JHK writes
The problem here is that 24 makes assertions that words mean what IT says they mean, and often denies that common usage is legitimate. The purpose of any encyclopedia should be to let people know what is GENERALLY meant and agreed-upon, and then other views or interpretations.
Couldn't agree more. This person has some VERY idiosyncratic definitions for obscure terms I have never seen used. Many of his entries seem leftist/Green and yet I have many friends that are leftist and/or Green and they are not aware of most of 24's terms. In addition, almost everything he/she writes is discoherent and at first glance at least, nonsense.
.... JHK: I think [Jimbo is] right on one level -- banning is very extreme. However, I think we need to consider whether community standards and etiquette play any part. There have been lots of situations where peer pressure has helped to tone down disagreements between Wikipedians -- but even in cases where there was clear animosity, I've never seen it get so bad that the disputants wouldn't put common goals first (given encouragement ;-) ). With 24, we see a person who denies that there is a community, and therefore has no obligation to work within the standards we've set for ourselves. Moreover, one of 24's aims is to change the goals of the project and tell us what we 'should' (in his twisted world-view) be writing about. In my opinion, he IS vandalizing the project by creating tons of pages that are really indefensible from a NPOV-encyclopedia standpoint. Banning him would certainly result in tirades of "those people/that clique doesn't like what I say, so they're oppressing me", but this may be the point where we have to make a call on policy. I'm all for peer pressure and heavy editing, but I just don't know if it will be effective against someone who considers us all less than his peers.
JHK
Much of my rant was based on the fact that 24 does not follow community standards and etiquette -- even after being made aware of them. 24 is willfully defying NPOV, capitalization and pluralization wikipedia standards. What is worse, is that this person literaly is able to spew out massive amounts of text in very little time. It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to keep up with him/her -- let alone write about what I want to write about. It wouldn't be that terrible if this person simply was making new articles and leaving established ones alone. But 24 is injecting his/her seemingly idiosyncratic views into many other articles.
I am a very patient person who allways tries to give people the benefit of the doubt (and have been doing so with 24 up to this point). I have often chided other wikipedians for calling a newbie a VANDAL just because they were doing what newbies do best -- make honest mistakes or do something bad like delete a single article because they do not understand what wikipedia is. Almost all of these newbies either begin to understand and learn how to work on the 'pedia, or they drop out. 24 is very different and continues to do things the way he/she wants to after being introduced to what wikipedia is, our NPOV policy, how to best contribute to existing articles and how to best create new ones.
I really hate to say it, but I think it is time to at least consider voting 24 off the island. Maybe give him/her one more chance to reform.
maveric149
Daniel Lee Mayer wrote:
Moreover, one of 24's aims is to change the goals of the project and tell us what we 'should' (in his twisted world-view) be writing about.
My position on this is that so long as someone keeps their "change the goals" campaign on meta, that's fine. It's a waste of typing, though, because the one thing I'm totally dogmatic and inflexible on is NPOV and the concept of "encyclopedia". If NPOV is wrong, then so be it, wikipedia will be wrong. I'll gladly give an alternative community free hosting (until I can't afford it) just to defuse the objection that we're somehow suppressing alternatives.
If someone wants a non-NPOV encyclopedia, or if someone wants a site that is something _other than_ an encyclopedia, that's fine. But it won't be wikipedia.
The thing is, I'm an extremely ideological person. I'm a hardcore "libertarian" politically. I'm an _Atlas Shrugged_-toting-Objectivist philosophically. Compared to the average person, I'm "off the scale" in terms of ideological extremism. Don't ask me about religion or communism or the 'greens' unless you want to get an earful about reason, morality, and individual freedom. :-)
So I think I _understand_ the desire to write one-sided articles. Sometimes I'd love to go into articles on topics that I care about and write a diatribe. :-) But I don't. Because to do so would be _polemics_, not _encyclopedics_. If even *I*, an "ideological kook" if there ever was one, can keep the two straight, then so can people who are just as extreme in some other direction.
It would be wrong to turn Wikipedia into a platform for my opinions -- or 24s. It's an encyclopedia. It is a catalog of information aiming for an approximation to universal agreement. We have many simple techniques for achieving this, the most common and easiest being to "step out a level" and not _engage_ the controversy, but _describe_ the controversy.
In my opinion, he IS vandalizing the project by creating tons of pages that are really indefensible from a NPOV-encyclopedia standpoint. Banning him would certainly result in tirades of "those people/that clique doesn't like what I say, so they're oppressing me", but this may be the point where we have to make a call on policy.
I'd like to hear Cunctator weigh in on this topic. He's probably our current best "conscience" on such matters, in the sense that he's very opposed to cabalism, and clearly sees the risk.
To me, the risk is two fold. First, there's the possibility of the public tirades against our allegedly exclusionary policies, etc. But second, there's the danger that we go down a slipperly slope and start banning people for more and more minor infractions.
maveric149 wrote:
I really hate to say it, but I think it is time to at least consider voting 24 off the island. Maybe give him/her one more chance to reform.
I'm trying to see if I can raise him via private email. Perhaps I can talk sense into him.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Daniel Lee Mayer wrote:
[snip]
In my opinion, he IS vandalizing the project by creating tons of pages that are really indefensible from a NPOV-encyclopedia standpoint. Banning him would certainly result in tirades of "those people/that clique doesn't like what I say, so they're oppressing me", but this may be the point where we have to make a call on policy.
I'd like to hear Cunctator weigh in on this topic. He's probably our current best "conscience" on such matters, in the sense that he's very opposed to cabalism, and clearly sees the risk.
To me, the risk is two fold. First, there's the possibility of the public tirades against our allegedly exclusionary policies, etc. But second, there's the danger that we go down a slipperly slope and start banning people for more and more minor infractions.
I have to admit I missed most of the 24 stuff since I was actually doing stuff other than Wikipedia for a while, so I'm not entirely sure what people are talking about. I saw the stuff labeled as (24) on meta, which seems to be intelligently motivated but written in a way that's guaranteed to antagonize/confuse people.
What did 24 do on wikipedia.com?
I really don't think people need to even consider banning 24. If I hadn't read all these posts on the mailing list or scanned meta, I wouldn't even have known such a person existed.
But again, I really have no idea what the scale of 24's actions are. Though perhaps that should be taken as an indication that the community response was already sufficient in assimilating 24's contributions.
--tc
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