On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
That's a distinct argument from claiming that the admin wasn't part of the same edit warring (and regardless I see nothing that was somehow "quiet" about those edits).
When an admin steps in to remove the edits of a banned editor, or indeed takes action where two SPA sockpuppets are edit-warring, it's not creating drama.
It can be when not done with appropriate foresight (and the fact that Will Beback then argued for the blog's removal after it was again inserted didn't exactly reduce the drama levels).
The Making Lights blog? Look, I don't think either of us can accurately present Will's views or actions on this, and I think at this point it's just flogging a dead (albeit useful in a strawman way) horse.
Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for example an explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a result of the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
I'm not sure I understand this point.
It is relevant to the original point at the start of this subthread. If you recall, the assertion was made that often the act of removing links creates more drama than it helps with two examples, Black's blog and Making Lights. You asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such situations was the fault of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to understand how the Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
Well, the original action wasn't, of course, but the constant flag-waving by the "anti-BADSITES proponents" of an error made long ago and quickly rectified and apologized for, is, of course, designed for heat not light. People make mistakes, even when applying actual policies - for example, people are regularly blocked for 3RR when they haven't actually violated 3RR. We don't then repeatedly bring up those mistakes as "proof" that the policies are bad.
See David's reponse to this. The fact hat Will seemed to maintain well after the fact that this was still a problem and the fact that Tony, Mongo and Thuranx continued to push for some form of BADSITES means that it wasn't nearly as much a strawman or as dead as it should have been.
See above. Dead horse, three non-admins.
Yes, three editors two of whom are prominent and are former admins with many political ties (and let's not pretend that doesn't matter), and again they were only the most prominent.
Insisting that editors are "prominent" and have "many political ties" feeds into the conspiratorial worldview promulgated by banned users on less than savory websites. Please don't try to build these people up into some frightening powerful force; they're just 3 editors, no less, but certainly no more.
You can't claim that just because none of them are admins that somehow makes it a strawman. (Incidentally, this seems to be something I'm seeing more and more often on Wikipedia and it is disturbing. People don't take policy proposals seriously from non-admins. This goes against the entire philosophy of what admins are supposed to be, janitors not senators).
Admins are trusted, longtime editors. You can't on the one hand insist that some editors are "former admins with political ties" and on the other insist that adminship is no big deal and everyone is equal.
(Incidentally, as someone who was and remains strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of such editors as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
"BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently supported as policy by one editor.
We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that many people are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going to continue either as policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people wouldn't focus so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't doing so.
Then why does it keep being mentioned again and again and again?
Again, because people are worried.
If they were just worried, they'd simply make rational arguments. Constant cries of BADSITES and of "remember the Making Light incident!" are ways of short-circuiting rational thought.
Look at the history and talk page of NPA where we've had repeated attempts now to insert language very similar to the original BADSITES language. It is getting mentioned because to some extent people have been (at least until a few days ago) pushing for it.
In your view I'm sure that it's "very similar to the BADSITES language". How do the proponents view it, though? How do outside observers view it? Is it close to BADSITES, or close to LOVELINKS, or somewhere in between? There's no question that Wikipedia needs to find an effective way of dealing with harassment of its volunteers; as long as Wikipedia is a top 10 website, and remains "The encyclopedia anybody can edit", this will remain a problem.
After BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical language in NPA.
So it was down to two non-admins then. Did they think the language was "nearly identical", or did they think it was along the lines of LINKLOVE?
You can read the talk pages. From the description their it seemed to me that they thought it was identical to BADSITES.
I'd rather let them speak for themselves, rather than have their opponents speak for them.
It entailed the banning of websites that contain anything that could be construed as harassment (After 3 weeks of arguing Mongo recently proposed something more toned down closer to LINKLOVE but still stricter than LINKLOVE and still open to the possibility of altering article space)
Ah, the dreaded MONGO. Well, I can see why you're concerned, after all, what if he does decide to try to alter policy again? He's so scary with the BADSITES stuff, I think we should have an Arbcom case about it.
Oh, wait...
But as long as the specter remains people are going to be understandably upset.
No, not understandably. It was a strawman, plain and simple, that was never policy. It's been used quite effectively for months now, but only as a strawman (or a rallying cry).
Um, what? It is hardly a strawman when two former admins are strongly supporting it.
Did you read what you said? "Two former admins are strongly supporting it". There are over 1,000 admins on Wikipedia, and you've come up with two former admins, who aren't even supporting BADSITES, but rather something you've labelled as BADSITES.
As soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very Orwellian, can we get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
Right, the policy created by banned sockpuppets and IP editors. That's how effective that BADSITES strawman was, actual policy editors can't even go near any policy pages attempting to deal with outside harassment any more.
What do you mean? David Gerard and others have had no problem discussing this.
Because no-one is going to accusing David of being a Communist, err, BADSITES supporter.
And frankly, who made a policy has nothing to do with whether or not it is a good idea. Daniel Brandt could say "1+1=2" and the fact that it came from Brandt would have nothing to do with whether or not the statement is true.
It's a bad idea to have sockpuppets of banned editors writing our policies; that should be common sense, I would think.