2007/2/18, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com:
Well, I just got an explanation for that:
- Official foundation policy is that open proxies are blocked
- Why for logged in users?
Because there was only one way of blocking when the policy was created.
2. Any change from that should work and have no negative consequences
- This change does not work because people in countries with these IP
still cannot work on WikipediaNL 4. This change has the negative side effect that people can create a sockpuppet and use an open IP to edit from their sock puppet, which
makes
sock puppets less easy to detect.
- where is 'Assume good faith' ?
I don't think we have a rule 'assume good faith' on nl:. Apart from that, I cannot answer questions about the opinions of people I don't agree with...
Do I agree with this? No. But I'm not a sysop, so my voice don't count. And
if I were a sysop, probably anything I do would be considered wheel warring, with me voluntarily giving up sysop powers being the most likely
outcome.
- Always thought that sysops are for helping Wikimedians not only banning
:(
I guess that relationships are too much damaged on nl: to make that a valid option. There's quite a few people who feel it's "us vs. them", with them being the sysops. Or at least are of the opinion that the sysops have too much power.
Hoi, The notion of the sysops having too much power, is always seen from the outside. From the inside you will notice that the more power you seem to have the more careful you have to be when you wield it. One great strategy with people who complain is to make them part of the "establishment", this allows them to do "better". This is when the people still on the outside start to say that "power corrupts ...". The Dutch Wikipedia has on occasion added large groups of people to the rank of admin to prove that there is no such thing as a cabal. With hind sight is it obvious that this does not work.
With the removal of the possibility of the use of proxies, it becomes more difficult to do nefarious deeds like sock puppetry. This is in and of itself a good thing. It will hopefully calm down our community.
Where you say assume good faith, you definitely will find in the Dutch community that people assume that with no indications to the contrary the other party means well. There are however people who in word and deed demonstrate that there are indications that they do not mean well. When abuse has to be accepted because someone is "angry" and when this right of being angry is reserved to them then this is to much to ask from me and from many others.
Where Andre says that his opinion is irrelevant because he is no sysop, I do disagree strongly. I know that many people will, and do listen when he makes his point. I know that I do.. then again I am no nl.wikipedia sysop either. I do know that I have my contacts in the Dutch community and I may make a point and this occasionally does have its consequences.
There are many admins in the nl.wikipedia and as a group they are very diverse. You can not assume that they all play the same role, you cannot assume that one can be exchanged for another. There are people who are doing loads of technical stuff, there are those who do more community stuff. They all play their personal role. They are also all volunteers. When someone wants to force his way by any means, you will find that people just turn off. At such a moment, the relations are disturbed. For these relations to improve they do need to heal and, this is a process that requires time.
In the past Waerth has threatened to do things that were incompatible with the role that he played in the WMF. As a consequence he is no longer a steward nor is he a sysop. This time he explicitly informed us that all his edits are copyright violations in the assumption that we will believe him and delete all he has ever done. This deletion of his work is something he informed the Dutch community that he wanted before. So yes, the relations are very much disturbed. Waerth made his bed, he can lie in it. It is his choice to be abusive. It is his choice to move away from the Dutch wiki community.
It is a shame, because when you know him, when you talk to him one to one, he is not a bad person.
Thanks, GerardM
On 2/19/07, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2007/2/18, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com:
Well, I just got an explanation for that:
- Official foundation policy is that open proxies are blocked
- Why for logged in users?
Because there was only one way of blocking when the policy was created.
- Any change from that should work and have no negative consequences
- This change does not work because people in countries with these IP
still cannot work on WikipediaNL 4. This change has the negative side effect that people can create a sockpuppet and use an open IP to edit from their sock puppet, which
makes
sock puppets less easy to detect.
- where is 'Assume good faith' ?
I don't think we have a rule 'assume good faith' on nl:. Apart from that, I cannot answer questions about the opinions of people I don't agree with...
Do I agree with this? No. But I'm not a sysop, so my voice don't count. And
if I were a sysop, probably anything I do would be considered wheel warring, with me voluntarily giving up sysop powers being the most likely
outcome.
- Always thought that sysops are for helping Wikimedians not only
banning
:(
I guess that relationships are too much damaged on nl: to make that a valid option. There's quite a few people who feel it's "us vs. them", with them being the sysops. Or at least are of the opinion that the sysops have too much power.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2007/2/19, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
The notion of the sysops having too much power, is always seen from the outside. From the inside you will notice that the more power you seem to have the more careful you have to be when you wield it.
I've been on the inside, and I indeed found I had to be very careful. Very careful to not do something to upset other sysops, that is. If I had not interfered with the actions of other sysops, I would not have been in problems.
One great strategy
with people who complain is to make them part of the "establishment", this allows them to do "better". This is when the people still on the outside start to say that "power corrupts ...". The Dutch Wikipedia has on occasion added large groups of people to the rank of admin to prove that there is no such thing as a cabal. With hind sight is it obvious that this does not work.
By adding more people to sysophood, the only effect is that you draw more and more of the fighting behind the closed doors of sysophood, which actually makes it easier, not more difficult, to ignore the voices of non-sysops on the matter. Also, you increase the likelihood of having rogue admins, and lessen the chances of them losing their sysophood.
With the removal of the possibility of the use of proxies, it becomes more
difficult to do nefarious deeds like sock puppetry. This is in and of itself a good thing. It will hopefully calm down our community.
Unlikely if one of the things that the community is getting wild about is the blind blocking of proxies. "Just let me do what I want, and everything will be fine" is not the way to alleviate the worries of people who think you have too much power.
Where you say assume good faith, you definitely will find in the Dutch
community that people assume that with no indications to the contrary the other party means well. There are however people who in word and deed demonstrate that there are indications that they do not mean well. When abuse has to be accepted because someone is "angry" and when this right of being angry is reserved to them then this is to much to ask from me and from many others.
Apparently using an anonymous proxy is demonstrating that there are indications that you do not mean well? We're not just talking about assuming good faith in Waerth here. We're talking about the good faith we assume of the random new user coming to Wikipedia. Apparently when that user comes through an anonymous proxy all good faith we might have, has already been lost.
Where Andre says that his opinion is irrelevant because he is no sysop, I do
disagree strongly. I know that many people will, and do listen when he makes his point. I know that I do.. then again I am no nl.wikipedia sysop either. I do know that I have my contacts in the Dutch community and I may make a point and this occasionally does have its consequences.
How? RonaldB does his blocks, and even if I do convince people, he'll just go on with the support of that part of the population I did not convince. It's either convincing him, or having no effect at all.
In the past Waerth has threatened to do things that were incompatible with
the role that he played in the WMF. As a consequence he is no longer a steward nor is he a sysop. This time he explicitly informed us that all his edits are copyright violations in the assumption that we will believe him and delete all he has ever done. This deletion of his work is something he informed the Dutch community that he wanted before. So yes, the relations are very much disturbed. Waerth made his bed, he can lie in it. It is his choice to be abusive. It is his choice to move away from the Dutch wiki community.
There's more people involved here than just Waerth. He's just one of a series of people who feel wronged. Just look at the arbitration committee that is now being formed. There are people who are voting against all sysops in that election, because otherwise there would be too much concentration of power. If they did not think that being a sysop would entail having power, they would not vote so. I personally do agree with them that sysops are having quite a bit of power, though they should not have, although I don't agree that it should have any bearings on their capacity to serve in the committee. So I guess it's my choice to move away from the Dutch community too?
Andre Engels schreef:
2007/2/19, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
The notion of the sysops having too much power, is always seen from the outside. From the inside you will notice that the more power you seem to have the more careful you have to be when you wield it.
I've been on the inside, and I indeed found I had to be very careful. Very careful to not do something to upset other sysops, that is. If I had not interfered with the actions of other sysops, I would not have been in problems.
Interfering with other sysops did not get you in problems to the extend that you had to give up being a sysop. It was your choice to give up your sysopship. Were you to stand again for sysop, chances are that you would be voted in again. I would vote in favour. Being careful not to upset other people IS the name of the game.
One great strategy
with people who complain is to make them part of the "establishment", this allows them to do "better". This is when the people still on the outside start to say that "power corrupts ...". The Dutch Wikipedia has on occasion added large groups of people to the rank of admin to prove that there is no such thing as a cabal. With hind sight is it obvious that this does not work.
By adding more people to sysophood, the only effect is that you draw more and more of the fighting behind the closed doors of sysophood, which actually makes it easier, not more difficult, to ignore the voices of non-sysops on the matter. Also, you increase the likelihood of having rogue admins, and lessen the chances of them losing their sysophood.
Rogue admins can be de-sysoped. They can even be banned. This is what happened to Waerth.
With the removal of the possibility of the use of proxies, it becomes more
difficult to do nefarious deeds like sock puppetry. This is in and of itself a good thing. It will hopefully calm down our community.
Unlikely if one of the things that the community is getting wild about is the blind blocking of proxies. "Just let me do what I want, and everything will be fine" is not the way to alleviate the worries of people who think you have too much power.
How come that you assume that proxies are blocked blindly; have you spoken about this with Ronald ? Read what he wrote on the mailing list, it is reasoned and it sounds that he is willing to arguments to refine his ways. He presented on this subject on multiple occasions, last Saturday in Nijmegen at the "Moderator workshop". He is approachable.
Where you say assume good faith, you definitely will find in the Dutch
community that people assume that with no indications to the contrary the other party means well. There are however people who in word and deed demonstrate that there are indications that they do not mean well. When abuse has to be accepted because someone is "angry" and when this right of being angry is reserved to them then this is to much to ask from me and from many others.
Apparently using an anonymous proxy is demonstrating that there are indications that you do not mean well? We're not just talking about assuming good faith in Waerth here. We're talking about the good faith we assume of the random new user coming to Wikipedia. Apparently when that user comes through an anonymous proxy all good faith we might have, has already been lost.
Using proxies is certainly a red flag raised. It does however not automatically mean that bad faith is certain. It is however reasonable depending on the type of proxy to have a different strategy to deal with this. It is a right to edit anonymously however this right is not absolute.
Where Andre says that his opinion is irrelevant because he is no sysop, I do
disagree strongly. I know that many people will, and do listen when he makes his point. I know that I do.. then again I am no nl.wikipedia sysop either. I do know that I have my contacts in the Dutch community and I may make a point and this occasionally does have its consequences.
How? RonaldB does his blocks, and even if I do convince people, he'll just go on with the support of that part of the population I did not convince. It's either convincing him, or having no effect at all.
Like me, you do convince people. However, like me you do not convince people all the time. When a particular policy that you do not like is supported by a substantial group of the community, you really have to convince and you may fail at that. That is how the cookie crumbles.
In the past Waerth has threatened to do things that were incompatible with
the role that he played in the WMF. As a consequence he is no longer a steward nor is he a sysop. This time he explicitly informed us that all his edits are copyright violations in the assumption that we will believe him and delete all he has ever done. This deletion of his work is something he informed the Dutch community that he wanted before. So yes, the relations are very much disturbed. Waerth made his bed, he can lie in it. It is his choice to be abusive. It is his choice to move away from the Dutch wiki community.
There's more people involved here than just Waerth. He's just one of a series of people who feel wronged. Just look at the arbitration committee that is now being formed. There are people who are voting against all sysops in that election, because otherwise there would be too much concentration of power. If they did not think that being a sysop would entail having power, they would not vote so. I personally do agree with them that sysops are having quite a bit of power, though they should not have, although I don't agree that it should have any bearings on their capacity to serve in the committee. So I guess it's my choice to move away from the Dutch community too?
When Waerth feels wronged, when anyone feels wronged, it does not mean that he/she has a right to become obnoxious, abusive. It does not give him/her a right to threaten people or threaten the system. When there are people who vote against sysops on principle, they may but they are in my opinion stupid. People have a right to be stupid, they have a right to be wrong. They should not be surprised when they are then ignored because this behaviour is explicit "assume bad faith".
Yes, it is your choice to do whatever. I value you as a person, I hope you will do the right thing. That is why I take ample time to reply.
Thanks, GerardM
2007/2/19, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
I've been on the inside, and I indeed found I had to be very careful.
Very
careful to not do something to upset other sysops, that is. If I had not interfered with the actions of other sysops, I would not have been in problems.
Interfering with other sysops did not get you in problems to the extend that you had to give up being a sysop. It was your choice to give up your sysopship. Were you to stand again for sysop, chances are that you would be voted in again. I would vote in favour. Being careful not to upset other people IS the name of the game.
That's true; however, if I had upset a non-sysop it would have been much easier to just ignore it if it were not a sysop but another user that I had upset. Worst you can get then is a vote to de-sysop, which in all probability you pass after which you have been vindicated.
And yes, I am quite convinced that if I put myself up to the nomination, I would be re-elected hands down. But I am too afraid to get into similar conflict again. And things that I protested against then are being official policy now, I don't want to be responsible for them. And finally, there is also a good thing about not being a sysop: I don't have to worry about things like blocking policy. When I was a sysop and saw incorrect blocks, I felt the need to revert them, or at least talk about them. Now I just blame it on those all-mighty sysops being fools, and forget about it. If you can't change it, you don't have to worry about changing it either.
By adding more people to sysophood, the only effect is that you draw more
and more of the fighting behind the closed doors of sysophood, which actually makes it easier, not more difficult, to ignore the voices of non-sysops on the matter. Also, you increase the likelihood of having
rogue
admins, and lessen the chances of them losing their sysophood.
Rogue admins can be de-sysoped. They can even be banned. This is what happened to Waerth.
They can. But in practice they are not. Even in Waerth's case the de-sysopping was based on just a minority. Since then, all procedures have failed. And there is nothing between de-sysopping and approving of whatever the sysop does. With the effect that anything that a sysop does which is not bad enough to set up large part of the community against him or her, is automatically condoned and turned into non-official policy.
Unlikely if one of the things that the community is getting wild about
is
the blind blocking of proxies. "Just let me do what I want, and
everything
will be fine" is not the way to alleviate the worries of people who
think
you have too much power.
How come that you assume that proxies are blocked blindly; have you spoken about this with Ronald ? Read what he wrote on the mailing list, it is reasoned and it sounds that he is willing to arguments to refine his ways. He presented on this subject on multiple occasions, last Saturday in Nijmegen at the "Moderator workshop". He is approachable.
Interesting, at the moderator workshop. Doesn't that actually prove my point? One moderator decides that open proxies should be blocked. So they are blocked. This happens silently for quite a while, long enough to make it be considered policy, but then some negative consequences appear. What happens? The other moderators get explanation and the chance to ask questions. And still you seem to be of the opinion that being a moderator is NOT a position of power?
How? RonaldB does his blocks, and even if I do convince people, he'll just
go on with the support of that part of the population I did not
convince.
It's either convincing him, or having no effect at all.
Like me, you do convince people. However, like me you do not convince people all the time. When a particular policy that you do not like is supported by a substantial group of the community, you really have to convince and you may fail at that. That is how the cookie crumbles.
However, if I were a sysop, I could just implement my policy, and that's it. As a non-sysop, I have to start a discussion, get support, then start a vote, and there get a majority support who not only agree with me, but find it important enough to make official policy.
When Waerth feels wronged, when anyone feels wronged, it does not mean
that he/she has a right to become obnoxious, abusive. It does not give him/her a right to threaten people or threaten the system. When there are people who vote against sysops on principle, they may but they are in my opinion stupid. People have a right to be stupid, they have a right to be wrong. They should not be surprised when they are then ignored because this behaviour is explicit "assume bad faith".
So feeling that sysops have too much power is now explicitly assuming bad faith?
Yes, it is your choice to do whatever. I value you as a person, I hope
you will do the right thing. That is why I take ample time to reply.
And what is the right thing? Can I do it? I think there is a problem with the way things work between moderators and the rest of us on nl:. As you said before, making more people moderator won't help - there will always be people left who are not moderators, and they will feel even more powerless. Problem is, I don't know what will help either. And even if I would see a way, I still don't think I'll be able to convince enough people to make it happen.
Andre Engels schreef:
2007/2/19, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
I've been on the inside, and I indeed found I had to be very careful.
Very
careful to not do something to upset other sysops, that is. If I had not interfered with the actions of other sysops, I would not have been in problems.
Interfering with other sysops did not get you in problems to the extend that you had to give up being a sysop. It was your choice to give up your sysopship. Were you to stand again for sysop, chances are that you would be voted in again. I would vote in favour. Being careful not to upset other people IS the name of the game.
That's true; however, if I had upset a non-sysop it would have been much easier to just ignore it if it were not a sysop but another user that I had upset. Worst you can get then is a vote to de-sysop, which in all probability you pass after which you have been vindicated.
And yes, I am quite convinced that if I put myself up to the nomination, I would be re-elected hands down. But I am too afraid to get into similar conflict again. And things that I protested against then are being official policy now, I don't want to be responsible for them. And finally, there is also a good thing about not being a sysop: I don't have to worry about things like blocking policy. When I was a sysop and saw incorrect blocks, I felt the need to revert them, or at least talk about them. Now I just blame it on those all-mighty sysops being fools, and forget about it. If you can't change it, you don't have to worry about changing it either.
Given that there are so many sysops, you can easily ignore many of them. Most are not special and only some can be considered "thought leaders", you know who you respect and who are respected, these people you can not safely ignore.
By adding more people to sysophood, the only effect is that you draw more
and more of the fighting behind the closed doors of sysophood, which actually makes it easier, not more difficult, to ignore the voices of non-sysops on the matter. Also, you increase the likelihood of having
rogue
admins, and lessen the chances of them losing their sysophood.
Rogue admins can be de-sysoped. They can even be banned. This is what happened to Waerth.
They can. But in practice they are not. Even in Waerth's case the de-sysopping was based on just a minority. Since then, all procedures have failed. And there is nothing between de-sysopping and approving of whatever the sysop does. With the effect that anything that a sysop does which is not bad enough to set up large part of the community against him or her, is automatically condoned and turned into non-official policy.
There is something between de-sysopping and approving. Voicing argued dissent, argued in a reasonable tone does make a difference. By not arguing you achieve exactly what you do not want, turning things in a non-official policy. It is however your choice to speak or be forever silent.
Unlikely if one of the things that the community is getting wild about
is
the blind blocking of proxies. "Just let me do what I want, and
everything
will be fine" is not the way to alleviate the worries of people who
think
you have too much power.
How come that you assume that proxies are blocked blindly; have you spoken about this with Ronald ? Read what he wrote on the mailing list, it is reasoned and it sounds that he is willing to arguments to refine his ways. He presented on this subject on multiple occasions, last Saturday in Nijmegen at the "Moderator workshop". He is approachable.
Interesting, at the moderator workshop. Doesn't that actually prove my point? One moderator decides that open proxies should be blocked. So they are blocked. This happens silently for quite a while, long enough to make it be considered policy, but then some negative consequences appear. What happens? The other moderators get explanation and the chance to ask questions. And still you seem to be of the opinion that being a moderator is NOT a position of power?
What is called a "Moderator workshop" has an open door policy; anyone can come. You do not even have to be active on a Wikimedia project, you do not need to be a moderator to benefit from this workshop. Consequently it is NOT a correct argument that strengthens the notion that moderators are a cabal.
How? RonaldB does his blocks, and even if I do convince people, he'll just
go on with the support of that part of the population I did not
convince.
It's either convincing him, or having no effect at all.
Like me, you do convince people. However, like me you do not convince people all the time. When a particular policy that you do not like is supported by a substantial group of the community, you really have to convince and you may fail at that. That is how the cookie crumbles.
However, if I were a sysop, I could just implement my policy, and that's it. As a non-sysop, I have to start a discussion, get support, then start a vote, and there get a majority support who not only agree with me, but find it important enough to make official policy.
When you are a sysop, you can not just do things because you feel like it. You are part of a group of people that fulfil certain functions. These functions have not that much to do with having the "buttons". The only thing in which the Dutch moderator community is different from other sysop communities is in them having a separate "moderator mailinglist".
So being a sysop or no, the best way of changing things is by starting a discussion, getting support and maybe start a vote. You do that when you feel it is sufficiently important to do so.
When Waerth feels wronged, when anyone feels wronged, it does not mean
that he/she has a right to become obnoxious, abusive. It does not give him/her a right to threaten people or threaten the system. When there are people who vote against sysops on principle, they may but they are in my opinion stupid. People have a right to be stupid, they have a right to be wrong. They should not be surprised when they are then ignored because this behaviour is explicit "assume bad faith".
So feeling that sysops have too much power is now explicitly assuming bad faith?
Having the opinion that moderators have too much power is one thing, being opposed to what these people do, or want to do, because they /are /sysop is imho explicitly bad faith.
Yes, it is your choice to do whatever. I value you as a person, I hope
you will do the right thing. That is why I take ample time to reply.
And what is the right thing? Can I do it? I think there is a problem with the way things work between moderators and the rest of us on nl:. As you said before, making more people moderator won't help - there will always be people left who are not moderators, and they will feel even more powerless. Problem is, I don't know what will help either. And even if I would see a way, I still don't think I'll be able to convince enough people to make it happen.
If I always knew what the "right thing" is, I would be sporting a halo. (I just went to look in the mirror I still do not :). However when you are convinced that something is the right thing to do. There is no need to consider if people take it kindly. I am quite happy to take a minority view when it is what I believe to be the "right thing". When people do not thank me for it, it is too bad. It only means that I have to try to convince them with different arguments. When I cannot convince them, I have tried. Having done what I can, what is within my ability, is what has to satisfy me. When I have an occasional success, FINE.. it is however not a given that I will succeed.
To me this is a truism. Worst than failing is not to have tried.
Thanks, GerardM
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org