[WikiEN-l] The difficulty of retaining volunteer writers

[Cormac Lawler]

On 12/3/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/2/05, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/2/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> > > By defending SlimVirgin against what FuelWagon HIMSELF conceded
> > > was an "accusation" (his words), I find myself hauled before the
> > > arbitration committee.
> >
> > For what its worth, FuelWagon has now turned Jayjg's ArbCom candidate
> > question page into his own personal battleground. FuelWagon's
> > "questions" span five sub-sections, have dozens of diffs and are filled with
> > endless rhetorical statements. However, this doesn't even begin to compare
> > with the 16 section response to his RfC a while back: (
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/FuelWagon_2).
> >
> > Ed's right, the system's not working here.
> >
> I want to describe some of what FuelWagon has been doing so that
> people can see how hard it is to deal with this within the existing
> dispute-resolution structure.
>
> FuelWagon has been harassing Ed and myself, and a couple of others to
> a lesser extent, since July. It started because I blocked him for 3RR
> and then because I made a copy edit he didn't like of an article he
> had edited a lot. He responded with a stream of invective and
> talk-page disruptive, which Ed blocked him for, and that made Ed his
> victim too.
>
> I hate to think how many personal comments he has posted about Ed and
> me since then, but it amounts to thousands of words. He filed an RfC
> against me, which was deleted because he failed to show prior efforts
> at dispute resolution. He promptly copied and pasted it into his user
> subspace, so that he can still link to his various claims. He also
> created an "attack page" on me, where he makes a note of anything I do
> that he feels he can use against me. Carbonite opened an RfC against
> him, but he hijacked it and turned it into another attack page. He
> tried to intervene in the arbcom case against Ed, writing to Jimbo to
> have it re-opened when it had closed, then tried to have some kind of
> black mark put on Ed's mediation record.
>
> It has been very upsetting to be on the receiving end of it. I tried
> ignoring him, responding with reason, responding firmly. I stayed away
> from pages he edits, but he stalked me to pages I edit and began to
> revert me, so that I had to either let him have his own way, or get
> into a revert war with him and look as bad as he is.
>
> It changed the whole way I interact with people on Wikipedia. I found
> myself becoming sharper with people than I had previously been,
> because I was on edge all the time. I felt embarassed at having
> someone pursue me with accusations, because most people looking at it
> will think there's no smoke without fire. And yet when I tried to
> correct some of what he was saying, I ended up looking as silly as
> him, so mostly I had to let him get away with it.
>
> Several editors and admins have intervened and tried to persuade him
> to stop, including Ed Poor, Ann Heneghan, El C, Carbonite, Jayjg,
> Bishonen, Willmcw, Marskell, Aaron Brenneman, Mel Etitis, and
> Viriditas.
>
> FuelWagon's response was that he would leave me alone if I did 12
> things that he listed on his talk page
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:FuelWagon&oldid=25272763#ideal
> including that I make, in the "first-person narative [sic] form" an
> unqualified and unconditional apology in relation to the copy edit he
> didn't like, and he listed the various talk pages that the apology had
> to be posted on. He had a similar list of apologies that Ed had to
> make before he'd be satisfied.
>
> He also teamed up with other known trolls like Zephram Stark, Marsden,
> and Vizcarra, so that a gang of people began to pursue his various
> victims.
>
> I've resisted taking this to the arbcom because he will turn it into a
> circus, and also because I couldn't face going through all the diffs
> and having the whole thing repeated yet again. I've been on the verge
> a couple of times of writing to Jimbo for help, but didn't because
> that puts him on the spot. I've also been on the verge of leaving, but
> I don't want to let someone like that drive me away.
>
> Now, because Ed Poor recently blocked FuelWagon for three hours over a
> personal attack on me, FuelWagon has seized his chance and has taken
> Ed to the arbcom, where he will hold court for several weeks, perhaps
> several months, and all the allegations will have to be responded to.
> The only way I can defend Ed now is to present the case that I've not
> been able to face putting together. It's probably going to take me a
> week or more to put all the diffs together in a way that gets the full
> force of his behavior across without being unreadable for the
> arbitrators.
>
> There has to be a better way to deal with users like this. For
> example, we could set up a small committee of experienced editors, a
> subcommittee of the arbcom and subject to the arbcom's jurisdiction,
> whose job it is to identify when a user is trolling, stalking, or
> harassing, and we give that committee the power to deal with it there
> and then, using blocks of increasing length for each instance of it. I
> know this has drawbacks (accusations of cabalism), but I feel the
> benefits would greatly outweigh them.
>
> Sarah


Is a "better way" to deal with this not to allow arbitrators to
proactively take cases, as opposed to waiting for cases to come to
them? If this situation is as you say it is, Sarah (and i feel like
believing you rather than trawling through these evidence pages), then
the damage that has been done will only continue throughout the
process of arbitration. If arbitrators were to take and act on cases
that they can see are being destructive, then they could make and
delegate rulings with the collective force of a group (as opposed to
the actions of one or two admins) in the way they feel appropriate,
without having to have a long, drawn-out process that can be turned
into a "circus". This is a dangerous suggestion, I know, but I felt I
should make it.

Cormac