[WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

Tue May 31 04:27:47 UTC 2005

Oh for god's sake.

The technical evidence against Cranston is a slam dunk. He's a troll.  
He's a vicious, sockpuppeting troll who uses sockpuppets to try to  
generate fake consensus. He's the sort of user we routinely shoot on  
sight, and it's a good thing we do, because we have too damn many of  
them, and every time one manages to generate the headache that this  
has become, good users get driven off. Kudos to every admin who  
blocked him, everyone who called for his removal from this list, and  
everybody who tried to shut this mess down.

As for those who want to plead for more leniency and say that people  
were dismissive of him, wake up. This project is huge. Huge projects  
attract idiocy. They attract idiocy of the page vandal sort, and  
idiocy of the far more insidious sort. People who come to the project  
for their own ego, people who come to the project to advance their  
own agendas, and people who want to cause the project harm and who  
are actually good at doing it.

Expansion kills online communities. Fundamentally, eternal growth is  
a perpetual strain. We understand this from a technical perspective,  
but we don't understand it socially. We are continually wasting our  
breath and energy debating things that need to be slam dunks. If  
every Cranston Snerd gets this much debate - hell, if one Cranston  
Snerd out of 10 gets this much debate, it's a disaster. We're only  
going to get more Cranston Snerds. Just like we'll get more Lirs,  
more  CheeseDreams, more Alberunis, and more of every other sort of  
bad user. We cannot keep them from coming in. All we can do is get  
very, very good at shooting them as soon as we see them. This means  
being unrelenting. This means being swift and figuring out the story  
later. And this means that people who immediately assume there's some  
conspiracy against them instead of just sending a polite note to the  
effect of, "I'm sorry, I seem to have done something wrong and gotten  
blocked, do you mind telling me what it is so I can avoid it" get run  
off. You know what? Fine. We've got lots of people. We can afford to  
accidentally run some off.

This doesn't mean we don't welcome new users. It doesn't mean we  
treat everybody with suspicion. But it means that we learn to call a  
spade a spade, and we stop feeling bad about coming down like a ton  
of bricks on people who are disrupting the project. We do not need to  
care why. We need to be willing to make social decisions with the  
same dispassionate "What will make this situation better" eye that we  
handle our articles with. If a user is breaking articles and making  
it so people can't edit, we shoot them.

That's it. That's all that's going to work. If we do not learn to  
come down on Cranstons with fury and speed, over time, this community  
will implode. One need only look at nearly every other Internet  
community to figure that one out.

Good job David. Good job SlimVirgin.

-Snowspinner

On May 30, 2005, at 10:51 PM, A Nony Mouse wrote:

> I have been watching the last week's events with dismay. I have  
> been trying to compose this email for two hours, but every time I  
> get close, something else comes up.
>
> I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of  
> you would react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would  
> be harassed for this.
>
> There are two cases that bother me. Jack Lynch aka Sam Spade and  
> Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot. Both of these cases scare me because  
> of the precedent that they have set.
>
> In the case of Jack, there was a question of a block war.  
> Administrators were fighting over what to do with him. This is not  
> a good thing for Wikipedia editors no matter who they are. It  
> indicates that the user is less of a concern than something between  
> the two Administrators.
>
> It is the case of Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot that worries me  
> more. This is the case that has made me take the drastic step of  
> sending an email to the list anonymously. I had originally been  
> trying to type up a response to Cranston's concerns about being  
> blocked. I believe that SlimVirgin violated policy by doing so.  
> Unfortunately for me, such an email would likely now be a day late  
> and a dollar short.
>
> Cranston was a disruption to the list, but much of that disruption  
> was caused by other people on this list treating him with  
> incredible disrespect. I was taken aback by his accusations against  
> administrators but having looked at the cases in hand I believe  
> that he has a point.
>
> There were emails on this list asking whether anyone was taking him  
> seriously. This is the height of arrogance, and it is something  
> that frightens me. Administrators should never be acting as if  
> ordinary editors do not matter.
>
> As for his complaints about being blocked, the dismissiveness on  
> this board hurt me. No matter who it is making a complaint, we have  
> a duty to investigate it. We are listed as the last resort for  
> users who have been wronged. I took the time to investigate  
> SlimVirgin's blocking of Enviroknot, and I believe that it is not  
> valid.
>
> By the time I got to the discussion, it was a good series of emails  
> long, and despite the number of list members who had posted, none  
> save SlimVirgin had bothered to address Enviroknot's concerns on  
> the block in any way. SlimVirgin herself made a bad judgement call.  
> An edit made in good faith should never be considered a reversion,  
> even if it contains some content that is included in a later  
> reversion.
>
> Instead of acknowledging this fact, the list members were  
> universally dismissive of Enviroknot from the first email. One went  
> so far as to demand that the term "rogue admin" not be used,  
> without addressing the reasons that it had been brought up in  
> multiple cases recently.
>
> We have a problem with administrators exceeding their authority on  
> Wikipedia. We have a problem with administrators not applying  
> policy correctly. And we have a problem with arrogance on these  
> lists, with administrators believing that they are somehow better  
> than others.
>
> With the increased power of administrator access comes a  
> responsibility to use it fairly and adhere to the established  
> procedures and policies. The actions of an Administrator should  
> themselves be NPOV. We have stated policy that when a user is found  
> to be violating policy, if they return and do not break policy,  
> their previous transgressions should not be held against them.
>
> There are a number of administrators who are failing in that  
> responsibility, and they are present on this list. One of them,  
> rather than addressing Enviroknot's concerns in a calm tone and  
> actually going over policy, chose to kickban Enviroknot entirely.
>
> I have never until today been ashamed to be a part of Wikipedia,  
> but there it is. Take it as you will.
>
> A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.
>
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