JB/Looch: "A couple things" Options

[gomi]

... you can start by explaining cricket ... know what a crumpet is (!) so I figure I have a firmer grasp than most folks in the western hemisphere.

I watched test matches for a whole year without really figuring out what a "silly mid-on" (and "mid-off") happen to be, or more to the point why one would ever play that position. Add that to your list.

[Happy drinker]

I watched test matches for a whole year without really figuring out what a "silly mid-on" (and "mid-off") happen to be, or more to the point why one would ever play that position. Add that to your list.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on cricket. However, "silly mid-on" (and "mid-off") are fielding positions, one on the on side and one on the off side. They are mid-positions, i.e. close to the perpendicular bisector of the line between the wickets. They are "silly" in the sense of being close to the batsman hence in danger of being hit hard by the ball.

[Looch]

It's a sad loss to the project if a good and innocent contributor is blocked, but the occasional error is a fair price to pay to stop a lot of abusive sockpuppetry.

It is my impression that Wikipedia users being wrongly banned as sockpuppets of myself when they are not has been more than an "occasional" occurrence.

[Happy drinker]

It is my impression that Wikipedia users being wrongly banned as sockpuppets of myself when they are not has been more than an "occasional" occurrence.

No promises, but I shall certainly look into this.

[A Horse With No Name]

However, Wikipedia doesn't and can't work like a court of criminal law.

Nor should it -- the web site is supposed to function as an open source encyclopedia, not a judicial district. The basic sloppiness of its structure, however, has seen its original core mission veer away from academia to high-decibel drama.

If someone is erroneously blocked it's not like he or she has wrongly gone to prison.

Tell that to the admins. Have you ever read some of the sarcastic and often hostile responses by admins to unblock requests? They behave like they are taunting caged animals.

[Happy drinker]

If someone is erroneously blocked it's not like he or she has wrongly gone to prison.

Tell that to the admins. Have you ever read some of the sarcastic and often hostile responses by admins to unblock requests? They behave like they are taunting caged animals.

Yes, and I hope I've never done that. It is conduct quite unbecoming.

[Looch]

No promises, but I shall certainly look into this.

I don't understand what you mean.

[EricBarbour]

No promises, but I shall certainly look into this.

I don't understand what you mean.

It means he won't, probably. Too busy spreading the Wiki-Sauce here.

[SirFozzie]

Just saw this thread.

Hi, JB.. glad that Allie was able to take care of the previous issue you emailed me about.. by the time I had seen it, she had already taken care of it.

BTW, Just to set the record straight on a couple things, Burntsauce was not banned for being you, JB, but for being a DIFFERENT banned user (Seriously, you can't tell the players some days without a scorecard, and sometimes not even then!), and Alkivar was de-adminned for his misuse of tools (amongst other things, using his tools frequently to lock articles in his preferred version, etcetera)

This post has been edited by SirFozzie: Thu 12th November 2009, 4:27am

[Wiki Witch of the West]

Durova meant well.

Remember, also, that Durova was participating in an invite-only, email list with a secret membership whose members were covertly engaging in sockpuppet investigations, making plans to suppress, bully, harass, or intimidate "enemy editors", "fix" Wikipedia policy, including the infamous "Badsites" proposal, and otherwise try to game Wikipedia for their own ends. I believe two of Gary Weiss' socks were members. Wikipedians were justly outraged when the existence of the list and what was going on in it were revealed. One of the darkest chapters in Wikipedia's history and I believe you must be joking around when you try to defend it.

Did you notice that when the list's existence was revealed that only a few of its members or ex-members had the integrity to own up to it? The list's creator's name was immediately removed from its Wikia page, none of the arbitrators who were members of the list, as far as I know, ever admitted that they were members in spite of repeated questioning from a lot of people, and few other admins or regular editors also ever admitted that they were members.

I respect your content contributions, Cla68, but you couldn't be more wrong about this. The name of the list was called Cyberstalking. It was created to help the people who were victims of it. And principally, dealing with that problem was exactly what it tried to do. The impetus for starting it was the ridiculous "SlimVirgin is an MI5 agent" meme that had gone all the way to the front page of Slashdot. I had joined it principally because a website was running a recent photograph of my uncle, who was in his seventies, along with his real name and a not very subtle threat to harass him in real life if I didn't quit editing Wikipedia. That was the same uncle who had survived 9/11 from a high floor.

The people who were on that list were in very stressful situations, and trying to work out solutions to those problems. The issues were difficult, and of course that type of list isn't going to be a free-for-all where anybody can join. Despite efforts to keep things clean, it did get socked and exploited. Principally by Mantanmoreland.

There's no defense for my mistake. I made the horrible error of blocking somebody for 75 minutes and then reversing myself with apologies. And then resigned afterward. But don't take potshots at that list or its aims.

[Somey]

The name of the list was called Cyberstalking. It was created to help the people who were victims of it. And principally, dealing with that problem was exactly what it tried to do. The impetus for starting it was the ridiculous "SlimVirgin is an MI5 agent" meme that had gone all the way to the front page of Slashdot.

Then you had the wrong impetus. It's hardly "ridiculous," nor is it a "meme" - both Edwin Bollier and Pierre Salinger believed it, well before WR ever existed. I personally don't believe it, nor does anyone else other than Daniel Brandt and one or two others, but to call it "ridiculous" only suggests closed-mindedness on your part. There is some plausibility to it, bizarre though it may seem.

The people who were on that list were in very stressful situations, and trying to work out solutions to those problems.

Did any of them succeed?

Unfortunately, the first step on the road to effectively dealing with "cyberstalking" is to understand whatever you may have done to provoke such an extreme and unhealthy reaction, even if you know you were perfectly right and justified to do it. It would also help to form a realistic definition of the term and stick to it, rather than constantly redefine it to fit whatever behaviors you (or whoever else) find objectionable.

[EricBarbour]

And this reminds me of the banning of modded Xbox 360s from the Xbox Live system by Microsoft. It pissed off a lot of people. Some of them are dumping their modded Xboxes.

Strangely, some idiot posted the home phone number of Stephen Toulouse, the Microsoft exec responsible for Xbox Live's policy department, on 4chan. Result: a flood of death threats to his family. Which, strangely enough, suddenly stopped when Toulouse logged into the IRC channel where the assholes hang out, and told them to stop.

Conclusion: when immature young men don't like something, they abuse the system and make death threats. But such threats are crap. The vast majority of immature young men are hostile cowards, basically.

Since we can assume that a LOT of compulsive WP users are immature young men, similar to those Xbox trolls, it's likely that the Cyberstalking list was a waste of time. Simple confrontation would have sufficed to cessate the threats.

Admit it, "Not Very Wicked Witch": that was a pretext. You were actually using that list to set policy and plot against people without the WP community's knowledge or participation.

[the fieryangel]

It was created to help the people who were victims of it. And principally, dealing with that problem was exactly what it tried to do.

On several occasions, you have stated that you filed an official FBI complaint about your own perceptions of being stalked because of Wikipedia. Other than the fact that you filed this case (reportedly with David Shankbone, ironically only about a week or so after he posted my name, occupation, sexual orientation and lots of other personal information all over Wikipedia, without being as much as banned for a week...), no other information seems to be available about this.

Without going into any personal details, would you be so kind as to fill us in on the FBI's investigation and whether or not they found that any actual "stalking" took place, by their definition of the term? Since it's been more than a year, I'm sure that they have come to some sort of conclusion...

To date, I have seen much more stalking of Wikipedia's critics, rather than Wikipedia's supporters. But perhaps that is more of a comment on my own position, rather than reflective of any reality.

[Wiki Witch of the West]

It was created to help the people who were victims of it. And principally, dealing with that problem was exactly what it tried to do.

On several occasions, you have stated that you filed an official FBI complaint about your own perceptions of being stalked because of Wikipedia. Other than the fact that you filed this case (reportedly with David Shankbone, ironically only about a week or so after he posted my name, occupation, sexual orientation and lots of other personal information all over Wikipedia, without being as much as banned for a week...), no other information seems to be available about this.

Without going into any personal details, would you be so kind as to fill us in on the FBI's investigation and whether or not they found that any actual "stalking" took place, by their definition of the term? Since it's been more than a year, I'm sure that they have come to some sort of conclusion...

To date, I have seen much more stalking of Wikipedia's critics, rather than Wikipedia's supporters. But perhaps that is more of a comment on my own position, rather than reflective of any reality.

First, let's be clear about something: stalking is a state offense in California. The FBI is a federal law enforcement agency. Their case was opened over harassment.

About half of the cases that the FBI opens on that basis really don't need to go anywhere because the perpetrator stops as soon as they learn that the Feds are on it. That was what happened in this instance. The fellow was a coward and stopped bothering me as soon as it went public. He tried to resume his on-wiki attacks on a few BLPs afterward, but other people dealt with that. The reason he had targeted me in the first place was because I hadn't let him get away with BLP violations.

Other than the coincidence of timing, David Shankbone and I filed two separate and unrelated reports that the FBI considered meritorious enough to open cases. The two perpetrators were obviously different people who lived on opposite sides of the country.

This isn't an attempt to vindicate David in everything he does--am well aware of the history between you and wish it were possible to make that situation better--but I did have specific reasons to believe David was telling the truth about that FBI matter. One of the reasons was that, before the individual had started targeting David, he was targeting a particular BLP subject. The topic of that BLP was distasteful and of no interest to me, but I was answering a lot of requests for comment during that period and responded to two requests for comment there. On both occasions there had been an IP editor who was acting strangely and trying to reinterpret site policies to the BLP subject's disadvantage. In ways that aren't worth detailing here, that later turned out to be the tip of a nasty iceberg.

Unfortunately that doesn't make your situation any easier or better. I wish it did. No magic bullets here.

[the fieryangel]

It was created to help the people who were victims of it. And principally, dealing with that problem was exactly what it tried to do.

On several occasions, you have stated that you filed an official FBI complaint about your own perceptions of being stalked because of Wikipedia. Other than the fact that you filed this case (reportedly with David Shankbone, ironically only about a week or so after he posted my name, occupation, sexual orientation and lots of other personal information all over Wikipedia, without being as much as banned for a week...), no other information seems to be available about this.

Without going into any personal details, would you be so kind as to fill us in on the FBI's investigation and whether or not they found that any actual "stalking" took place, by their definition of the term? Since it's been more than a year, I'm sure that they have come to some sort of conclusion...

To date, I have seen much more stalking of Wikipedia's critics, rather than Wikipedia's supporters. But perhaps that is more of a comment on my own position, rather than reflective of any reality.

First, let's be clear about something: stalking is a state offense in California. The FBI is a federal law enforcement agency. Their case was opened over harassment.

About half of the cases that the FBI opens on that basis really don't need to go anywhere because the perpetrator stops as soon as they learn that the Feds are on it. That was what happened in this instance. The fellow was a coward and stopped bothering me as soon as it went public. He tried to resume his on-wiki attacks on a few BLPs afterward, but other people dealt with that. The reason he had targeted me in the first place was because I hadn't let him get away with BLP violations.

Other than the coincidence of timing, David Shankbone and I filed two separate and unrelated reports that the FBI considered meritorious enough to open cases. The two perpetrators were obviously different people who lived on opposite sides of the country.

This isn't an attempt to vindicate David in everything he does--am well aware of the history between you and wish it were possible to make that situation better--but I did have specific reasons to believe David was telling the truth about that FBI matter. One of the reasons was that, before the individual had started targeting David, he was targeting a particular BLP subject. The topic of that BLP was distasteful and of no interest to me, but I was answering a lot of requests for comment during that period and responded to two requests for comment there. On both occasions there had been an IP editor who was acting strangely and trying to reinterpret site policies to the BLP subject's disadvantage. In ways that aren't worth detailing here, that later turned out to be the tip of a nasty iceberg.

Unfortunately that doesn't make your situation any easier or better. I wish it did. No magic bullets here.

Thank you for an accounting of that situation.

Would it therefore be fair to say that the FBI closed these two cases without any action being taken?

I don't expect to anyone to do anything about the stalking of me that took place on Wikipedia. Those actions undertaken by that specific individual speak for themselves. It simply needs to be pointed out that Wikipedia has been used on more than one occasion as a "stalking tool", so it seems to me that fingers could (and should) be pointed in both directions.

The fact that people who have undertaken such actions remain "respected editors" on Wikipedia also speaks for itself.

[Random832]

blocking somebody for 75 minutes

Why do you always insist on listing the exact length of time the block was in effect every time you mention it?

This post has been edited by Random832: Thu 12th November 2009, 5:36pm

[Wiki Witch of the West]

It was created to help the people who were victims of it. And principally, dealing with that problem was exactly what it tried to do.

On several occasions, you have stated that you filed an official FBI complaint about your own perceptions of being stalked because of Wikipedia. Other than the fact that you filed this case (reportedly with David Shankbone, ironically only about a week or so after he posted my name, occupation, sexual orientation and lots of other personal information all over Wikipedia, without being as much as banned for a week...), no other information seems to be available about this.

Without going into any personal details, would you be so kind as to fill us in on the FBI's investigation and whether or not they found that any actual "stalking" took place, by their definition of the term? Since it's been more than a year, I'm sure that they have come to some sort of conclusion...

To date, I have seen much more stalking of Wikipedia's critics, rather than Wikipedia's supporters. But perhaps that is more of a comment on my own position, rather than reflective of any reality.

First, let's be clear about something: stalking is a state offense in California. The FBI is a federal law enforcement agency. Their case was opened over harassment.

About half of the cases that the FBI opens on that basis really don't need to go anywhere because the perpetrator stops as soon as they learn that the Feds are on it. That was what happened in this instance. The fellow was a coward and stopped bothering me as soon as it went public. He tried to resume his on-wiki attacks on a few BLPs afterward, but other people dealt with that. The reason he had targeted me in the first place was because I hadn't let him get away with BLP violations.

Other than the coincidence of timing, David Shankbone and I filed two separate and unrelated reports that the FBI considered meritorious enough to open cases. The two perpetrators were obviously different people who lived on opposite sides of the country.

This isn't an attempt to vindicate David in everything he does--am well aware of the history between you and wish it were possible to make that situation better--but I did have specific reasons to believe David was telling the truth about that FBI matter. One of the reasons was that, before the individual had started targeting David, he was targeting a particular BLP subject. The topic of that BLP was distasteful and of no interest to me, but I was answering a lot of requests for comment during that period and responded to two requests for comment there. On both occasions there had been an IP editor who was acting strangely and trying to reinterpret site policies to the BLP subject's disadvantage. In ways that aren't worth detailing here, that later turned out to be the tip of a nasty iceberg.

Unfortunately that doesn't make your situation any easier or better. I wish it did. No magic bullets here.

Thank you for an accounting of that situation.

Would it therefore be fair to say that the FBI closed these two cases without any action being taken?

I don't expect to anyone to do anything about the stalking of me that took place on Wikipedia. Those actions undertaken by that specific individual speak for themselves. It simply needs to be pointed out that Wikipedia has been used on more than one occasion as a "stalking tool", so it seems to me that fingers could (and should) be pointed in both directions.

The fact that people who have undertaken such actions remain "respected editors" on Wikipedia also speaks for itself.

Wouldn't presume to speak for David's situation, which was more difficult. If the problems resumed on my own end they would be fairly easy to resolve. The individual was active from a stable location. If he were to resume contact I still have the case number, and it would be very foolish of him to draw that attention to himself. Am not sure exactly what administrative status the FBI assigns to that sort of peaceful stasis. They rated the complaint meritorious enough to open an investigation, and further action wasn't necessary to end the problem.

At any rate, Wikipedia's "no legal threats" policy is not a prohibition against actually exercising legal rights. It simply means one doesn't use the threat of action as an attempt to coerce editorial discussion. Apparently Krimpet is taking legal action against Grawp, and good for her. It appears to have raised her clout within the community.

[Random832]

Anyway, if we're going to talk about !!, let's talk about it. Or, more specifically, the initial assumptions.

You posted it to a list about Cyberstalking. Who did you suppose him to be stalking (or harassing, or whatever else is supposedly on-topic for the list)?

"Many of them tip their hands occasionally during the preparation phase"
This was of course the most infamous of your 'evidence' items. What was "knows german" supposed to have been evidence of, anyway?

"They are team players."
followed by an example of helping Giano. Since you were talking about this from an angle of saying he's from WR, do you suppose Giano to be or to have been on what was at the time considered the "WR team"?

"They grow bold when they believe the account has ripened into the appearance of a legitimate editor. "
What was "bold" about this edit? It seemed to be pointing out simple hypocrisy between the use of some obscene terms and the condemnation of others.

"When the sock is fully ripened it heads over to disputes and takes extremist positions for no apparent reason."
Which of the comments linked constitutes an extremist position? As I recall, that sort of anti-Jimbo sentiment was reasonably mainstream at the time - maybe even more than it is now.

Some of the other items I haven't commented on, since they were an instance of correctly picking up on the later-confirmed fact that it was not a first account, and you've since acknowledged the problem in using that as evidence of wrongdoing.

Why haven't any of the arbitrators whose tacit approval of it you took as a go-ahead for the block come forward? Why haven't you named any names?

This post has been edited by Random832: Thu 12th November 2009, 5:41pm

[Random832]

At any rate, Wikipedia's "no legal threats" policy is not a prohibition against actually exercising legal rights.

That's what people say when they defend the policy's existence, but it doesn't stop it from being used as a block rationale for those cases.

[Wiki Witch of the West]

Anyway, if we're going to talk about !!, let's talk about it.

We aren't. That's got nothing to do with JB196 or the FBI cases.