Parker Peters wrote:
I'm quitting wikipedia because I don't like what I've seen too many admins become. Self-righteous, arrogant, self-centered, conceited... jerks.
I've known a few of those.
I've seen admins block accounts with the reason of "name..", and then block another account for the reason that it was a "suspected sockpuppet" - of the offensive username block.
Perhaps we need to clarify the difference between "sockpuppet" and "suspected sockpuppet".
I've seen more accusations thrown around of someone being a "sockpuppet" of another user. Time and again, I looked through the edits, and I didn't see it. Instead, what I saw were users who were systematically hounded until they finally broke down and broke the civility rules, and then as an afterthought someone came up and said "oh, it doesn't matter, they were a sockpuppet of X anyways", thereby removing all culpability on the part of the abusive users who had spent time hounding and abusing the newbie to the point of cussing or vandalizing.
Incivility is clearly a more serious offence than sockpuppetry.
I saw a thread earlier today which I thought was monstrous - a user whose talk page was locked for "unblock template abuse", whose only crime or "abuse" of the template was removing the template after the blocking admin consistently and maliciously removed it.
Where was it removed from? It's obvious that if it was on his own talk page there's absolutely nothing wrong with removing it.
This thread was stopped by the assertion of David Gerard that the person who started the thread was "Enviroknot." I don't give a damn who started the thread, if the question is valid, the question is valid. I looked at the user in question, and I see plenty of problems with the way it was handled, and at least two admins who deserve at the least a stern censure and at the most, de-adminning for abusive behavior. We NEED users to bring these problems up. We NEED to cull the herd of abusive administrators.
I've only vaguely heard the name Enviroknot, and I don't think I want to know anything more about him. In most conversations on this list David tends to be relatively moderate. Personalizing your points in this way detracts from the otherwise valid points that you make.
We are too arrogant. I've seen Jimbo use the excuse of "well troll X doesn't like it so they are doing right" or "well you must be correct because the wikipediareview crowd doesn't like you" as a way to justify bad behavior in the wikimedia IRC room and even on this list. I've seen countless times where good users are attacked for speaking up and saying this same thing: We, the overwhelming number of admins on the project, are too arrogant. Too self-centered.
It's a very real and very serious problem.
We spend too much time "defending" wikipedia and not enough time bringing new users into the fold, being polite, being nice. Teaching them about policies, about the manual of style. Editing alongside them. Admins are supposed to be "just another editor with a few extra buttons", but too many admins today get drunk on that power.
Yes. Mentorships would be a good idea. That relationship should also include guidelines for Ignoring All Rules or Being Bold since these too are an important part of Wiki life. They also need to be taught that what often passes as rules are nothing more than guidelines, and that what is in the Manual of Style can easily be ignored in certain circumstances.
And you know what? I'm tired of it. Our articles are suffering because even the good edits of supposed "sockpuppets" are being reverted by overly-zealous admins who believe that they have to hunt for every edit made by someone they think is banned - even if it's just a typo fix - and revert it. Yes, I have watched this in action. I have watched admins put obvious page-tagging edits like an insertion of "joe is a fag" back because the user who reverted the vandalism was someone deemed a "sockpuppet" by our completely erroneous and pointless system.
That's ad hominem editing. You have to admit that it is a convenient excuse to avoid applying common sense. The constructive people will take the time to look at the edits. Nobody "owns" the edits, not even a sockpuppet. Thus if an otherwise completely vile sockpuppet does nothing more to an article than fix an obvious typo he does not acquire ownership of the article. The edit should stand or fall on its own merit. If through this process a person restores vandalism, that too is an act of vandalism.
The Wiki is broken. It's not the vandals who broke it. Those we could handle. It's not the edit warriors who broke it. Those we can handle.
Easily. At a national level this pandering to paranoia is sometimes called Homeland Security.
WE, the admins of wikipedia, broke it. We broke it by being stuck-up jerks. We broke it by thinking we are better than normal editors, by getting full of ourselves.
This is not unusual in the history of organizations. One of my favorite Nietzsche quotes has always been, "There are no Christians alive today; the last one died on the cross." If one were to draw parallels with Christian history those in immediate contact with Jesus had the inside track on what Jesus was trying to say, but those who followed, notably Paul, immediately set about corrupting the message. Similar things happened in other religions and we end up with Sunni vs. Shia or Mahayana vs. Hinayana. In the hands of the rulemakers the initial message of liberation becomes an opiate.
And every one of the admins on wikipedia, myself included, has been guilty of it at one point. Some are more guilty than others. Some are jerks 100% of the time. Some have become so obsessed with their pet sockpuppet, be it Enviroknot, Freestylefrappe, Willy on Wheels, Entmoots, Pigsonthewing, JarlaxleArtemis, Karmafist, Lir, PoolGuy, or whatever else their pet sockpuppet of the week is that they are no longer useful.
Fair enough. The key to changing that is to recognize when you're doing it, and to go through a rational self-examination and reflection on the circumstances. Some of these "pet sockpuppets" are genuine problems (a few I never even heard of before), but when obsession overwhelms rationality it becomes more difficult to even deal with the genuine problems.
Some never should have passed RFA to start with. Some deliberately gamed the system and pulled support from a specific interest group to get passed, then turned around and started immediately abusing their power to help the interest group and haven't stopped since. Some are likely sockpuppets of serial edit warriors.
Some are just insane.
Yet Pinky is more likely to get things done.
Too many things are not open for discussion. Too many of the verboten topics center around people who are on power trips, or were at the time they took some action. Too many times admins seeking to consolidate their power bases or trading favors with other admins have stood up for improper, abusive behavior.
That sounds awfully lot like a dose of Realpolitik.
Jimbo, this might as well be an open letter to you too. None of the rest of these spineless yes-men will ever say these things to your face. Hell, I couldn't at the last meetup, because I was so afraid that you or Danny or one of the other high-ups would note down my username and ban me. That's the atmosphere you've cultivated.
That's an interesting observation. How many others are so intimidated? I don't remember meeting you in Boston, though I certainly remember meeting Jimbo and Danny. I actually found Danny easier to talk with, but that's just a personal observation. Danny does not have Jimbo's theological aura. A lot of this is a reflection on myself. As I sit here and make these comments I can pause and think as long as I want between sentences or words; I can even take time for a bite to eat. That doesn't work in a face to face conversation, when it comes down to say what you want to say or be ignored. That's not a matter of fault, but of practicality.
I am not uncritical of Jimbo, and most of my criticism is rooted in the notion that a person who develops an idea at the big picture level may not be the best person to apply his underlying principles at a level of broad participation. That dissociation between the ideas and the public is just the opportunity that the micromanagers want. A big picture person tends to make half-baked policy pronouncements. He can see a proposed solution to a problem, and in his ideal world those solutions will work. The big picture makes so much sense that it's unimaginable that anyone could see things differently.
The premise of an ideal world is shaky. It's too easy to imagine a world where nothing goes wrong. For the true disciple anything inconsistent with his narrow interpretation of the vision, must necessarily be wrong. He believes in a rigid vision, and that is antithetical to vision. A prophet deludes himself when he believes that success of his vision among the masses implies that the message has been understood.
Your overall analysis was an important one, though I think that introducing your personal squabble with David damaged its tone.
Ec