QUOTE(One @ Mon 21st September 2009, 3:12pm)
![*](style_images/brack/post_snapback.gif)
QUOTE(No one of consequence @ Mon 21st September 2009, 6:58pm)
![*](style_images/brack/post_snapback.gif)
I got it now. I don't think the overall accuracy of the mailing list messages is in question, I think the claim is that the archive was salted with messages that were faked or altered to make them more incriminating.
Yeah, that's the possibility that's harder to rule out. One could take a thread (headers and all) which discusses the weather and turn it into a discussion of vote stacking techniques.
If it were true that Wikipedia makes decisions, not by votes, but by cogency of argument, and with structures that made it so, there is only one difference that off-wiki coordination could make, and that is that the quality of discourse would increase.
The problem is, of course, that the house was built on sand. There is absolutely no process guaranteeing that decisions on article content are made neutrally, based on argument and policy. Two editors, if they can make their arguments appear at least somewhat reasonable, can out-edit one any day, and ten can out-edit five, or even more than ten, if the ten have higher motivation and some self-discipline, are better prepared than the other editors.
Now, ten editors can tag team a smaller number without any off-wiki coordination at all. Further, off-wiki coordination can be handled by email without any central lists that would be vulnerable to disclosure by a mole, all it takes is cellular organization, very easy to do. It can also be done by phone or IM.
In the end it's moot unless it reduces to on-wiki edits, and if there is no on-wiki misbehavior, it shouldn't be a problem. But it
is a problem, of course. The same problem as exists, in fact, without off-wiki coordination. Wikipedia decision-making is highly vulnerable to crowd pressure. Further, the only difference between what is being asserted about the mailing list is that it apparently has a POV agenda. The same kind of list without that agenda could have the same kinds of messages: "Got a problem at article X, can someone look at it?" And if the scale is modest this would enhance Wikipedia quality. So in order to decide that the Sekrit Mailing List is Bad, we have to make some kind of POV decision: they they are not seeking fairness neutrality, they are seeking an unfair advantage for their POV. But to them that looks like neutrality, I'd bet, and what they get without such coordination is biased and unfair.
Delving into off-wiki communication and coordination is a slippery slope, and it leads to no good. If it turns into a battle, I can say, with confidence, who will lose, and it will be the wiki. There is no way to prevent off-wiki coordination. I suspected some level of off-wiki coordination with the Cab, but made no effort to assert it, because, under the best of conditions, it's nearly impossible to prove, so all I tried to show was a kind of involvement, and not a reprehensible involvement, in spite of the tons of BS dumped over the claim by Cab members and then by some who should have known better.
Indeed, the structural concepts I've proposed, and will continue to propose, harness off-wiki coordination and attempt to voluntarily document it on-wiki. All that is done by attacking off-wiki structures is to make them invisible, where they can do more damage. Instead of fighting cabals and factions, encourage them, foster them, awaken them, because awakened factions can become intelligent and can cooperate. Until one editor can negotiate consensus on behalf of many, taking the conclusions back to "members" who trust that editor, and who will then support it, it will continue to be impossible to resolve the issues that create disruption, over and over.
There will doubtless be editors who have such strong off-wiki agendas that they will not sign on to any consensus that respects and gives due weight to opposing positions. But this kind of stubborn intransigence becomes visible in careful consensus process, which proceeds by breaking down arguments into subquestions that become more and more specific and evidence-based, where it can become quite clear who is willing to agree on the time of day with the other side and who is not.
Without this kind of process running (and my attempted point in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley was that it's essential to NPOV, otherwise we have at best, majority point of view, and, often, worse than that where factions are either naturally or consciously coordinated), there is no hope other than setting up central decision-making structures, abandoning the wiki model. I think the wiki model is sound if the problems of scale are addressed with necessary -- and natural -- structures. Otherwise it is ochlocracy, with the well-known problems of undisciplined direct democracy, which was abandoned as unworkable long ago. Representative democracy has its problems, but it is a step up, in general. There is, however, a synthesis possible that is both representative and direct, and I know this puts some readers to sleep, except that, in fact, they are already asleep, this merely makes them dream that they are bored.
QUOTE
Meanwhile,
Durova has offered to use her techniques to determine whether the incriminating parts of archive are authentic, and
the list members have enthusiastically agreed.
Dangerous, because the forger may have taken precautions, anticipating such an investigation. Never bet that you are smarter than an opponent who has plenty of time to prepare!
Those off-wiki communications were written in expectation of privacy. That should be respected. However, there are serious charges of coordination and cooperation in non-legitimate behavior. The list is actually moot. Was the effect of a set of editors the promotion of a POV? If so, then it should be sanctionable, or at least subject to injunction, regardless of whether or not the editors intended it.
Evidence of on-wiki behavior that was noticed as a result of the mailing list contents should be usable in discussion of possible misbehavior, but the mailing list posts themselves should never be copied on-wiki, nor should they be entered in evidence. Basically, authenticity of the mail is moot. Consider it a very complicated and complex claim of improper behavior on-wiki, and do not allow that claim to be reinforced by assertion of off-wiki evidence.
With the Cab, I did not make that charge of reprehensibility and possible sanction for members, but it was to some extent implicit, and my hope was that RfAr would serve as a warning that continually pushing a POV and avoiding proper dispute resolution, which is quite what the Cab had been doing for years, could eventually lead to consequences, but only if continued, and probably only if continued flagrantly.
But ArbComm, beyond one or two, maybe three arbitrators, wouldn't even look at it. Well, they get to suffer through more, and I can kibbitz from the sidelines, carefree. You get what you pay for, and, my guess, there will be more and more. If evidence has been allowed to blossom like what has been said here, without any guidance from the Committee, the hope of making sound decisions will remain unfulfilled except by accident. Knee-jerk impressions are probably right more often than wrong. but, then again, they can be easily manipulated by those who know how. Knee-jerk impressions are fine for ordinary administrative actions, but not for appeal from those actions. Too often, Wikipedia simply substitutes a second knee-jerk for an independent investigation.