[WikiEN-l] The difficulty of retaining volunteer writers

Sun Dec 4 02:17:59 UTC 2005

> I've resisted taking this to the arbcom because he
> will turn it into a circus, and also because I
couldn't face going through all the diffs
> and having the whole thing repeated yet again. 

The Arbcom - "a circus?" You must be joking. Maybe if
they... well... who listens to Me anymore? (Me Me Me).

> I've been on the verge a couple of times of writing
to Jimbo for help, but didn't because that puts him on
the spot. I've 
> also been on the verge of leaving, but
> I don't want to let someone like that drive me away.

Yes, the great founder can't go around making
everybody feel better. "It hurts right here..."

> Now, because Ed Poor recently blocked FuelWagon for
> three hours over a personal attack on me, FuelWagon
has seized his chance and has taken Ed to the arbcom,
where he will hold >court for several weeks, perhaps
several months, and all the >allegations will have to
be responded to.

Its funny how, in contrast with my Arbcom ("you broke
the rules!") Ed's violations require "defending" and
so forth. Ed's famous ((soothing vibe)) is indeed
something to behold, but wouldn't things work out
better if the Arbcom could be trusted to actually
review its cases and debate each point openly? Theres
a little AGF missing I suppose...

> There has to be a better way to deal with users like
> this. For example, we could set up a small committee
of
> experienced editors, a
> subcommittee of the arbcom and subject to the
> arbcom's jurisdiction, whose job it is to identify
when a user >is trolling, stalking, or harassing, and
we give that committee >the power to deal with it
there and then, using blocks of >increasing length for
each instance of it. I
> know this has drawbacks (accusations of cabalism),
> but I feel the benefits would greatly outweigh them.

No, this is wrong. Sorry you feel stressed out SV, but
thats the way it goes. Take it with a grain of salt,
as they say. Go on a wikibreak -- take a wikicruise.
WPh will still be here when we're all dead and gone.
Etc. 

With the mandatory consoling out of the way, I have to
say its funny how the real "drawback" of cabalism
(according cabalists presumably) is the "accusations
of cabalism," and not the cabalism itself... and the
distance such represents from the Open Model (i.e. the
"lets see if this works" philosophy which built
wikipedia up to begin with. Sure, theres the GFDL and
a strongly egalitarian ethos too...).

But I liked Fred's idea of having official prosecutors
and defenders represent each case in some clear terms.
Prosecutors will take complaints and sort evidence,
etc. And defenders will challenge the Arbcom to hold
some perspective in the application of 'da rulz.' Of
course, those positions would not be paid positions
either... ("but Ive spellchecked every article for the
correct use of 'i before e'..." ). In anycase, Slim,
you seem to be another one on the boat for
[[WP:DRR|overhauling the dispute resolution process in
some general way shape or form]]. 

True, Wikipedia 'is a project to create a free
encyclopedia and not a free internet democracy,' but
IMHO authoritarian measures have usually proven
themselves to be mistakes. Of course, theres some
tinkering going on as we speak (you can hear it if you
listen closely). Question as always is: will the
tinkering break the machine?

Stevertigo

:''The user name above is incorrect for [[who
cares?|technical reasons]]. The correct title is
stevertigo.''

--- slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

> On 12/2/05, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On 12/2/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> wrote:
> > > By defending SlimVirgin against what FuelWagon
> HIMSELF conceded
> > > was an "accusation" (his words), I find myself
> hauled before the
> > > arbitration committee.
> >
> > For what its worth, FuelWagon has now turned
> Jayjg's ArbCom candidate
> > question page into his own personal battleground.
> FuelWagon's
> > "questions" span five sub-sections, have dozens of
> diffs and are filled with
> > endless rhetorical statements. However, this
> doesn't even begin to compare
> > with the 16 section response to his RfC a while
> back: (
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/FuelWagon_2).
> >
> > Ed's right, the system's not working here.
> >
> I want to describe some of what FuelWagon has been
> doing so that
> people can see how hard it is to deal with this
> within the existing
> dispute-resolution structure.
> 
> FuelWagon has been harassing Ed and myself, and a
> couple of others to
> a lesser extent, since July. It started because I
> blocked him for 3RR
> and then because I made a copy edit he didn't like
> of an article he
> had edited a lot. He responded with a stream of
> invective and
> talk-page disruptive, which Ed blocked him for, and
> that made Ed his
> victim too.
> 
> I hate to think how many personal comments he has
> posted about Ed and
> me since then, but it amounts to thousands of words.
> He filed an RfC
> against me, which was deleted because he failed to
> show prior efforts
> at dispute resolution. He promptly copied and pasted
> it into his user
> subspace, so that he can still link to his various
> claims. He also
> created an "attack page" on me, where he makes a
> note of anything I do
> that he feels he can use against me. Carbonite
> opened an RfC against
> him, but he hijacked it and turned it into another
> attack page. He
> tried to intervene in the arbcom case against Ed,
> writing to Jimbo to
> have it re-opened when it had closed, then tried to
> have some kind of
> black mark put on Ed's mediation record.
> 
> It has been very upsetting to be on the receiving
> end of it. I tried
> ignoring him, responding with reason, responding
> firmly. I stayed away
> from pages he edits, but he stalked me to pages I
> edit and began to
> revert me, so that I had to either let him have his
> own way, or get
> into a revert war with him and look as bad as he is.
> 
> It changed the whole way I interact with people on
> Wikipedia. I found
> myself becoming sharper with people than I had
> previously been,
> because I was on edge all the time. I felt
> embarassed at having
> someone pursue me with accusations, because most
> people looking at it
> will think there's no smoke without fire. And yet
> when I tried to
> correct some of what he was saying, I ended up
> looking as silly as
> him, so mostly I had to let him get away with it.
> 
> Several editors and admins have intervened and tried
> to persuade him
> to stop, including Ed Poor, Ann Heneghan, El C,
> Carbonite, Jayjg,
> Bishonen, Willmcw, Marskell, Aaron Brenneman, Mel
> Etitis, and
> Viriditas.
> 
> FuelWagon's response was that he would leave me
> alone if I did 12
> things that he listed on his talk page
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:FuelWagon&oldid=25272763#ideal
> including that I make, in the "first-person narative
> [sic] form" an
> unqualified and unconditional apology in relation to
> the copy edit he
> didn't like, and he listed the various talk pages
> that the apology had
> to be posted on. He had a similar list of apologies
> that Ed had to
> make before he'd be satisfied.
> 
> He also teamed up with other known trolls like
> Zephram Stark, Marsden,
> and Vizcarra, so that a gang of people began to
> pursue his various
> victims.
> 
> I've resisted taking this to the arbcom because he
> will turn it into a
> circus, and also because I couldn't face going
> through all the diffs
> and having the whole thing repeated yet again. I've
> been on the verge
> a couple of times of writing to Jimbo for help, but
> didn't because
> that puts him on the spot. I've also been on the
> verge of leaving, but
> I don't want to let someone like that drive me away.
> 
> Now, because Ed Poor recently blocked FuelWagon for
> three hours over a
> personal attack on me, FuelWagon has seized his
> chance and has taken
> Ed to the arbcom, where he will hold court for
> several weeks, perhaps
> several months, and all the allegations will have to
> be responded to.
> The only way I can defend Ed now is to present the
> case that I've not
> been able to face putting together. It's probably
> going to take me a
> week or more to put all the diffs together in a way
> that gets the full
> force of his behavior across without being
> unreadable for the
> arbitrators.
> 
> There has to be a better way to deal with users like
> this. For
> example, we could set up a small committee of
> experienced editors, a
> subcommittee of the arbcom and subject to the
> arbcom's jurisdiction,
> whose job it is to identify when a user is trolling,
> stalking, or
> harassing, and we give that committee the power to
> deal with it there
> and then, using blocks of increasing length for each
> instance of it. I
> know this has drawbacks (accusations of cabalism),
> but I feel the
> benefits would greatly outweigh them.
> 
> Sarah
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> 

__________________________________________ 
Yahoo! DSL – Something to write home about. 
Just $16.99/mo. or less. 
dsl.yahoo.com 