[WikiEN-l] Featured editors?

[Relata Refero]

The AN/I thread to which Guy refers did not originate with any theory about
Durova or Jehochman's actions, but with a specific complaint, which did not
mention any of the subsequently aired theories. What I did see was so much
drama and piling-on of one sort or another, by editors of good standing and
TOR IPs alike, that the original IP who made the report was community-banned
just to get rid of it, but without addressing either his complaint, which
appeared justified enough for one admin to unblock, and without addressing
the fact that his initial actions were to contribute to a discussion on
sockpuppets which doesn't appear to be linked in the least to any COI
nonsense. That drama and piling-on came precisely because various people
assumed it was a banned editor, others pointed out there wasn't any reason
to, anonymous IPs muddied the water, and so. The drama was created more by
indignation at what everyone feared was 'trolling', and less by actual, IP
trolling, which could easily be ignored and laughed at, as indeed it was.
This is remarkably evident when one reads the entire thread with some
attention.

I'm sure half the people reading the mess the thread eventually became
thought that the upshot was that original poster was the sock of a banned
user, when I don't think that there was any proof, public or private, that
he was anything except a particularly frustrated editor.  (Frustrated
enough, after being blocked for reporting to AN/I, to have the bad manners
to apparently email the blocking admin several times after he was asked not
to.) The problem with giving people with large amounts of moral indignation
extra discretion is that it is very easy for matters to not be sufficiently
investigated, and for the casual observer to come away with the wrong idea.
(Then again, maybe Saddam Hussein did have something to do with 9/11.)

RR


On Nov 13, 2007 11:26 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net>
wrote:

>
>
>
>
> There is a huge tension here between not wanting to engage in drama,
> and not wanting to suppress dissent.  We are extraordinarily
> tolerant of dissent.  The ANI thread repeating Kohs' mad theory
> about Jehochman and Durova was prolonged by editors in good
> standing, but when you pick away at it, the vast majority of the
> heat turns out to have been injected by sockpuppets and IPs editing
> through open proxies.  Was reverting the closure of that debate a
> smart move, or a dumb move?  I think it was dumb, because the
> accusations had no merit and no source, other than allegations made
> by a banned user.  That's what banned users are doing *right now* -
> they are trying very hard to poison our culture, and weaken the
> fairly weak structures we have in place to prevent anarchy and focus
> on the core goals of NPOV and verifiability.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
>
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