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

Fri Nov 30 00:12:35 UTC 2007

An attempt after 12+ hours to respond, with relevant information, and
personal comment.
Many thanks for your consideration in allowing this post to be submitted to
the list.

To Guy - but really addressing my views on the core of the current painful
split,

I feel that your responses typify the core of the problem - not just between
you and I, but between what could sadly be described as the 'two camps'.

When I sent you private information, asked you honestly and politely not to
share it - what you failed to respect was my trust in you. The rights and
wrongs and subsequent findings of fact do not alter the fact that you
behaved unethically in breaching that trust. The ends do not justify the
means.

Durova has fallen foul of this also - of course a 75 minute block hasn't
harmed anyone's actual editing, but it does enormous harm to the culture and
atmosphere of all editing to think that a 'trusted' admin is prepared to
write and distribute such material. Enourmous harm, Guy - surely you can see
that, befuddled as you may be by it?

In actual fact, you move a step beyond befuddlement, I kinda sense a
righteous indignation which again is entirely misplaced, devoid as it is of
any reflection, or true self-awareness.

I am not questioning your sanity, character, good faith or editing - I'm
questioning your approach to an issue you care deeply about - harassment of
others - because I sincerely believe that you are doing more harm than good.

You shouldn't have shared private information that was submitted to you in
trust.

Please consider the self-evident truth of that statement.

take care,
PM.

here's a copy of the email for the sake of openess;

****************************************

Hi Guy,

I would ask you to treat the following with the utmost discretion, I'd feel
it to be a violation for this to be discussed with anyone (particularly
other wiki editors) except those named below, and at the moment I really am
trying to do the right thing.

what follows is an email I sent El_C when he or she made a similar request
to find out a little more about where I'm coming from;

Just off the bat, my name is Peter - I don't think we've met before, but I
have had some interactions with Geogre and Bishonen (whom i respect
enormously) and have noticed you at their talk pages, as well as at various
places throughout the wiki. Please treat the following information
confidentially, but feel free to forward / discuss any aspects with Bishonen
or Geogre privately if you'd like (they are aware of my editing history up
to, but not including the 'Privatemusings' account, which I'm happy for you
to discuss with them)

Here's the rundown on my editing history at wiki with the reasons behind it;

First account : Petesmiles

A nickname I've used for many years, so the name I used when i signed up an
account in mid 2005. This account is fairly easily traceable to my real
name.

I became interested in the wiki political world through the essjay incident,
and was concerned enough about his behaviour to try and urge him to attend
to the matter before it exploded - because of the likely heat of the
situation, i created my second account : 'Purples' (the name of a long
standing stuffed companion of mine, if that's not too much information!).

I let Bishonen, Georgre, and Paul August know that Purples was also
Petesmiles, and asked for their discretion because of the ease of connection
between Petesmiles and my identity.

Purples was therefore a role account at that point, but I eventually decided
to retire Petesmiles all together a couple of months ago, and continue my
wiki gnomish activity as Purples (it was nice to meet FloNight, another
current Arb. whilst editing the Jonathan King article).

Purples having become my sole article account, I decided when getting more
involved in the external link issues ('badsites' etc.) to create a sock,
Privatemusings, for the reasons stated on the PM user page.

Before creating this role account, I had posted one small comment on the
arb. case here;
 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=prev&oldid=156004371

I hope you'll agree that that post doesn't represent a substantial muddying
of the waters......

So that's me in a nutshell - do feel free to get in touch for any reason,
privately if referring to any specific information, or on-wiki would be
preferred. Bishonen was kind enough to drop this note as a reference in the
past, which really helped keep the discussion on the rails - but I'm not
sure that any such step is required at the mo......

   http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:No_personal_attacks&diff=prev&oldid=134201049#Edit_warring

best,

Pete.

************************************

On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:45:16 +1100, "private musings"

< thepmaccount at gmail.com> wrote:

>The fact that you were 'right' about my misdeeds in no way alters the

>nature of your unethical behaviour.

No, my behaviour was ethical.  I asked a few trusted friends for advice
before blocking one of your accounts.  That is a sane and reasonable thing
to do.

>Nor does it excuse the Arb.s currently voting from failing to disclose

>any prejudicial discussion (is it really due process to expect Arb.s

>who have already 'sanity checked' your decision in advance of your

>block, to then 'review' that block, and further 'vote' in the arb case?

>- that's a real triple whammy.)

No such declaration is necessary. I asked a simple question: in your
opinion, is this valid use of an alternate account?  Having ventured an
opinion once does not disqualify them form venturing the same opinion again,
especially when more evidence of even more accounts is brought to the table.

You seem to think that restricting someone who has used multiple accounts
disruptively and made careless and controversial edits to sensitive articles
in some way damages the arbitration committee's credibility.  I would argue
that the opposite is true: failure to do so would damage their credibility.

Guy (JzG)

--

http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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