[Gendergap] Hello and a (small!) manifesto

[Andreas Kolbe]

--- On Tue, 8/2/11, Daniel and Elizabeth Case <dancase at frontiernet.net> wrote:

> From: Daniel and Elizabeth Case <dancase at frontiernet.net>
> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Hello and a (small!) manifesto
> To: fredbaud at fairpoint.net, "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" <gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Tuesday, 8 February, 2011, 21:23
> > OK, but let's get down to cases.
> What should we do about it? Think ahead
> > to community reaction, but assume, in good faith, that
> he is doing his
> > best and could do better. (or is that just a game of
> going through the
> > motions?)
> 
> This has now played out more or less as I thought it would:
> He has twice 
> said he doesn't care, it's not his problem, and after some
> other discussion 
> by other editors which he decided wasn't involving him he's
> removed the 
> section from his talk page entirely.
> 
> I emailed him saying that was his prerogative and his
> position was clear, 
> but that I might stop in and audit his patrol log and
> contributions on 
> occasion in the future.
> 
> I'm glad the distraction is over so I can return to doing
> more 
> content-related editing, as I have some long-range plans.
> However, things 
> like this will happen again with this editor, and others
> like him.
> 
> It doesn't surprise me that Wikipedia would attract such
> serious Asperger 
> cases as this. The phenomenon of indivudals with poor
> social skills (mostly, 
> to be fair, male) finding a haven online where
> singlemindedly obsessive 
> behavior can be of benefit, as it often is especially on
> Wikipedia, is not 
> new to Wikipedia.
> 
> Frankly, Tim's fault wasn't his alone. The original article
> he marked had 
> not included the code that makes footnotes show up 
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swim_~&oldid=362817720).
> Now 
> that, of course, doesn't mean it should be deleted. And in
> fact it wasn't 
> ... the subsequent work on the article resulted in the tag
> being removed 
> (the only deletion in the record is from a previous
> incarnation, in 2008). 
> But reviewing admins should be careful about this, and
> Tim's absolute 
> refusal to discuss this when asked, even in a less
> confrontational way, is a 
> cause for concern.
> 
> First, these things are not always evident in the Twinkle
> or Huggle user 
> interface. That's a technical issue.
> 
> But given the mentality expressed by his userpage and
> discussions initiated, 
> it's clear that the benign neglect from the rest of the
> community has 
> allowed the evolution of a space within Wikipedia where
> users like this, 
> users who actually flaunt their antisocial tendencies, can
> thrive under the 
> cover of a necessary project function.
> 
> Clearly greater oversight is needed.
> 
> Daniel Case 


Timneu22 has now blanked his user talk page, again, deleting the ongoing RfC 
Fred started on it.

What is really funny is that this user and WP:VANISPAM fan has a Wikipedia 
biography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Neumark

which as far as I can make out is as clear a case of a vanity biography as I 
have seen; there is not one decent source among the references. His youtube
channel has had all of 125 views since 2006: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/timneu22

Notability? This is the sort of biography which, if it were on a garage band, 
the chap would nominate for deletion within five minutes of creation.

On top of it, the account that created his bio looks like a sockpuppet or
meatpuppet ... responding to the AfD within four hours, after not editing
for more than a year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tim_Neumark

This is not the sort of person who should be manning Wikipedia's front end.

Andreas