Cool Hand Luke arbcom election Options

[Littleunknownadmin]

Cool Hand Luke seems to have the experience for the job, being in the project since almost the beginning. But looking at his responses to the questions, it seemed way too controversial, including one statement in which he will desyrop a admin working for the OTRS if he wheel-wars and another which says that he wants to abolish [[WP:SOCK]]. Other replies to questions are just as poor. Those kind of statements will if a voter will even look at the questions first before voting. This one has been the shocker candidacy so far, what do you guys think.

[Kato]

I may as well "spam" my reply to your threads.

The Arbitration Committee is almost entirely irrelevant at Wikipedia. The committee is not "the leadership". It oversees only a handful of convoluted cases a year that generally have nothing to do with an encyclopedia's content. Most of these cases relate only to ridiculous trivial dramatic feuds. And even then, the Arbitration Committee tends to fudge a verdict, resulting in conditions that are little different to those if the players had never bothered bringing it up at all. Simply a tremendous waste of time.

The Arbitration Committee provides just another avenue for gameplayers to relieve their drama fixes. These annual elections in particular serve no purpose other than to provide a dramatic Carnival of the Absurd every year. This circus kicks up much negative drama that is clearly harmful to Wikipedia - with no net gain.

If people can't see this, then I suggest that they are so addicted to this crap they've lost all perspective, and should seek professional help.

[Sarcasticidealist]

Well this certainly ups the drama - Neil, One, either of you care to comment?

[Alison]

Well this certainly ups the drama - Neil, One, either of you care to comment?

I'd like to see a little more evidence than just that comment. Neil - I'm sure you're already certain, but One already dealt with hearsay damage during his campaign so I'd like a little more detail and can't just accept that, sorry.

[Neil]

If One/CHL indicates, I'm happy to post the entire email, but to do so in public without his okay would be bad form.

The email is a standard Wiki-email, and the bottom states "This e-mail was sent by user "Cool Hand Luke" on the English Wikipedia to user "Fish and karate". "

Alison, if you have an email address handy I can forward it you (I already forwarded it to sarcasticidealist).

[Sarcasticidealist]

I've posted some comments here. I think Neil might have overstated the severity of the content, but it's still a little sneaky and backroomish on Luke's part.

[Aloft]

This e-mail was sent by user "Cool Hand Luke" on the English Wikipedia to user "Fish and karate".

Font trickery, perhaps?

[Neil]

This e-mail was sent by user "Cool Hand Luke" on the English Wikipedia to user "Fish and karate".

Font trickery, perhaps?

No. And the above text was a direct copy and paste from the email footer, so you can judge that for yourself. If Alison wants to check, the email was sent 04 December 2008 01:08 (yes, I don't check my wikipedia inbox very often at the moment)

[Sarcasticidealist]

This e-mail was sent by user "Cool Hand Luke" on the English Wikipedia to user "Fish and karate".

Font trickery, perhaps?

Not exactly sure what you mean by that, but the originating e-mail address was also Luke's actual e-mail.

[Neil]

This e-mail was sent by user "Cool Hand Luke" on the English Wikipedia to user "Fish and karate".

Font trickery, perhaps?

Not exactly sure what you mean by that, but the originating e-mail address was also Luke's actual e-mail.

He means the likes of using a lower case L to look like an upper case i, and that kind of thing, or even fancier stuff with unicode.

[Sarcasticidealist]

This e-mail was sent by user "Cool Hand Luke" on the English Wikipedia to user "Fish and karate".

Font trickery, perhaps?

Not exactly sure what you mean by that, but the originating e-mail address was also Luke's actual e-mail.

He means the likes of using a lower case L to look like an upper case i, and that kind of thing, or even fancier stuff with unicode.

Uni-what?
What-code?
What-what?

Man, I'm so easily deceived. How'd I ever get to be an administrator?

[Aloft]

This e-mail was sent by user "Cool Hand Luke" on the English Wikipedia to user "Fish and karate".

Font trickery, perhaps?

Not exactly sure what you mean by that, but the originating e-mail address was also Luke's actual e-mail.

I don't edit Wikipedia, so I've never seen what those emails look like. I wasn't sure if it's possible to "forge" by the same method that people sometimes use for impersonating account names, like alternate characters and such. I thought maybe someone had created an impersonation account and used it to send email, intending to frame CHL.

EDIT: Gah, beaten to the punch.

This post has been edited by Aloft: Thu 11th December 2008, 9:36am

[Viridae]

Ali can you check sent emails please?

[Random832]

Neil, Sarcasticidealist, did either of you check the actual headers (not just the From address) to verify this was sent through wikimedia servers? The footer and originating email address can be faked, the headers (well, the specific headers I have in mind anyway) can't.

CHL, can you permit it to be forwarded to me (or posted here) so I can check this? [If it wasn't sent by you, I'd say that whoever _did_ sent it doesn't really have anything to say about it]

Select "forward as attachment" or just view source in thunderbird / view original in gmail

This post has been edited by Random832: Thu 11th December 2008, 1:55pm

[The Wales Hunter]

Does WP:CANVASS actually apply when the vote is a vote and not a !vote?

Anyway, what's more distasteful - asking one person to ask one person to change their vote, or creating a persona on WR who those on the 'pedia think is trying to kill criticism?

[GlassBeadGame]

WP:CANVAS is one the bulwarks of reaction and maintenance of the the dysfunctional social networking community on Wikipedia. To the extent that the "community" has any ability to carry out basic reforms (not much at all if you ask me) that ability would reside least in the geek-wonk kool-aiders that frequent non-mainspace discussion and most in the moderate editors who occassionally work on articles and don't get over-involved drama and politics. Any activity that would get these "moderate" Wikipedians involved would almost certainly result in violations of WP:Canvassing. Without these types of violations any "election" or "consensus" on WP will remain in the hands of the most over-involved and whoever wanders in.

Of course engaging these potentially more progressive voters is not what One has done here. He has only asked via email at least one of the most ardent kool-aiders who already voted to re-vote tactically in a manner that would benefit himself. This might violate WP:CANVAS but not in the progressive manner I described. Oddly this might actually amount to some kind of defense in bizarro world of Wikipedia

One has shown himself to be...well...very motivated to get his butt on ArbCom. I believe that this accounts for his "WR is dead...long live One's New Review" thread that he recently started. This is the incident that lead to my "Fucking Ingrate" comment that One finds now so very useful to include in his WR sig. He has also found recent occasion to revisit on this forum pro-Wales comments he made. This is useful to him because he will need to gain Mr. Wales trust in order to secure the "blessing of the god-king" that is the final hurdle assuring that anyone getting on ArbCom is completely useless. I am not surprised to see that he might have played fast and loose with some internal rule of Wikipedia.

[The Wales Hunter]

One has shown himself to be...well...very motivated to get his butt on ArbCom. I believe that this accounts for his "WR is dead...long live One's New Review" thread that he recently started. This is the incident that lead to my "Fucking Ingrate" comment that One finds now so very useful to include in his WR sig. He has also found recent occasion to revisit on this forum pro-Wales comments he made. This is useful to him because he will need to gain Mr. Wales trust in order to secure the "blessing of the god-king" that is the final hurdle assuring that anyone getting on ArbCom is completely useless. I am not surprised to see that he might have played fast and loose with some internal rule of Wikipedia.

I agree with you, as I've suggested above, but my hope remains CHL/One is merely pretending to be a model Wikipedian in order to get elected, then will revert to his true, unblinkered and very able colours.

[One]

GBG, I'm sincerely unhappy with the way the site is currently run. If it was ever politically opportune to attack WR, it was last week when I was swimming in anti-WR votes. I'm going to keep pushing you on this matter, because in spite of what you say, it's not pandering. If you would like me to remove the quote, all you have to do is ask.

No, it's an actual email. Because Neil gave me the permission here, I've posted it there, along with an explanation.

[One]

Incidentally, I never did understand why Littleunknownadmin was unhappy with my answers. The WP:SOCK thing, for example, was in response to a question about what policy I would remove if I could. I'm not sure what policy would make him feel more comfortable, especially because I explained that I dislike SOCK because I think it's too much of a pro-sock policy.

Nor did I understand why "being in the project since almost the beginning" would qualify anyone for the office. If it did, AnthonyQBachler and the incumbents would be faring better. Finally, Feb 2004 is three years from the site's beginning, so I find that characterization to be an exaggeration (although I understand it's earlier than most users).

Littleunknownadmin posted this before I was "out," and I didn't want to bump it, to say the least.

[everyking]

What I find more disappointing is that someone has attempted an "October surprise" in another effort to torpedo this candidacy through a politically explosive allegation that doesn't hold up well under scrutiny. Neil, the responsible thing to do would be to retract your vote now before it potentially has an effect on the outcome.