[WikiEN-l] Missed Opportunities to have avoided the Durova Case

[Alec Conroy]

On 11/27/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 27, 2007 7:14 AM, Alec Conroy <alecmconroy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What conspiracy is it that you think I believe?
>
> That, despite what Durova says, despite what several AC members and
> many other people say, that this couldn't possibly be simply that
> Durova made an assumption that she shouldn't have made and made a bad
> block, for all of 75 minutes.

No, I really don't believe it was just an oops, I think it was
absolutely inherent in the  very way the list was set up.   As I've
said before, I think the analogy of drunk driving is very apt here.
If a drunk driver runs a red light and kills someone, it's not "just"
an accident.  Any reasonable person could know that driving while
intoxicated is highly likely to lead to "accidents".

Secret evidence and secret mailing lists are such a situation.
Deprived of the ability for people to fully examine the evidence
against them, and more importantly, deprived of the ability for the
community to give feedback, is just waiting for the [[User:!!|!!]] to
happen again and again and again.

That's the point that still hasn't been made.  As far as I know, the
whole little "militia" is going to chalk this up to just an "oops" and
will continue business as usual.

Who could have forseen that "secret courts" and "secret evidence"
would inevitably lead to erroneous bans?   I did.

On November 15, Durova raised the hypothetical prospect of secret
evidence on this mailing list, and I warned her as strongly as I could
that such processes are inevitably going to convinct innocents.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-November/085303.html

And how long did that Cassandra-esque prediction take to come true?
A total of 3 days.
--
So, yeah, no-- I don't think it was a one-time oops.  I predicted a
system like this would cause these very problems, and lo and behold,
they did.

The question for Arbcom is--  will this secret lists with secret
evidence system be allowed to continue to operate (and, I would argue,
continue to make more and more false accusations)?  or will it stop?

As a participant in the lists, I appreciate your acknowledging your
participation, but I can't fathom how we can reasonably expect you to
be impartial about your own behavior-- but I'll leave that thread for
better persons than myself.

Alec