QUOTE(Guesswork Orange @ Sun 6th December 2009, 10:34am)
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For example, the biggest email thread contains 46 messages. Radeksz deletes the number and summarizes:
"Me asking whether anyone has any clue what the spat between Shell Kinney and Jechomann was about. Piotrus says “no idea†"
It takes 46 messages for asking a simple question and for getting only two words as a response?
Another, the whole Loosmark reply thread from 28 Nov with as many as 24 emails, vanished completely
Based on the comments I've seen about this accidental posting, what was posted was a personal email inbox or other mailbox, not an archive of the list. None of the references I've checked out match anything in my archive of the list since I joined at the beginning of October.
So any attempt to assume, from the headers in this mailbox, what the "cabal" is doing, aside from what one or two editors might be doing, is quite foolish.
The list is quite chatty, a subject header and the response related to it could indeed be that long and be that simple in summary, and that would probably be true of some individual email exchanges between editors. I know it's true of much of my own private email. Or should Radeksz have described the content of each mail, the various chatty and irrelevant comments that people make? It's a social mailing list or social set of mails! People are friendly with each other and chat about topics of interest, and, when they think of something loosely related -- or maybe a complete aside -- they don't necessarily change the subject header.
We are seeing here the pure ABF that is easy when taking out-of-context and sketchy reports of private conversations. ArbComm should never have allowed that list content to be any kind of evidence. The most that should have been done with off-wiki evidence would have been to allow it to inspire an examination of on-wiki behavior, and any sanctions would have been limited to rational response to on-wiki behavior. Off-wiki expressions of frustration and annoyance and perhaps fantasies of "revenge" should be completely irrelevant. Unless matched by on-wiki behavior, in which case the on-wiki behavior would be the evidence.
Evidence of "intention" is actually irrelevant, if the principles were being followed. Someone can have good intentions and do damage, and that requires protective response -- this was actually a ruling in my case, and that part of the ruling was correct. And if someone has a bad intention, expressed at some time, but doesn't carry it out, well, they showed proper restraint, and it could be that expressing their darkest thoughts was part of the process of letting the frustration go.
If I write in an email to someone, privately, that I think a certain editor should be taken out back and shot, what would this mean? Let me give you a hint: it's a private communication, to be understood within the context of that private relationship. The most likely meaning is "I'm frustrated." And people deal with frustration by expressing it. And by expressing it in that kind of context, they are far less likely to actually implement it!
I can see, in the howling of the mob about the EEML, quite what some members of that list were frustrated with. There was, indeed, some level of conspiracy against them, and it is plain. Quite likely, from what evidence I've seen, it was every bit as organized as the EEML, and, actually, quite likely more organized and less ethical. Piotrus was quite restrained in his on-wiki actions, and off-wiki, he consistently encouraged editors to work out disputes properly.
But he was also sympathetic. Is there something wrong with that? Why? Wikipedia needs more of that, those who understand the value of consensus but who can also be sympathetic *at the same time* with one side or the other.
I wrote a long response to MBisanz, which disappeared in a Firefox crash. Too bad. MBisanz, at one time, might have trusted what I wrote. I don't think I did anything to earn a change in that attitude. So if he wants to know, he could ask.
Summary, though: his approach here is showing part of the problem, not part of the solution.
SarcasticIdealist, I've looked closely at some of this. I've seen no "smoking gun," neither in the original list archive, and even less have I seen signs of reprehensibility in the latest "revelations," nor have I seen anything worrisome in the active mailing list, nothing that would be worth telling ArbComm about if I were to be moved to "inform." I.e., I have no conflict of interest involved in keeping mum about actual content of the list, no need to restrain myself simply because of the principle of keeping private communications private.
As to the original archive, sure, some of the contents of that archive, cherry-picked and presented in a completely new context, look bad. But, strangely enough, the badness is only in that appearance, evidence hasn't shown serious on-wiki behavior to match.
ArbComm is quite clearly punishing off-wiki behavior, based on assumptions about what this means about on-wiki behavior. I've seen it make that mistake before, but I'd hoped that the new panel would be better. It has been quite a disappointment to me, with some of the best arbitrators leaving -- or obviously being disregarded and at least one thinking of resigning -- and some of the least inclined to careful reflection being quite bold and active, with nobody restraining them. ArbComm, far from setting an example for Wikipedians to follow, is simply exemplifying the worst aspects of Wikipedia, the scapegoating, the search for someone to blame for problems that are really more deeply rooted than individual behavior would explain, the belief that disputes are resolved by banning parties to them.
Instead of demonstrating how to resolve disputes, ArbComm blames parties for apparently failing to do what ArbComm itself does not know how to do. Facilitate consensus.
You do not find consensus by excluding participation from the most knowledgeable on one side, or even if you do it on both sides....