[WikiEN-l] Coordination on Secret/private lists

[Alec Conroy]

On 12/5/07, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:

> What's boring are continuing snide insinuations. Why [doesn't]
> anyone else who insists that the Cyberstalking list was used to
> co-ordinate !!'s block say straight out that they think Matt and Guy
> and Slim are lying, if that's what they think, rather than using
> weaselly innuendo to try to press their point?

I know this horse is sorta dead, but since peopel are still engaging
in the post-mortem, I thought I should chime in.

First of all, Matt and Guy and Slim can't lie about something they
can't possibly have known.  The truth is, they have no clue whether
the list was used to coordiante or not.  Durova posted to the list
about !! to the list--  what responses she got back through email,
only Durova and her sleuths know.   People can say "I didn't see any
full-formed coordination", but they can't actually know there was no
such coordination.

Secondly, there's no need to fixate just on the !! issue.  The list
had been running long before !!, and it was "high volume".   It
certainly seems that the Cyberstalking and the Investigations lists
existed to cooridinate SOMETHING.   What exactly were they
coordinating, who knws-- but it's obvious  people on it were talking
about wikipedia, they weren't  swapping recipes, running a support
group, or investigating the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

Precisely which specfic incidents were discussed and were
coordidnated-- that we can't say.  Was that coordnation improper?
That we cannot answer.

But obviously, there was some sort of coordination, and there was SOME
 reason that even the mere EXISTENCE of the lists were being kept
secret-- rather than just keeping hte contents of the list private.

What could they have been coordinating?  Who knows.

*  !!'s block was one obvious candidate, because we know Durova sent
out a "inviation to coordination" on the list.   But t enough people
have come forward to claim Durova's post was just an invitation to
coordiation, and if an future coordination occurred (as Durova claims
it did), that coordination took place off list.

*  Miltopias block was almost certainly coordinated on the list--
Durova strongly implies it, and in fact Durova seems to practically
gloat that the coordination over that went undiscovered.

*  DanT has speculated that the pro-BADSITES group coordinated the
edit wars at WP:NPA and Robert Black and Judd Bagley there, but I
don't think he claims to know that it was coordinated, or if he just
suspects it.

*  I got an anonymous 'leak' some someone who was supposedly on the
list who claims that the list was use to coordinate an edit-war at
Wikipedia:Sock puppetry that occurred in November-- I personally have
no way of knowing if that's true or not.
----


If some of these speculations turn out to be false, it's regretable,
but inevitable.


This is the risk you take when you run "lists that THEY don't know
exist" --- when THEY (the community) finally do find out you've been
running such lists,  THEY are going to assume there's a reason THEY
weren't allowed to about the existence of the lists.

"We just wanted a private place to share our feelings" isn't going to
assauge the community's fear that the list was used to coordinate
something, somewhere, somehow.

Whether that coordination is improper or broke the rules, who can say.
  That's another er risk of  secret/private lists-- whatever evidence
the participants have that might be used in their defense, they've
elected to keep that evidence "secret"--  which only contributes to
suspicion that something was rotten in Denmark.

If it's all one big misunderstanding, if the lists really weren't used
for anything inappropriate ever, I'd suggest making the archives as
public as possible, redacting on only the truly private info-- the
easiest way to show people you've got nothing to hide is to stop
hiding  stuff.

Alec