I'm trying hard to keep an open mind, but based on the information I
currently have in front of me, it seems like I'm looking at the an
extreme instance of admin abuse.
As many know, PrivateMusings is a sock account created in good faith
by a reputable, good-faith user (of 2+ years editing). The
PrivateMusings account was created in order to deal with the BADSITES
subject-- fearing that people who disagreed with his stance might try
to seek some sort of retribution.
This use of socks is totally appropriate-- our socks policy explicitly
describes socks of this sort as legitimate: "If you want to edit a
"hot" or controversial subject you may use a sock puppet so long as
you do not use any other account to edit the same subject or make it
appear that multiple people support the same action."
Private Musings was always completely open about his being a sock-- he
revealed his identity several trusted admins, and he has always been a
polite, thoughtful, and helpful contributor. No one has alleged that
he has ever used this account to appear as if multiple people are
making edits. During the Arbcom case, and in multiple discussions one
several pages, Private Musing was instrumental in helping the
community work out some of the post-BADSITES issues. Private Musings
is a good guy, and a better man than I am.
-----
There is now an ever-growing consensus that BADSITES is rejected, and
that linking to "badsites' for encyclopedic purposes is permissible
in some circumstances. Regretably, some of the individuals who
demanded a total ban on any and all links to BADSITES have opposed
this growing consensus, and at least one of them has decided he's
willing to play dirty to try to get his way.
One of the most vocal proponents of Badsites was JzG/Guy. As we all
know, he's a strong proponent of a total ban on 'badsites'. When the
Arbcom case failed to enact BADSITES as policy, Guy posted a 2300 word
"request for clarification', basically insisting that they make it
policy.
Guy has been a central fixture of the BADSITES dispute, and has
supported it at every turn-- both at [[WP:BADSITES]], [[WP:NPA]], the
Arbcom Case, the request for clarification, and many other cases. He
has written thousands upon thousands of words on the subject, purged
dozens if not hundreds of links. He is definitely a party to the
BADSITES debate. Now, there's nothing wrong with having been
pro-BADSITES, it's a fine opinion which was shared by many. My only
point in mentioning Guy's extreme involvement in the BADSITES debate
is to point out that Guy is most certainly NOT an "uninvolved admin"--
not by any stretch of the imagination.
But nevertheless, Guy has taken it upon himself to indefinitely ban
his primary opponent in the Badsites debate, Private Musings.
The precise reason for the block has been hard to gauge. The initial
text used during the block log was simply "This has gone on long
enough", suggesting the longstanding disagreement between Guy and PM
was the source of the block. Another explanation was that PM's
comments had been "inflaming a dispute", again suggesting the
disagreement between Guy and Pm over BADSITES was the source of the
block. In a third comment at aNI, Guy justified characterized the
block as being "for edit warring". Finally, Guy argued that PM had
reinserted links to "blogs which contain bad information"-- suggesting
the block may have been for violating the rejected BADSITES policy.
These changing justifications do not inspire confidence.
----------------------
Let's first consider whether PM deserves an indefinite ban:
* His use of a sock puppet account is 100% appropriate and "by the
book". He's an icon of the apropriate and responsible use of a sock
puppet.
* The evidence for his alleged "edit warring" is extremely slim. A
total of four edits, made over the course of three days. The edits
were supported by consensus on the talk page. The edits were
reverting vandalism-- deletion of a reliable source by a indef-banned
vandal who was using an sockpuppet to evade the ban, who had chosen a
username specifically designed to harass PM.
* BADSITES is not policy, and we do not indefinitely ban people for
inserting EL to an article merely because those EL have a personal
dispute with one of our editors.
No matter how you slice it-- this is NOT a a case for an indefinte
ban. The ban should be lifted. Even if people really feel PM drifted
into 'edit warring'-- he deserves nothing more than a warning from a
neutral admin, something he would surely comply with. An indefinitely
ban is unwarranted.
-------------------
Now let's consider Guy's case:
* He has indefinitely blocked someone he had been in a heated on-going
policy dispute with.
* He has used his admin tools to block a user he was involved in a
content dispute with.
* His claim that the indef block is based on sock puppet abuse is
invalid and shows either poor judgement or insincerity.
* His claim that the indef block is based on edit warring is highly
unwarrented, and shows poor judgement or insincerity.
* His claim that PM's basically violate BADSITES suggests a contempt
for the decisions of Arbcom and the community.
---------------
I work hard to AGF-- but it's hard to see Guy's actions as anything
but a disruptive bit of drama, banning an editor who was in dispute
with him. Perhaps a good explaination will emerge, but barring that
event, I strongly feel Guy needs to be desysopped. Granted, I'm
biased. I disagree with him over badsites too-- so if he's taking to
banning his opponents, I'm probably next in line.
Alec
> Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.
Doesn't freedom also give you the right to say that 2+2=5?
****
This reminds me of the Lincoln - Douglas presidential debates. I was
looking for a full version and didn't find it online, so I'll quote from
memory.
Lincoln: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?
Douglas: Five.
Lincoln: Four. You can call a tail a leg but that doesn't make it a leg.
There was never a President Douglas.
-Durova
On 5 Nov 2007 at 00:43:56 -0800, "Steven Walling"
<steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> It's so ironic that a post that began as a delighted note about someone
> focusing on encyclopedic writing rather than notability debate morphs
> into...a notability debate.
Should I hijack the thread and turn it into a rant about BADSITES?
That's supposedly what I always do, and I wouldn't want to disappoint
all my fans.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
On 5 Nov 2007 at 02:10:26 +0100, Adrian <aldebaer(a)googlemail.com>
wrote:
> Also likeable although a pain in the ass is Dan Tobias. You suck, but I
> like you. Does that make sense? What do I care?
Ummm... thanks... I guess?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Armed Blowfish schrieb:
> Congratulations, I guess?
>
> How would you like to join us on WR?
>
> If you don't want to give out a non-free email, I'm
> sure Somey would be willing to accommodate.
>
> On 04/11/2007, Adrian <aldebaer(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> You guys suck. Except for William Pietri. He's cool. I just got blocked
>> on en.wp and wanted to crown it with being blocked here as well. So
>> please do it. I never contributed anything useful ever anyway, I think
>> we're on common ground as far as that goes. The status quo is just
>> great. Long live Jimbo. Or not. You never know. ("DEATH TREAT ON
>> WIKI_EN_L OMG WTF!!!1!")
>>
>> Also likeable although a pain in the ass is Dan Tobias. You suck, but I
>> like you. Does that make sense? What do I care?
>>
>> David Gerard mostly sucks. You need a good fuck and a punch to your ugly
>> face.
>>
>> Fred Bauder only sucks. Big time. He's nuts. Anyone disagree? Please put
>> me "on moderation" or somesuch. I'm determined to throw it all away. Not
>> like those suckers who blank their pages or the like. I'm really into it.
>>
WR sucks, too. Even more than WP. Second hand cock suckers, how pathetic
is that. The thing is, I really do have to quit for good. So I'm trying
to piss off most everyone. Although I cannot hide the fact that people
like Majorly, or esp. the great Mr. Pietri should be carefully listened
to by the rest of you unwashed pigs (up to and including Jimbo, the
stupid idiot). It's enough though I suppose to just piss off certain key
persons. So please do the world a favour and kill yourself, will you,
Mr. Bauder?
Also, as far as WP goes, I'm more sober when I'm intoxicated. And I will
not stop spamming this list. If I'm not banned (or whatever you call it
'round here) by tomorrow, I will start sending hardcore porn links.
Seriously, I'm out.
On October 26, 2007, I made one (1) edit to [[Talk:Something Awful]].
Some background: the main [[Something Awful]] article was under
contention, and most of this came from the debate over whether
Something Awful's former illegal subforums for distributing
copyrighted material (viz.: "BTB", or "The BitTorrent Backyard", for
popular films; "NMP3s", or "No MP3s", for commercial music; and
"DPPH", or "Don't Post Pornography Here", for paysite pornography
dumps) should be mentioned in the [[Something Awful]] entry, and if
so, how.
Reading the discussion on [[Talk:Something Awful]], I saw that
administrator [[User:Wafulz]] was trying to steer the argument about
mentioning the file forums in [[Something Awful]], and leaning a
little heavily on semi-protection and such to do so. (The edit
histories for [[Something Awful]] et al confirm this.) As such I felt
it both germane and necessary to point out for the benefit of other
users that [[User:Wafulz]] is an administrator of the spun-off
file-sharing forum "HPJ" (a.k.a. "Horse Porn Junction",
http://hpj.cc/Login.html being its location; "HPJ" is run by former
members of S.A.'s file-sharing subforums), and that as such he may not
be bringing a Neutral Point of View to the discussion.
My only edit to [[Talk:Something Awful]]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Something_Awful&oldid=167299…)
was a paragraph explaining some of the above. Shortly afterward,
[[User:Wafulz]] edited the page to deny what I had said, and anonymous
[[User:70.112.72.54]] then denied [[User:Wafulz]]'s denial. So far,
fair play.
However, I noticed later that completely unrelated prior edits to my
user page, and 50+ other unrelated edits I've made on Wikipedia from
March 2005 onwards, have mysteriously vanished. (My edit count was
formerly well into the triple digits, and is now 44.) After I made my
edit, administrator [[User:John Reaves]] blocked my user account and
deleted my user page. (Hence I assume (but cannot verify) that he is
also responsible for the retroactive deletions of my former
contributions to Wikipedia's main article namespace.)
As near as I can tell, this has been done because I've supposedly used
sockpuppets to argue about the file forums on [[Talk:Something
Awful]]. I have not; the single edit I described above is the only
edit I've made to the page in months. [[User talk:70.112.72.54]]
suggests that my supposed sockpuppets are 70.112.72.54 and
68.36.190.76; Googling these suggests that they're not proxies, in
which case what are the supposed means by which I made sockpuppet
edits from those addresses? I see only this frankly paltry evidence
for my being blocked and deleted, and hence I can only infer that the
sockpuppetry accusation is a pretext for one or two administrators in
particular to eliminate edits of mine with which they disagree. (As
such I would have liked to have taken this matter up with
[[User:Wafulz]] and [[User:John Reaves]] personally without involving
the mailing list, but (for obvious reasons) cannot do so.)
So I now have a question: is this level of evidence generally
considered a sufficient basis to instigate a block on a user and
delete their edits? If so: doesn't this make it rather easy for
administrators with chips on their shoulder to abuse their powers? If
not: why was there no safeguard in this case to prevent
[[User:Wafulz]] and [[User:John Reaves]] from arbitrarily deploying a
block and user deletion, and what can be done to remedy this and
prevent it from happening to others in future?
--
Cole DeShawn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rolloffle
I have recently become aware of Veropedia and that in some areas FA or GA
from Wikipedia are being uploaded there. I have seen a suggestion that
this may be jumping the gun on stable versions. I see Danny runs it. I
am surprised it has not been mentioned here (or did I miss it?) or it
seems much on WP itself. I certainly think it is better way than
Citizendium for getting expert eyes on an article and saving that
version. As all the work is actually done on WP, it has a close link to
us. What do people think about this initiative in general?
Would it be a good idea of having a way to indicate that an article has
been uploaded to Veropedia and to link to it? Perhaps like the interwiki
links.
Brian.
--
Brian Salter-Duke b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au
[[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia.
Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
Delirium wrote
> If the already absurd BADSITES policy (and
> friends) is going to drive itself off a cliff and now prohibit links to
> any sites that, through n degrees of link traversal, may *indirectly*
> reach objectionable material, then we might as well just turn off
> external links entirely.
Making "attack" transitive does has this effect. So it's not a great theoretical position, to state that any link to an attack is an attack. The conclusion, from some time ago in my case, that the "attack" language is not useful for describing how hypertext works. We should, as ever, look at intentions of WP editors in linking, and look also at how any link contributes to the mission. Stick with "don't link to junk" and "don't link in order to harass".
Charles
-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam
"The Age" newspaper in Melbourne, Australia has just brought out a
supplement caled "Australians All: Essays on the Nation" (October 31,
2007) to allow a number of people to reflect on Australian society
during our current election campaign.
In an article, "The end of the gatekeeper", Glyn Davis, the Vice
Chancellor of Melbourne University, has this to say about Wikipedia:-
"Wikipedia offers more than 2 million published articles, covering
almost every imaginable topic in mostly readable prose. Though the
Wikipedia site issues warnings about its academic use, the best
Wikipedia entries are written by experts checked and corrected by other
experts, providing breadth of knowledge and peer review. Wikipedia
itself offers hints on how to tell a good entry from a bad one. Though
several American universities have banned it as a citation source,
Wikipedia is so accessible it is inevitably used."
That seems more positive than anything I have read previously from Vice
Chancellors and similar. Indeed it is probably more positive than any of
us are.
The rest of the article is also interesting, but I do not know whether
it is on the web. I can not find it.
Brian.
--
Brian Salter-Duke b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au
[[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia.
Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
> joshua.zelinsky wrote:
>
> For the record, the link that we actually care about is this one:
> http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2007/10/wikipedia-and-lockerbie.html
>. It may be instructive examine what the link itself actually says
The sadly comical irony is, for anyone teetering on the brink of
psychosis, I can't imagine what more we, as an institution, could have
done to push people into believing allegations. Seriously... If we
had all gotten together at a secret location and brainstormed for days
on how to, as a prank, try to convince the world that SV = LM = MI5
agent who is controlling Wikipedia, we could never have come up with
anything better than what we've actually done--
* Suppressing mere mention of the allegation, even after it's on slashdot,
* Deleting good faith questions of slashdot readers asking what's up,
* Trying to delete links to ANY site where somebody might accidentally
stumble upon the SV=LM=MI5 story, or even sites that link to sites
that might make the allegation
* Trying to indef block and otherwise attack anyone who resist the purges.
You couldn't WRITE a better conspiracy theory than this. Our
behavior has been a recipe for how to increase the population of
tin-foil-hat wearers.
And of course, it's actually all fueled by compassion and
defensiveness, not by any conspiracy. But woe to anyone out there in
internet land who might be off their meds-- they must be having quite
a ride.
Alec