[WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress

[charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]

"Armed Blowfish" wrote

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:TROLL
> This lists six different 'types' of trolling, encouraging people
> to call people who do those things trolls.

You know, it doesn't do that. It implicitly does the exact opposite, and references [[Wikipedia:Do not insult the vandals]], which explicitly does the opposite.
> 
> An interesting one,
> 'Examples [of trolling] include continual nomination of articles
> for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion that are obviously
> encyclopedic'
> 
> Erm, many blatantly psychologically damaging articles in
> violation of BLP may be encyclopaedic.  So would those who
> support this essay consider those who try to get defamatory
> or otherwise damaging biographies deleted from Wikipaedia
> trolls?

A biography should be _deleted_ if the subject fails the criteria for inclusion in WP. It should be _radically edited_ if the content fails BLP, or other criteria for content. These are two different things entirely. You seem to be conflating them.
 
> Another one:
> 'Some trolls are critical of the project, its policies, its users,
> its administration, or its goals. Often, this criticism comes in
> the form of accusations of cabals, ilks, or campaigns, that
> are typically invested in a particular POV, invested in
> maligning a specific user, and other similar claims.'
> 
> So would those who agree with this paragraph consider
> criticism directed at Wikipaedia as a whole, and not at
> individual users, to be trolls?  I'm sure the more positive
> critics of Wikipaedia would be offended by that....

As I have said, criticism of actions on WP is OK. Accusations may not be OK, because they move from disagreeing with what is done, to implications that go well beyond mistakes. This need not make someone a 'troll': trolling is a kind of systematic provocation. 

> 
> Perhaps people need to be reminded that not everything is
> about either helping an encyclopaedia or hurting it?  People
> are complex and have a wide variety of motivations, many
> of which you will never guess over the internet unless they
> tell you.
> 
> >> Clueless newbie
> >> edits are regularly labelled as vandalism -
> >> which means intentional defacement of
> >> Wikipaedia.

> > The V-word should be used economically. I had a very
> > interesting example, where a net nanny was producing
> > apparent vandal edits for someone. Fortunately I didn't
> > leap to conclusions, there.
> 
> It isn't though.  Your average Recent Changes patroller,
> constantly looking to revert damaging edits, may be hasty
> to call anything that looks bad vandalism.  And don't almost
> all the standard warnings (uw2 and up) encourage this, by
> including the term vandalism?

Your way of putting it (what is uw2?) makes it clear that you know enough about WP, to know also that the text in templates is editable. Have you tried to get the text changed? This is a sofixit - if there is a problem in your view, there is also a route for debating and dealing with it, namely through the discussion page for any template you think is objectionable.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VAND#Types_of_vandalism
> This has a whole list of circumstances where you are
> encouraged to assume that someone is trying to deface
> Wikipaedia!

Well, in fairness, you could also reference the next section at WP:VAND where numerous things, including newbie tests, are described as not vandalism. That page also references the essay [[Wikipedia:Avoid the word "vandal"]]. So I fear you are shifting ground here. Where exactly is the incitement to call someone a vandal?

> >> Enforcement of the conflict
> >> of interest policy almost always involves
> >> negative speculation on people's motives.
> >
> > I have repeatedly said that COI is not a reason to abandon
> > AGF. It really isn't. People use it instrumentally, to try to win
> > editing arguments, but they are in the wrong there.
> 
> Well, unless they come right out and say they have
> a conflict of interest, don't you have to go looking
> for it, i.e. make negative guess about their motives?
> And we wonder why Wikipaedia admins get stalked...
> perhaps Wikipaedia itself is setting a terrible example.

We have to deal with COI. Since I have worked on the policy, I have a fairly clear idea of what it consists of. There is nothing at all - nothing - at WP:COI which justifies linking having such a policy with stalking. You demean yourself my making such a connection. 
 
> AGF is an interesting one.
> 
> 'Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, assume
> that people who work on the project are trying to help it,
> not hurt it.'
 
> If good faith is defined as an attempt to help the
> encyclopaedia, is WP:AGF encouraging Wikipaedians to
> consider motivations which have absolutely nothing to do
> with Wikipaedia 'bad'?  Or is this a Wikipaedia-centric
> world view?  The world is not black and white, and not
> everything is about hurting Wikipaedia or helping it.

No, that is really a kind of smear on WP. It is a voluntary organization, and anyone can turn up to work on it. The baseline assumption in AGF is that volunteers are there to help, and are not (for example) propagandists or entryists of some sort. 
 
> And in big bold letters:
> 'This guideline does not require that editors continue to
> assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the
> contrary.'
> 
> Erm, when else would the guideline be useful?  So if
> someone does a few bad things, that person is suddenly
> a horrible horrible person who deserves to be defamed
> on top of Google?  Well, that includes everyone except
> the children....
> 
> Or, you could join the School of Humanism, and accept
> that the world is not black and white, and people are a
> mixture of good and bad!

Actually it means all sorts of things you miss. But making a few mistakes under policy is not 'evidence' applicable to revoking the assumption of AGF.
 
> >> And what is a sockpuppetry investigation
> >> but a search for hidden malice?  Any time
> >> anyone does anything that a significant
> >> number of people don't like, that person's
> >> motives are guessed in the worse possible
> >> light.

> > A search for abusive sockpuppetry is a search for
> > abuse, plain and simple. I don't accept this.
 
> But there's no such thing as certainty, only varying
> degrees of uncertainty.  IP addresses do not map
> one-to-one to human beings.  NATs (very large
> NATs in some countries), dynamic IPs (very dynamic
> in the case of dial-up), shared computers (especially
> internet cafes), etc.  And that's not even getting in to
> proxies....  Yes, when you do writing analysis,
> accuracy gets much better, but not 100%.  Some
> people are similar, and it can be very hard to tell the
> difference between Sybils and collaborators.

I'm aware of all this. This is the meat-and-potatoes of any serious discussion of socks. I've been involved in a few.

> So block the people, keep notes available for the
> people who do the sockpuppetry investigations,
> but don't label the person as a sockpuppeteer on
> top of Google, because y'all will get it wrong
> sometimes.

Well, abusive sockpuppetry on WP is almost always undertaken consciously, knowing it is against site rules. I come down on the sceptical side of these investigations (non-Occamist). I can be wrong too, though.
> 
> >> The majority of user-contributed websites
> >> are attack sites, since it is human nature
> >> to attack.  Off the top of my head, the only
> >> one I can think of that isn't is DeviantArt.
> >> Yes, people do attack other people on
> >> DeviantArt, but they fullfill requests from
> >> representatives to take things down, no
> >> questions asked.
> >
> > I have said that "attack site" is a useless classification.
> > It is facile and prejudges just the issues that matter in
> > assessing critical material.
> 
> Perhaps, but it appears to be the popular term.
> 
> In any case, the websites discussed (WP, WR,
> ED, WT, WW) all seem to be engaging in one
> big, huge cross-site flame war.
 
> So, go over to WR under a white flag....

No thanks. While some at WR are just deluded, some are malicious, and some pathological liars.
 
> >> Most places, however, will merely say no
> >> when you ask them to take something down
> >> and they don't want to.  Wikipaedia and
> >> Encyclopaedia Dramatica are significant
> >> exceptions to this - they will very often make
> >> things worse in response to complaints.
> >> What makes Wikipaedia worse than
> >> Encyclopaedia Dramatica is its higher
> >> Google rankings and self-righteous attitude
> >> (those people deserve to be attacked and
> >> suffer, for the good of the encyclopaedia!)
> >> Encyclopaedia Dramatica, at least, merely
> >> has a rather negative sense of humour.
> >
> > Well, WP is better than ED on just about everything except intention
> > to shock and persecute. Think what you're saying a moment.

<snip>

> And who do you think ED learnt from?

<snip>

Look, you obviously have some gripe. But calling down the stalker, the troll, and the other Horsemen of the Internet Apocalypse on your opponents can only weaken any case.

Charles

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