I'm in agreement with Ned here. Looking through ANI and their own
wiki pages, it appears to me that they made every effort to abide by
policies, and did not intend to create a disruption. It was supposed
to just be a learning experience regarding online disputes, and they
got more experience than they bargained for.
They were polite and attempted to help us out with some current
disputes. I think the rude comments some of our community members
have made regarding them were way out of line.
Matt Jacobs
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008
Ned Scott wrote:
I strongly urge people on the mailing list to also look at that ANI
link. Here's a perm link,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notic…
Unless we are changing the definition of a cabal, that hardly
describes these groups of students. One group even self-identified,
and stated that they were presenting opinions about a dispute, for a
class assignment. The other groups might simply not have thought of
this, or didn't think it was a big deal. They caused no harm, and
actually provided us with many good solutions to some existing
disputes, from fresh, neutral minds.
They discussed things amongst themselves before hand, and carefully
thought about how to present their ideas so that they would be best
received. We do that on-wiki all the time, and not with the intent to
manipulate, but simply understanding that how you present an idea is
sometimes just as important as the idea itself. It's not much
different than a micro-consensus being formed on one talk page, and
then those editors going to a larger community discussion after having
thought about what was discussed in the first discussion. It did not
appear that any of them said anything they didn't actually believe,
either as an individual or as a group.
This dispute didn't happen from the students, but more from a fear
that came after discovering that they collaborated off-wiki. As
[[User:Gladys j cortez]] said:
"I am of absolutely no consequence to this discussion, but the concern
I see among the "regular" Wikipedians here is one of transparency. Had
the participants announced their presence and intentions, as one group
apparently did, I would imagine this would have been a non-issue.
Gladys J Cortez01:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)"
-- Ned Scott
On Jan 8, 2008, at 9:54 PM, Steven Walling wrote:
> How natural for the Ivy League. Real life cabalists become virtual
> ones.
>