On 4/10/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/10/07, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/10/07, Parker Peters
<parkerpeters1002(a)gmail.com> wrote:
George, you're a regular laugh a minute.
Always nice to keep things properly in perspective.
Indeed.
> Why would I believe unblock-en-l is any
different? Why should anyone?
The
> statistics show that three users answer more
than 90% of the unblock
> requests on-wiki. THREE users, and they uniformly deny them all. Why
would I
believe
that a secretive email list where nobody can see in, is any
different? I don't see a reason why.
"The statistics" is an interesting claim - no statistics are in
evidence, nor am I aware of anyone having generated any.
I was speaking of the statistics of the {{unblock}} template, though
there's a fair amount of abuse of that too - especially abusive
administrators who block someone and then lock their talk page or revert
their attempt to place the {{unblock}} template before another user sees it.
There's no connection between {{unblock}} and unblock-en-L. They're
parallel mechanisms which can do the same thing.
In some cases
we find admins have made mistakes, or done something
abusive, in which case we go talk to the admin. On rare occation an
unblock-en-L member has just unblocked, without talking to the
blocking admin first, but we operate under the principle that it's
better to talk first and avoid wheel warring over blocks.
Funny, that - that's precisely the policy that's made appealing to
"another
administrator" a complete joke. You continually state that users have the
"right" to appeal to any other administrator, but the policies as put in
place say otherwise: an administrator is required to "talk" with the abusing
administrator, who merely has to keep their mouth shut in order to stonewall
action.
No, if we believe there's been a major error made, and the blocking
admin isn't reasonably responsive, people will unblock and notify the
blocking admin. It doesn't happen often, but it doesn't have to
happen often. Admins usually respond. One of the advantages of
unblock-en-L is that we have a bunch of admins there who are willing
to push the issue politely; if I find something I ask the blocking
admin to reconsider, and they don't, Luna or Yamla or Clowns can often
show up and chime in on the blocking admin's talk page (or any of many
others, just a few off the top of my head).
Deferring to the blocking admin doesn't mean ignoring the situation if
they don't respond or are unreasonable.
> "anyone who thinks we need more oversight is
welcome to propose
more oversight."
>
> Bullshit. I'd have been happy to do so, but your corrupt freaks decided
that
> anyone who dissents, anyone who gets too
close to the truth about their
corruption,
has to be
banned before those with power get exposed.
Unblock-en-L has very little power to be corrupt with. If we stood in
the way, blocking other mechanisms of block appeal, it might be
possible for us to cause problems. But we don't. Any blocked user
has 1300-odd admins they can appeal to directly via email;
unblock-en-l; posting the templates on their talk page; Arbcom; and
the Foundation in extremis.
All of which are rubber stamps, more or less. And your claim that they can
appeal to 1300-odd admins "directly via email" is doubly duplicitous, since
the rules on "wheel warring" basically prohibit any administrator following
up.
The rules on wheel warring most certainly don't prohibit any admin
from following up. That's a ridiculous view of the situation. Wheel
warring just means don't *keep* doing something which gets undone; go
talk about it. We take situations to AN/I all the time, asking for
independent review and comment. The unblock-en-l admins and other
volunteers are really good at doing per-policy notification, advocacy,
and escalation. We don't have to do it very often, but we do it.
Unblock-en-L
has not been granted any special power by the Foundation,
Arbcom, or community. We're just there to help clear things up for
people, and if they need help, we can provide it. There's no special
power in the list, or list members. The Foundation or Arbcom could
come stomp on us tomorrow if they felt we were abusive, or the wrong
mechanism or any such.
And why would they stomp on a rubber stamp?
I don't like being rude, but really. Put up
or shut up.
I don't like being rude, but really, you're just being a prick now. You've
seen the behavior that leads me to distrust the claims you're making, and
you're just going on like this now?
I believe a lot of people have grounds for complaints about the
process. But that's not the same as being paranoid about the whole of
WP infrastructure being out to get you.
We're
open
to oversight and review.
I'll believe it when I see it. The behavior I've seen, not just in relation
to unblock-en-l but in relation to wikien-l and wikipedia in general, shows
that administrators think "oversight" is another tool for abusing people and
maintaining POV-clique control of the article space.
It's possible that there's no overlap
between the set of people you'd trust to propose to review
Unblock-en-L and the set of people who we'd trust with people's
privacy enough to do the oversight role.
It's possible. I don't know yet. See below.
If that turns out to be true
then we have a mutual problem.
There are plenty of problems with Wikipedia, generally. If this was a mutual
problem, at least you'd be admitting it was a problem, which would likely be
a first.
But you haven't made the effort to
attempt to nominate someone for a review or oversight role.
Because any nomination, as long as the abuse by David Gerard hangs over all
this, is rather futile now isn't it? I mean, seriously. I propose one.
Someone else - likely David or one of his cronies - says absolutely not,
because the person I nominate now has a connection to me. The abuse and
flaming by David and his corrupt cronies will go on, and before you know it,
the whole thing's torpedoed.
I don't think David's on unblock-en-L and I don't think anyone but
Jimbo or the Board would get veto power over people joining it.
Ah, what the hell. The worst you can do is make more
enemies for your
corrupt selves.
You mentioned Marc. I don't know him that well. I don't know if he's
suitable or not. I'd prefer to see Saintonge, because he at least APPEARS to
be one of the few trustworthy wikipedians who's had any connection to this
list - but I note even he went silent, probably again at the hands of Gerard
and his minions. So I really can't say for certain.
That's not the right spelling for his account name, and I'm not
recalling the correct one... I just went wandering through a bunch of
stuff and couldn't get it, either.
From what I recall, he was fine. Have you asked him?
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com