[WikiEN-l] Featured editors?

[Alec Conroy]

Guy wrote:
> Alec wrote:
>
> >How many times have I seen "This change was supported by <Enemy of the
> >Project _____>." as a justification to revert good-faith users in a
> >content dispute.  How many times have I hard "You're probably in
> >league with <Enemy of the Project ____>" slung as a personal attack
> >without one shred of evidence?  How many times do the names of the
> >Enemies of the Project get mentioned to support some argument?
>
> I have no idea.  How many times have you heard it?  And how many of
> those times were from people who mattered in circumstances that
> mattered?
Too many...

Way too many.

If we get through the next three days without somebody accusing
somebody of being in league with somebody evil, I'll be really happy.




> >The banned are banned.  Just as we shouldn't consider their view to
> >change the encyclopedia in ways they would like, so we shouldn't use
> >their views to justify changing the encyclopedia in ways they would
> >dislike.
>
> And who's suggesting we do that?  Specific examples, please.
Anyone who's suggesting that the consideration of an Banned User's
views matters.

So, for a specific example, which I promise I really wasn't TRYING to
dredge up--  let's take your ANI post when you indefblocked
PrivateMusings.  You listed one of his disputed edits  as:
   and HERE SUPPORTING AN EARLIER REVERT BY A JON AWBREY SOCK.

Now, if I understadn things, PM has already told you his  identity.
you knew he was a longstanding,  good-faith editor, not a jon awbrey
sock.  So what did it matter if a Jon Awbrey sock had made a similar
edit.   Jon Awbrey doesn't get to affect us anymore.  You knew PM was
a good-faith editor in a content dispute.  You weren't blocking him
for being a Awbrey sock.   Why invoke Awbrey?

Well, you did it because, of course, we all hat Awbrey.  It gets us
emotional.  It subtly implies that PM and Awbry were in league--
although of course, you knew they weren't.  It makes us angry that an
Enemy of the Project is screwing up our articles again!    And it
makes us want to say Yes! Whatever you say! Just get Awbrey out of
here!   If we are band of villagers, Awbry is a word that makes us
grab our torches and our pitchforks.

It's a dynamite debate tactic, but it's not a nice one.  It's needless
drama incarnate, and personal attacks if ever one was.  DanT, Me,
GTBacchus, etc have all been subjected to it, and my hope is that it
will come to an end.







> >In the infamous Attack Sites
> >case, two of our own arbitors voted that "Not mentioning the Banned
> >Attackers" was more important than "Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia", and
> >that mentions or links should be stricken from the encyclopedia, even
> >at the cost to the project itself.
>
> Who would those people be?  Names, please.

Fred and Flonight voted for BADSITES under the name "salt the earth".
And since I think  they were the first two to vote, it was positively
chilling to watch, because I realized that they and I weren't working
on the same project at all, and I didn't know if Wikipedia was what I
wanted it to be or what they wanted it to be.  It turned out okay, but
i'm was very very happy when it did.

Incidentally, that's part of why your (Jzg) claim to having gotten
three arbcom members to endorse your indefblock of private musings
doesn't impress me.  Arbcom turned out to be way more diverse than I
realize.  Turns out, if you ask,  you can get two arbiters to vote to
overturn WP:NPOV, and potentially one arbiter to redirect Enemies of
the Project's biographies to Clown. <sigh>




> 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.

See, I couldn't disagree more.  People need to consider something,
mull it over, discuss it over--  they don't just need to be told the
right answer.  That's the wiki process for you-- there's much talking
involved.  If you don't want to have your behavior subjected to
good-faith oversight, ya ought not be in the game, I'm afraid.  9
times out of 10, everybody will conclude that that everything was
fine.

Police departments often have mandatory review every time an officer
fires a weapon.  You fire your weapon, the first they they do is take
your weapon away, put you on administrative duty, and let everybody
take a good hard look at what you did.  There will be hard questions.
It may seem adversarial.  Almost always, they'll pat you on the back
at the end of the day, give you weapon back, and tell you ya did
right.  But the review IS a good thing.   Even when it turns out
nobody did a thing wrong, the review is good.

There's a rumor going around that good-faith discussion of potential
wrongdoing is a problem.  It's not.  It's just people doing their job.
 "Trust me, everything is okay and  we don't need to talk about this"
is a fine sentiment-- and in a few rare cases, people will accept it.
But usually, it's just realistic.  People are going to want to talk
about whether or not SV is Mata Hari.  People are going to want to
talk about whether Durova has a COI.  That's the way the world is, and
it's okay.

Trying to squelch discussion won't solve things-- discussions need to
be had, and if you take a good faith discussion about potential
wrongdoing and try to silence it midway through (because you've
already looked into it and know it's substanceless),  you just add
fuel to the fire.

If you want to piss off humans really really badly-- a perfect recipe
is to find people having a discussion amongst themselves and tell them
that they're not allowed to have it.  Deleting discussions amongst
good-faith editors is, I think, ALWAYS a big big mistake.  It makes
people furious.  It makes people mistrust.  It makes the situation
MORE dramatic, not less.  It accomplishes nothing but angering.  We've
got the space, we've got the bytes-- let the discussions happen.

(obviously, the critical component is GOOD FAITH editors.  if people
are just abusing the threads for no good reason, sure, delete away).

(and in a second email)

> But we do self-censor.

Only if you stretch the word censor to the point that it means any
decision at all.   For me, the line of censorship comes when we impose
a change that DEGRADES the encyclopedia instead of improves it.   NOR
changes for example, result in a better encyclopedia that's more
useful .

Damnatio memoriae, on the other hand, degrades the encyclopedia to
accomplish some OTHER aim, like minimized the harm of BADPEOPLE on the
community.

We do it all the time.  WP:BLP is 100%
> self-censorship.  So is WP:NOR.  We don't include any old thing just
> because someone wants to, we include it only when it is of direct
> benefit to the core aims of producing a verifiable, neutral
> encyclopaedia.


"Links aren't content" thing's just absurd and silly.  If somebody
started randomly delinking all our hotlinks, you'd block them
immediately.   But anyway, that's not to get into the whole link mess
again-- my main focus in this thread has been trying to stop personal
attacks.


Alec