmills?
I will exercise the remainder of my responsibility to try and point out some obvious problems, and then I will get out of your hair.
Noted.
- -- Sean Barrett | Careful. We don't want to sean@epoptic.com | learn from this. --Calvin
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WikiPediatrics 101. Diseases of Infancy. Major Syndromes, Section 1.
| In the present state of Wikipedia, the rules in practice and the | prevailing attitudes of administrators are all skewed in favor | of the Infantile Vandals and the Expert Disrupters, while the | Accurate Reporters and Responsible Scholars don't stand a chance.
If I had to single out the single most serious symptom, the most critical systematic fault that I have observed interfering with the possiblity the WikiPatient ever recovering healthy functioning, it would have to be this:
Symptom 1. Inversion of Priorities (IOP)
One of the more distressing aspects of WP's present condition, at least for the un-anaesthetized observer, is the fact that WP embodies within its basic constitution, namely, its most celebrated and clamorously espoused policies and guidelines, "all the right stuff" that it would take to return to health.
Sadly, even tragically, "the vodka is good, but the meat is rotten", as that classic bytage of machine translation goes. So it behooves a "student of systems" (SOS) to ask about the reasons or causes why.
That will be the subject of this section's inquiry.
Jon Awbrey
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WikiPediatrics 101. Diseases of Infancy Symptomania 1. Inversion of Priorities (IOP)
The pages on [[WP:POLICY]] clearly identify the three content-definitive and non-negotiable policies of WP as [[WP:NOR]], [[WP:NPOV]], and [[WP:VERIFY]], reiterating three times over on each of their individually dedicated pages, with no substantive variation, the following norm of participation in WP:
* These three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus.
Pending a properly controlled study of WikiPediatric epidemiology (Proposal Pending), it is this observer's estimation that the most prevalent IOP is the one that inverts the priorities of the superordinate policies cited above and the unofficial dictates of what is here nomenclated as "De Facto Consensus" (DFC). DFC must not be confused with Genuine Consensus -- defined as the absence of dissent -- DFC as it's currently observed in WP means that any three users, or evatars, coming to agreement in a half hour period, can impose their absolute dictatorship over the direction of an article.
If it were merely a matter of educating users about the standardized meanings of the words "consensus", "non-negotiable", and so on, then there might still be some cause to hold out a few dim hopes, for a better prognosis or a gradual remediation, but if WP administrators continue to exhibit themselves, as they do in my experience, to be every bit as (1) ignorant of, or (2) indifferent to these principles, then that is a sign that the condition is terminal.
Jon Awbrey
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On 6/29/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
Pending a properly controlled study of WikiPediatric epidemiology (Proposal Pending), it is this observer's estimation that the most prevalent IOP is the one that inverts the priorities of the superordinate policies cited above and the unofficial dictates of what is here nomenclated as "De Facto Consensus" (DFC). DFC must not be confused with Genuine Consensus -- defined as the absence of dissent -- DFC as it's currently observed in WP means that any three users, or evatars, coming to agreement in a half hour period, can impose their absolute dictatorship over the direction of an article.
You seem to be constantly inventing new terms. Why?
Steve
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Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/29/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
Pending a properly controlled study of WikiPediatric epidemiology (Proposal Pending), it is this observer's estimation that the most prevalent IOP is the one that inverts the priorities of the superordinate policies cited above and the unofficial dictates of what is here nomenclated as "De Facto Consensus" (DFC). DFC must not be confused with Genuine Consensus -- defined as the absence of dissent -- DFC as it's currently observed in WP means that any three users, or evatars, coming to agreement in a half hour period, can impose their absolute dictatorship over the direction of an article.
You seem to be constantly inventing new terms. Why?
Steve
You seem to be constantly looking for things to talk about except what I'm saying. Why?
Jon Awbrey
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On 6/29/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
You seem to be constantly looking for things to talk about except what I'm saying. Why?
Perhaps because constantly inventing new terms makes what you are writing much harder to read.
You seem to be writing in a somewhat stilted academic-ish style that is (IMO) not very suited to email.
-Matt
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Matt Brown wrote:
On 6/29/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
You seem to be constantly looking for things to talk about except what I'm saying. Why?
Perhaps because constantly inventing new terms makes what you are writing much harder to read.
You seem to be writing in a somewhat stilted academic-ish style that is (IMO) not very suited to email.
-Matt
a certain aesthetic distance, however affected, and however high the stilts that it takes to achieve it, is a really big help in overcoming the growing pain of disillusionment, which is what is demanded if you want to see the situation more clearly. hey, it's a dirty job, believe me, i know, but somebody's gotta do it.
Jon Awbrey
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:30:09 -0400, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
a certain aesthetic distance, however affected, and however high the stilts that it takes to achieve it [...]
Certainly looks affected from here :-/
Guy (JzG)
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u r so qwiki, i kant deride yer qwikiness here ...
ja
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:30:09 -0400, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
a certain aesthetic distance, however affected, and however high the stilts that it takes to achieve it [...]
Certainly looks affected from here :-/
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
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On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 17:08:10 -0400, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
u r so qwiki, i kant deride yer qwikiness here ...
Indeed. So, how about meeting us halfway by adopting a style which is rather more readable and line lengths set to more than a dozen characters?
Guy (JzG)
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Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 17:08:10 -0400, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
u r so qwiki, i kant deride yer qwikiness here ...
Indeed. So, how about meeting us halfway by adopting a style which is rather more readable and line lengths set to more than a dozen characters?
Guy (JzG)
and give up my dont b a dick tracy computer watch? but tanks fer all the egs of "priority inversion". no, the other p.i.
ja
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On 6/29/06, Jon Awbrey jawbrey@att.net wrote:
and give up my dont b a dick tracy computer watch? but tanks fer all the egs of "priority inversion". no, the other p.i.
Can we grow up? If you hate WP so much, fork and leave, or leave. And Jon's style of writing is fine... if we can't read what is writen in an educated manner, we probably shouldn't be writing an encyclopedia. Let's just move on. --LV
On 6/29/06, Lord Voldemort lordbishopvoldemort@gmail.com wrote:
Can we grow up? If you hate WP so much, fork and leave, or leave. And Jon's style of writing is fine... if we can't read what is writen in an educated manner, we probably shouldn't be writing an encyclopedia. Let's just move on. --LV
Jon is free to write in any way he wishes, and the rest of us are free to draw any conclusions we like about him from his chosen style as well.
-Matt
On 6/29/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Jon is free to write in any way he wishes, and the rest of us are free to draw any conclusions we like about him from his chosen style as well.
Of course. But there should really be a point, don't ya think? Else we are just sitting taking shots at each other, _not_ doing anything productive, which this list should probably be used for. Pissing and moaning about people's writing style does nothing constructive. There has to come a point when we can just move on. --LV
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Jon Awbrey stated for the record:
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hey, it's a dirty job, believe me, i know, but somebody's gotta do it.
Jon Awbrey
What makes you think so?
- -- Sean Barrett | The Internet is out of control, impossible to sean@epoptic.com | map accurately, and being used far beyond | its original intentions. So far, so good.
On Jun 29, 2006, at 10:20 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
of what is here nomenclated as "De Facto Consensus" (DFC). DFC must not be confused with Genuine Consensus -- defined as the absence of dissent -- DFC as it's currently observed in WP means that any three users, or evatars, coming to agreement in a half hour period, can impose their absolute dictatorship over the direction of an article.
Ah! This is more specific. And I don't even particularly dispute your claim that a preference for DFC exists, or even that such a preference is a problem, although I do think you exaggerate the degree of the problem.
The questions are - what is an alternative to DFC , why is DFC preferred, and what can we do about that preference? (either within Wikipedia, or in a fork of Wikipedia). I will attempt to answer the first question below, and leave the others to later.
What is an alternative to DFC?
"Genuine Consensus" is not possible; since the editing pool for Wikipedia is theoretically unlimited, we can never be sure that everyone who could edit an article does not disagree. However, we could require that any changes to an article be proposed before being done and make sure that anyone who states a disagreement with the proposed changes within a given period (anywhere from a half hour to one month) changes their mind or the changes cannot be made. A disadvantage of this is that any article which a crackpot decided to take an interest in would be impossible to change until the crackpot decided to leave. This proposal would strongly change the wiki quality of Wikipedia, so it probably would be necessary to attempt this in a fork.
It would also be possible to require that any changes to an article which were objected to, by anyone, at any time, even long after they were first entered, would be able to be removed, and could only be re-entered if that person removed their objections. A disadvantage of this is that material could be removed, and be unable to be re-entered, by someone objecting and then refusing to communicate further. This could lead to massive sections of the 'pedia being permanently removed. This also would have to be attempted in a fork.
Another possibility is to require a larger, but specific, number of user accounts (with all the sockpuppeting issues that entails) to determine the inclusion or removal of a given section of text.
I would be very curious to hear Mr. Awbrey's preference for an alternative, either one of the ones above, or another one I have not mentioned.
Jesse Weinstein
On 6/30/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
I would be very curious to hear Mr. Awbrey's preference for an alternative, either one of the ones above, or another one I have not mentioned.
I on the other hand am wondering whether we shouldn't consider putting Mr Awbrey on moderation, in an effort to increase the signal to noise ratio on this list. I appreciate your good faith effort to get something out of this "exit interview", but if you look at the thread as a whole, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Steve
On Jun 30, 2006, at 4:26 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 6/30/06, Jesse W jessw@netwood.net wrote:
I would be very curious to hear Mr. Awbrey's preference for an alternative, either one of the ones above, or another one I have not mentioned.
I on the other hand am wondering whether we shouldn't consider putting Mr Awbrey on moderation, in an effort to increase the signal to noise ratio on this list. I appreciate your good faith effort to get something out of this "exit interview", but if you look at the thread as a whole, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Re-reading the whole thread, I've come to agree with you. Mr. Awbrey seems to be upset that he attempted to convince some people that certain parts of an article should be changed, failed, and was thereby unable to make his changes stick. This is painful for him, but not a problem for Wikipedia. This will be my last message in this thread.
Jesse Weinstein