[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Ethics Commitee?

[Fred Bauder]

Ethics is good, but if a user makes as much trouble as you did, and
continue to do, it is unrealistic to think your "wikignome" account would
remain confidential. We needed to know if you were a trusted
administrator, or some other trusted user. It's part of your wikikarma.
Running one quiet responsible account and another aggressive confrontive,
and uncivil, account is just not viable. That's something you might do on
a MUD.

Fred

> Firstly, I'd like to say hello all - as a first time poster, and an
> 'only just figured out how the mailing list works' person. Although
> saying I've figured it out may be going too far.
>
> My reading of the culture here is that it's pretty much ok to dive
> straight into comment - which is what I shall do. Sincere apologies if
> my Ps and Qs are not sufficiently minded. I'll try and learn pretty
> fast.
>
> I feel the oft-noted decline in civility on the wiki has led to some
> extremism in admin. behaviour, and I am of the opinion that a parallel
> stream to the ArbCom, some kind of ethics committee / forum might be a
> good idea. That's the bigger picture thought, now some specifics;
>
> It may be repetitive but I absolutely stand by all of my contributions
> to the wiki, which absolutely are in good faith. I thank the various
> users who have said nice things about me - I can now represent myself
> better on this list.
>
> In terms of gauging community consensus, Guy was self evidently wrong to
> indef-block me - the decision was rightfully overturned pretty
> quickly. Where do I feel ethics come in?
>
> I trusted guy with a user history, directly traceable back to my
> identity fairly easily, and practically begged him not to abuse this
> trust, and to keep that information confidential.
>
> He shared that information with many users.
>
> This is unethical.
>
> (and incidentally, it both upset and angered me hugely)
>
> Now a couple of further corrections, the need for which concerns me
> also;
>
> (quoting Matt).....
>
>>Actually, the 'original identity' of PM was a user with less than a
>> thousand edits and whose contributions to the project in earnest
>>didn't start until January 2007.  He had a dozen or so edits in 2005
>> and only a couple in 2006. Almost immediately after he resumed
>>editing, he was embroiled in Wiki politics, stirring up trouble in the
>> Essjay affair among others.  His encyclopedia-space editing is only
>> about a fifth of his edits, and most of those are to just a small
>> handful of articles.  Notably, they seem to have been picked mostly for
>> their notoriety and for being the locus of disputes.
>
> This is wholly inaccurate. I will happily discuss my history with
> those I trust privately - but please don't make such aggressive points
> without better information, it creates drama, and upsets.
>
> What do you good people think about the need or use of an editor
> ethical committee?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> PM.
>
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