On Dec 9, 2007 4:20 AM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/8/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I am glad to see Alec laying his cards on the table here.
Ouch! Well, I don't know how to take this, per se, other than to apologize for inadvertant toe-stepping. Granted, I wasn't unaware that some toes were getting tender, but I didn't realize what large and influencial toes they were.
-- Reading you email, I get the feeling like you feel like this whole issue was manufacture by malcontents-- but really, all I and other concerned editors have done is reeped the seeds of confusion sown by Durova's own words.
Durova was quite clear that she had consulted with other "sleuths" and that she had received "enthusiastic" endorsements. I didn't concoct the theory that there was extensive collaboration-- Durova cited that collaboration to justify her actions. When it turned out that whatever group had collaborated in the !! was, essentially, smoking crack, I honestly thought I could help the project out by asking pointed questions to try to determine who the amorphous assortment was.
Similarly, I didn't create the idea of a 'list, the existence of which is unknown', I just quoted Durova. Whether it was an email list, a Wikipedia list, a Wikia list, or what-- that I have never known. I honestly thought it would be useful to the project to know what forum was involved, and I thought it would be helpful to ask pointed questions on that subject.
Again, when I suggested the list had been used to collaborate, again, I'm just quoting what Durova herself seems to confirm. PrivateMusings asked if there has been any off-wiki collaboration, Durova cites PM's query as evidence that "they" don't know about the list. You needed be of any conspiratorial bent to somehow suspect that, in Durova's mind at least, some "list they don't know exists" is connected to "off-wiki collaboration". Durova's the one who privately answered PM's query by referring to the list-- not me.
Look at it from my point of view, Jimbo. In the leaked "secret evidence" email, Durova certainly 'appears' to have claimed there is some list, somewhere, that was secret, that was being used for collaboration.
I mean, we can all agree that is how things certain appear from an outside vantage point, right? That's what all the fuss is about.
The problem was not that you assumed the cyberstalking list had been used to co-ordinate the block, but the fact that for days you loudly insisted that it *had* been used to do just that, despite multiple statements to the contrary by multiple members of the list. The first time you insisted SHOW ME THE E-MAILS was not disruptive, but when you did it again and again, day after day, you were effectively saying, over and over again, that these people were lying. To use your metaphor, "toes were tender" not because you stepped on them by accident once, but because you kept jumping up and down on them after their owners politely asked you to stop. Stop calling people liars, stop inventing fantasies about their actions that have no relation to the reality they know, and they will stop being "tender".
Durova didn't lose her bit for a 75 mins "oops" that she herself corrected, after all. She didn't drop out of the election because she accidently hit the wrong button, and Mercury didn't get 67 oppose votes in less than five hours because he just accidently supported a bad block. These things occurred because there was a very real concern about how this block was made, who discussed it, where it was discussed, what they said about it, and what similar discussions have taken place.
From my point of view, that was a problem, and I just wanted to lend a hand to those who wanted it solved-- a group of people that, judging from the RFC and the election results, is quite massive. I didn't create the problem, I didn't manufacture it, I didn't even uncover it-- I just found it lying here, and thought I'd lend a hand at solving it.
No, Alec, you actually created the problem; you, and a small number of others. You kept insisting the cyberstalking (or investigations) list had been used to co-ordinate the block; screaming about it. Others who were doing the same went to disreputable tabloids to repeat this (and other) falsehoods as if they were fact. A non-existent block co-ordination is not a "problem". A group of editors who deliberately sully Wikipedia's reputation with calumny in the service of yellow journalism are the problem.
But all the cloak and dagger-- secret lists and secret evidence and secret sleuths-- that's what caused the unrest.
Again, it was the agitation about "secret lists" that "caused the unrest". You *knew* the phrase "secret list" was deliberately provocative, and were told as much many times, yet insisted on using the phrase anyway, because of its sensationalist connotations.
Because when every step is like pulling teeth, people naturally assume there's a few teeth left unpulled.
Yeah, that reminded me of the teeth pulling scene with Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman in The Marathon Man:
Szell: Is it safe?... Is it safe? Babe: You're talking to me? Szell: Is it safe? Babe: Is what safe? Szell: Is it safe? Babe: I don't know what you mean. I can't tell you something's safe or not, unless I know specifically what you're talking about. Szell: Is it safe? Babe: Tell me what the "it" refers to. Szell: Is it safe? Babe: Yes, it's safe, it's very safe, it's so safe you wouldn't believe it. Szell: Is it safe? Babe: No. It's not safe, it's... very dangerous, be careful.
I did my best to get to the bottom of it for the community... I think it would have been better for the project for to have gotten to the bottom of it-- to find out just who endorsed what, when then endorsed it, where they endorsed it, why they endorsed it, and what else they've endorsed.
You keep assuming there's an "it" to be gotten to the bottom of. That's why *you* are the problem, not non-existent co-ordination of blocks.