[WikiEN-l] Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case

[Tony Sidaway]

In the light of the recent escalation of the Ashida Kim case on Wikipedia, I
have registered on Ashida Kim's board and made the following post in the
General forum as a good faith attempt to open a dialog as the first step in
resolving this issue. My username is Tony Sidaway.


I don't think either Wikipedia or Ashida Kim comes out of this smelling of
roses. I speak as an experienced editor and administrator at Wikipedia, and
the person who last unprotected the article Ashida Kim on Wikipedia. I do
not speak for Wikipedia, with which I have no formal connections, but as an
individual. On Wikipedia, an administrator is like a mod on forums, a
trusted editor who performs clerical tasks. Wikipedia is huge so there are
hundreds of us.

First let me explain, without defensiveness, the way in which Wikipedia
works. I'll do this solely in order that you'll understand why it behaves in
the way it does.

First, it's a wiki, so anyone can edit it, unless we take the trouble to
block them, which we can do by username or by IP. As you have found, it's
extremely easy to evade a Wikipedia block. As you have also found, Wikipedia
has immense human resources who are very vigilant, so it's difficult for
anyone to evade a Wikipedia block for long.

Second, it's run by consensus of the users. The content of an article,
subject to legal requirements such as copyright and defamation law, is
decided by consensus. This is supplemented with policies of good faith
editing, verifiability and neutrality.

Our deletion debates seem to have puzzled Ashida Kim. Contrary to his
belief, we don't automatically delete an article if it's a vandalism
target--having such a policy would make any article easy to destroy by
malicious vandalism. Scientologists could attack the article on Scientology,
creationists could attack the article on Evolution, and so on. We debate
deletion to decide whether there is a rough consensus (which is usually 2/3
or more of those voting) to delete. Editors in a deletion debate are
expected to make their decision in good faith, and if a person with few
edits appears in such a debate this may be taken as a sign of bad faith.
Votes from so-called "meat puppets", people who appear on Wikipedia as a
result of an exhortation on a board such as that we have seen from Ashida
Kim, are not counted, and their appearance to vote in this way is often
interpreted as a breach of good faith. This is because Wikipedia decisions
are supposed to be those of the community, not of outsiders rounded up to
pack a debate. Nevertheless a person who appears "out of the blue" and gives
persuasive arguments may sway others in a debate.

I'm not happy with the article at present. It falls short of the quality I
expect from Wikipedia, and I will probably take the opportunity to edit it
towards a more neutral point of view when next it is unprotected. In that
sense you can regard me as a potential friend on Wikipedia, and one whose
voice is generally respected so my opinions will be listened to. But that's
by-the-by. This doesn't mean I'm sympathetic to Ashida Kim or his methods,
only that I'm committed to Wikipedia's ethic of neutrality.

Another point on which I think Ashida Kim may have a legitimate complaint is
that the names and contact details of his friends were apparently placed
into the article and Wikipedia may have been tardy in its response to this
invasion of privacy. In my opinion that content should have been removed
from the article editing history as soon as practically possible. Without
examining what happened and when, which would take some time, I can't say
for sure, but I take Ashida Kim's complaints in good faith and accept that
there may be a case to answer. I will investigate further and recommend
policy changes if I think they will help to stop Wikipedia being used for
malicious purposes.

Ashida Kim's response to the situation, using private details about the
founder of Wikipedia in a tit-for-tat attack, is in my opinion
understandable although I do not condone it and hope that he will
reconsider. This kind of escalation makes problem resolution more difficult
to achieve. However I admit that in one sense it has been productive--it has
focused my attention on Ashida Kim's legitimate complaint of invasion of
privacy.

I think that we can arrive at a compromise that all will be happy with. We
have tens of thousands of biographical articles of living people on
Wikipedia, and only a tiny handful have ever been the cause of any serious
problems.

I hope to start a dialog with a view to solving these problems. If email is
preferred, please use the email address minorityreport at bluebottle.com,
otherwise respond here. *

Edited by: Tony
Sidaway<http://p206.ezboard.com/bashidakimmessageboards.showUserPublicProfile?gid=tonysidaway@ashidakimmessageboards>at:
10/4/05 8:46
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