[WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power

Sun Jul 3 08:27:52 UTC 2005

Sorry, I appear to have forgotten to send this reply to Anonymouse to
the actual mailing list, and instead sent it to Anonymouse alone. I
note that I haven't received a reply to it in the 16 hours since I
sent it to him or her.
-----

First off, who is Marmot? Who is Kurita77? I don't know. I'm the list
administrator; I make sure it is used appropriately. I'm not here to
make judgments about the actions of people on Wikipedia; I'm here to
facilitate meaningful and constructive discussion.

You were incredibly rude. As a result, you were moderated, but not
banned. You are still free to send emails to the list, and, like I
said, if they are civil then they will fairly quickly reach the list.
This email of yours I am replying to now was not civil, and would not
have got through. Please try a little harder next time to be civil. As
for your claim that moderated users never get heard from once they get
placed under moderation, maybe you don't realise that NJ Yoder is also
currently moderated and the last few emails from him that have arrived
on the mailing list have gone through the moderation process and been
approved by the mailing list administrators. It's not what you say
that's important to me, it's how you say it.

You claim that your alleged personal attacks were the truth. So you're
saying it's the absolute truth that one Wikipedian is a fat hag who
constantly fellates another Wikipedian? I'm sorry, but that is so out
of line that I do not accept any arguments of censorship or freedom of
speech or anything like that as persuasive. If you have a point to
make, it is more than possible to make it without personally attacking
people in that manner.

As for your worries of people hunting you down and blocking you on
Wikipedia for what is said here, you shouldn't worry about that. As
far as I am concerned, although WikiEN-l is expressly *about*
Wikipedia, it is entirely separate *from* Wikipedia, and anything
which goes on one should not have a bearing on the user's
participation in the other. In this way, a user who gets blocked on
Wikipedia proper is not automatically banned from the Mailing List,
and vice-versa. Having said that, the fact that the mailing list is
independent means that in *extreme* cases action must be taken in
order to stop spam, abuse or inane repetition. In my view, yours is
the second most extreme case I have seen in the last year of being the
administrator of this mailing list. However, since that last case I
have taken a more liberal approach and instead moderated you instead
of banning you from subscribing to the mailing list outright. This is
because I see considerable value in what you say, and want you to help
thresh out the discussion, just not without abusively kicking other
people in the guts in the process.

So if you would please get over the accusations of thuggery and
censorship on my part, and back on topic in a civil manner, hopefully
we can actually get somewhere and maybe even lift the veil of
moderation.

~Mark Ryan
WikiEN-l Mailing List Administrator

On 7/2/05, A. Nony Mouse <temoforcomments4 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Oh give me a fucking break and stop lying.
>
> "If you construct your messages with meaning and civility,
> they will be readily accepted onto the mailing list, regardless of
> what you are arguing. This moderation is to maintain respectful
> conversation on the mailing list, not to censor your views."
>
> Been there. Seen that. Once you have "moderated" someone, they're never
> heard from again. It doesn't matter if they send a one-line "I agree with
> user X" email, it NEVER fucking makes it through moderation.
>
> This is ALL about censorship. You do it solely to ensure that dissent is
> never heard, the exact same thing you did to Marmot for dissenting about the
> way Admins cover up each other's crimes.
>
> I'll freely admit that YOU could construe what I said as personal attacks.
> You know what? They were also the truth. Just as what I'm saying NOW is the
> truth, but you'll try to ban me for it anyways.
>
> That's why I'm anonymous. Because I don't trust 90% of this list's
> membership not to go hunting through the Wikipedia userbase trying to find
> my account and block it out of spite.
>
> Civility will be had when you start behaving civilly yourselves. The way you
> have treated Yoder, the way you have treated Marmot, and the way you treated
> Kurita77 were anything BUT civil.
>
> Oh wait, I forgot. Policy only fucking matters when there's an admin
> wielding it. And heaven forbid that a user point out when the Admins are
> acting like a bunch of power-mad thugs, or even come to this list with a
> good-faith request to get their account back.
>
> "I may be forced to make mailing list subscriptions by
> approval only, which would have the effect of hindering community
> participation in the mailing list. As I'm sure you appreciate how
> undesirable an outcome that would be, I'm sure you will respect my
> requests."
>
> You've already destroyed community participation on the mailing list, so I
> don't see how I could do any more damage than you've already done. Like I
> just said, you'll get my respect back when you stop acting like a bunch of
> power-mad thugs and start acting like Wikipedians again.
>
> A.Nony Mouse
>
> >From: Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia
> ><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> >To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power
> >Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 17:57:17 +0800
> >
> >For the public record, this user is not "booted off the list". Rather,
> >he or she is mdoerated, with postings to be approved by moderators.
> >Here is an email I sent to this anonymous user:
> >
> >----
> >
> >You (and your other two accounts) have been moderated on WikiEN-l
> >because you were rude and abusive to others. The WikiEN-l mailing list
> >information page is at the following URL:
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> >You must have seen this page to subscribe your accounts to the mailing
> >list. You will notice down the bottom it says "[u]sers who are
> >extremely disruptive or uncivil may be banned from the mailing list by
> >the [mailing list] administrators". As I am sure you will freely
> >concede, your messages were very rude towards certain other
> >subscribers of the mailing list. Here are a couple of examples from
> >your messages:
> >
> >"you are nothing but a fascist hag anyways"
> >"Give Gerard my regards if you can be bothered to stop fellating him
> >long enough to speak."
> >"running around like a complete fat fool"
> >"you idiots spend your time jerking off"
> >"power-mad cretins"
> >
> >In view of this extreme lack of civility on your part, you are hereby
> >moderated on this mailing list. Any messages you now send to the
> >mailing list will be held for approval by one of the list's
> >moderators. If you construct your messages with meaning and civility,
> >they will be readily accepted onto the mailing list, regardless of
> >what you are arguing. This moderation is to maintain respectful
> >conversation on the mailing list, not to censor your views.
> >
> >If, however, you continue to create new anonymous accounts (we're up
> >to 3 now), I may be forced to make mailing list subscriptions by
> >approval only, which would have the effect of hindering community
> >participation in the mailing list. As I'm sure you appreciate how
> >undesirable an outcome that would be, I'm sure you will respect my
> >requests.
> >
> >~Mark Ryan
> >WikiEN-l Mailing List Administrator
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >On 7/2/05, A. Nony Mouse <tempforcomments3 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Whoops! Looks like somebody didn't like the truth told of them, they
> >booted
> > > me off the list for speaking truth to power.
> > >
> > > You wanted abuse of power? There you have it JT.
> > >
> > > Seems to happen a lot around here and on Wikipedia. Speak truth to the
> > > circle-jerk of power mad fools known as Admins, get booted.
> > >
> > > Ambi is the Red Queen of arbcom - running around like a complete fat
> >fool,
> > > screaming "Orf Wiv is 'ead" whenever a case comes before her. She gets
> >some
> > > sadistic pleasure from it I'm sure.
> > >
> > > The rest of ArbCom isn't any better. Never do they actually talk to
> >anyone
> > > involved in a case. Never do they let little things like facts get in
> >the
> > > way of their witch hunts.
> > >
> > > Ambi posts up a message that her say-so ought to be considered basis
> >enough
> > > for banning Marmot, whose only crime was exposing the Adminship
> > > self-protection racket for what it was, and you all just sit there
> > > applauding.
> > >
> > > I think you proved Marmot's case FOR him.
> > >
> > > An arbitration request comes up and someone adds an extra name to it,
> >and
> > > all of a sudden the original name on the arbitration request isn't even
> > > MENTIONED in the final verdict and an innocent user who (and I checked
> >the
> > > log to be sure) has not used a single naughty word is banned.
> > >
> > > Yoder gets caught in an infinite ban loop by an Admin who was involved
> >in
> > > his case, and you idiots spend your time jerking off saying "well you
> > > shouldn't have crossed an admin" and calling him names  rather than
> >paying
> > > attention to what was going on. And you're STILL DOING IT.
> > >
> > > And then there's what you did a couple days ago to Kurita77. A new user
> > > comes in, reads the tutorials, makes edits, and you ban him for the
> >crime of
> > > knowing too much? I was watching that. Poor kid didn't do anything wrong
> >but
> > > you spent your time harassing him, one of you sends him crank emails,
> >and
> > > before you know it we have a user screaming profanities.
> > >
> > > Not his fault. YOUR fault.
> > >
> > > There's a reason I post these sentiments anonymously. It's because you
> > > power-mad cretins would like nothing more than to get ahold of anyone
> >who
> > > dares to speak the truth about you around here. You'd ban my Wikipedia
> > > account just out of spite if you knew who I was. And I know you WAY too
> >well
> > > for you to claim otherwise, JT.
> > >
> > > Come on. Prove me wrong. Show some sense. Show for even ONE SECOND that
> >you
> > > actually respect the policies and procedures of Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > Biting the newbies, attacking anyone who's not part of your inner circle
> > > jerk, and insulting new users once you've bitten them isn't doing you
> >any
> > > favors.
> > >
> > > A. Nony Mouse.
> > >
> > > >>
> > > >and your a sockpuppet but that's beyond the point, I would be
> >interested in
> > > >seeing an iota of proof of any of these accusations, that would support
> > > >your case, and the case of the longwinded Nathan J. Yoder much better
> >than
> > > >these unceasing tireless rants.
> > > >
> > > >-Jtkiefer
> > > >_______________________________________________
> > > >WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > Don't know what Meegos are? Click to find out. http://meegos.msn.ie
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> > >
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Create a cute, funny or sexy Meego - click for more info!
> http://meegos.msn.ie
>
>