QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 22nd May 2010, 1:59pm)
QUOTE(thekohser @ Fri 14th May 2010, 4:18pm)
I'm glad you're liking it. Did you know that it was through the sacrifices of trailblazers such as myself, perishing at the hands of an ugly, jackbooted thug from the Wikimedia Foundation, that your freedom to edit there is sustained?
I don't look in all that often these days, but as far as I know the only active admins there are Ottava and Adambro (Jimbophants), Jtneill (who wouldn't touch it), and Darklama (who is trying to stay out of trouble after seeing what Jimbo did to me). Ottava and Adambro might be your best bets, if they think that unblocking you might help repair their reputations as Jimbo yes-men, but they'll want something in return.
"Freedom to edit" on WV has some serious boundaries, BTW. But I'm sure you know that.
Yeah. I'll be careful. I've pushed one or two limits, but just a little. Mostly it was pointing out, when it was hot, just how disruptive certain long-time editors at WV were being in the Jimbo intervention flap, even though I'm sympathetic to them. The way I see it, we need to discipline our own before trying to fix everyone else.
Why, SB, you don't think they would be cooperative just for the welfare of the community? My, such cynicism! However, if they want a piece of LR-115 solid state nuclear track detector, perhaps I could get a donation from somewhere to send one to them. I'd give a discount, just $25 postpaid anywhere in the world. Cool stuff. But possibly not their cup of tea. Perhaps a can of Darjeeling or something? Not a bribe, of course, I wouldn't dream of asking them to do something they thought was wrong. Just a friendly gesture.
Your support, SB, would be helpful. Jimbo was not in a mood, then, to be confronted. Now, he went too far on Commons and got troutslapped, effectively. I think he'll be more careful ongoing, and I'm not about to allow interference with his legitimate and critical interests, not if I have anything to do with it. I had positive email from him during the WV flap, by the way. If you don't mind, I'll email you if anything is up. Wikiversity can be slow as hell.
You know, we even have an active page, sort of, currently under the Ethics?Response testing umbrella, on the Newbie testing project. The trick is, I believe, to be so rigorously neutral and non-judgmental that someone complaining about is basically complaining about their own history. It's not necessarily easy, it is .... sooooo tempting .... to come right out and describe the behavior as utter idiocy. But, you know, it's best to trust the readers. And if someone doesn't like their history being exposed, perhaps they could ask, nicely, to have it removed, apologizing for it? And then it could become a footnote, with the apology the most prominent part, and apologies make people look good.
It's the opposite of what too many of the juveniles (literally or figuratively) who run Wikipedia think, that apologizing for an error would involve "losing face" or something like that. In the Newby treatment at Speedy deletion project, one of the admins caught in the "trap," right at the start, wrote, "Thanks! I sure screwed up, thanks for showing me that I was not being careful enough." Others complained up and down about these disruptive editors violating [[WP:POINT]], though the activity was clearly constructive in sum, resulting in positive growth of articles, with the only real disruption being from the complainers. So who ends up looking good and who ends up looking like a vindictive, careless idiot who can't take criticism even when it isn't directly critical, it just exposes what they do?
Hint: nah, you don't need any hints.