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Posted by: Rootology

http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AMoulton

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Colloquium#Block_of_Moulton_for_incivility

Posted by: Ottava

I just had all parties agree to a three day work exercise for Moulton followed by a peer review process in order to discuss community issues and the rest.

Sigh.

Don't I have the best luck with timing.

If he would have only done this a day or two before, I wouldn't have wasted so many hours putting together all the necessary parts.

Posted by: the fieryangel

I wrote about the "Moulton" aspects of this situation on the other thread. But the Jimbo aspects are quite another thing: he's not a Godking, but he's going to be one just this once? And although he's not a GodKing, Moulton is effectively "banished from the realm"?

Constitutional Monarch, Jimbo? Do they banish people?

This is rather a radical turn of events, in any case...

Posted by: Ottava

We do not know who the "three bureaucrats" were. We do not know who he was talking to. As many people have said, they saw this coming. Jimbo has the ability to move between projects based on his special status, so he was a likely person to turn to.

Posted by: dtobias

I remember as a kid on my first trip outside the United States, to Canada, I actually had some concerns after seeing that the coins of that country featured a Queen, given that my past experience with queens was dominated by Alice in Wonderland's Queen of Hearts, who was prone to yelling "Off with your head!"... I really thought that when visiting a country with a queen, you were in constant risk of having her see you in the street, decide she doesn't like you, and have you executed.

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Posted by: Shalom

There are only http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AListUsers&username=&group=bureaucrat&limit=50 on Wikiversity. Of the "three bureaucrats" involved, SB Johnny and Cormaggio are almost certainly two, as they support the ban later in the discussion. The other might be either Mu301 or Erkan Yilmaz. Sebmol has been inactive since May 2008.

Except for SB Johnny, I don't recognize any of these names.

Posted by: wikiwhistle

As an aside, a similar thing took place with the block of Peter Damian. I don't know what Moulton's edits were like on WV, but it seems a shame as I thought he was getting on a lot better with the editors there than at WP.

Posted by: Ottava

The definition of support can mean a lot of things, so lets not focus too heavily on this. The community knew about some problems Jimbo was having with Moulton weeks ago.

Posted by: Peter Damian

This is better than Harold Pinter.

Posted by: Moulton

This is got to be an embarrassment for WMF.

Jimbo Wales' sole contribution to Wikiversity since its inception:

Posted by: Milton Roe

Well, what the hell did you expect him to do, write articles on quantum mechanics? It's Jimbo.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

That is funniest thing you ever wrote Milton. Congrats Moulton, an unjust personal block from Mr. Wales deserves a place on your CV.

Posted by: The Joy

And yet another case where the independence of Foundation projects from non-community individuals like Jimbo proves to be an illusion.

Posted by: Shalom

If I were a Wikiversity admin/custodian, why would I want to invite Jimbo to block one of my users? Wikinews and Wikibooks dumped Jimbo as an admin; Wikiversity just accepted him.

Posted by: Ottava

As a Wikiversity custodian, I was a little taken by surprised by the timing. Moulton was just about to enter into a three day focus on an editing project and then enter into a "peer review" discussion to help build trust between him and others of the community, including some that he had conflicts with before. I was given approval by the other custodians to continue this on his talk page.

Posted by: Shalom

When Jimbo does things like this on Wikipedia we can say he's out of touch, but at least he shows up every once in a blue moon. This was completely out of left field. If I were you, Ottava, I'd feel betrayed by admins who with one hand promoted mediation and with the other hand banned the guy you were trying to help.

Posted by: everyking

They should unblock Moulton, tell Jimbo to butt out of their community affairs, and then make their own decision about how to handle Moulton. Jimbo apparently wasn't even aware of the circumstances, as indicated by Ottava's comments, and was probably just pursuing somebody else's grudge against Moulton.

Posted by: gomi

Now perhaps you'll realize: all time spent on Wikipedia and related project is wasted!

Posted by: Giggy

Despite my not usually being a fan of Jimbo's using his monarch powers to ban people, I must say his contributions to Wikiversity have been more valuable than yours.


The correct thing to do, even if they told Jimbo to butt out, would still be to block Moulton for pretty much the reasons given by Jimbo.

Posted by: Moulton

The above is the very http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM in the history of human civilization, written by Hammurabi of Babylonia, some 3750 years ago.

It is now up to Jimbo Wales to come to Wikiversity and submit his evidence, reasoning, and analysis to the Assembled Community for scientific, journalistic, and judicial peer review, http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Scholarly_Peer_Review_of_Managerial_Practices_Demonstrated_in_the_singular_contributions_of_Jimbo_Wales.

Posted by: thekohser

But once you've done it, every time you do it afterwards feels natural, even wonderful and amazing.

What, did Jimbo just pop the Wikiversity's cherry?

This is ridiculous, alarming, and completely predictable.

Is it any surprise that Jimbo blocked someone who was Participant #2 and actively crafting a forum entitled, "Ethical Management of the English Language Wikipedia"?

I mean, how much more of a shot at Jimbo did it have to be?!

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Jimbo doesn't care what the circumstances are; all he needs to know is that one of his Valued Friends has asked him to Do The GodKing Thing (after making the genuflection appropriate to the GodKing).

Posted by: Ottava

I don't think there is a major problem just yet unless Jimbo wants Moulton's user page blocked and no review to be given after he completes the task. That is a possibility, but I am hoping it wont happen.

Posted by: anthony

I'm pretty sure Jimbo http://aggieblue.blogspot.com/2008/08/perplexing-ethical-conundrum.html of exactly the circumstances in this case. Ottava just made the mistake of assuming good faith. Jimbo doesn't want "discussion to help build trust between [Moulton] and others of the community", he just wants to "stamp out the evildoers".

Jimbo doesn't even like it when people question the perfection of "his" precious Wikipedia off-wiki. There's no way he's going to let people do it on a sister project, if he can do anything to stop it.

If anything, Jimbo's action in blocking "Moulton" more suggests that he knew there was a plan for "discussion to help build trust between [Moulton] and others of the community", and he had to work quickly to stop such a thing from happening.

Posted by: Ottava

As per emails posting on Moulton's page, Jimbo contacted Moulton about Moulton's linking of blogs from his user pages that members of other projects found insulting.

This wasn't a questioning of "performance". Moulton's first responses, and their exchange, was harsher than needed. The community worked with him to try and tone down his response, but it was too little too late.

The recent fights with user Salmon of Doubt have probably only exacerbated the situation.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Been away, but last I looked, some http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Colloquium&oldid=327794#New_probationary_custodian.

I see that the Topic I raised in the Colloquium has also been banished to a Subpage.

Any hope that Academic Freedom and Open Discussion might be more welcome there than the rest the Wikipedia Gulags can now be forgotten.

Hype Hype HooHah for Cabalversity !!!

Jon

Posted by: Ottava

Ran. Ran.

Originally, there was no process to picking the "Referees", so a bunch of us talked it over, and I decided to go through the Custodian process first while we design the other process. I've been doing quite a bit of gnome work and clean up while the process continues.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Yes, I know, I have just been "cleaned up".

Amazing how calling it "ethnic cleansing" made it sound so gosh-darn "civil".

Jon

Posted by: that one guy

Jimbo needs to realize that he can't always go around and block those who he doesn't like. Eventually he'll block the wrong person and then he'll have massive backlash.

Posted by: written by he who wrote it

Probably? I think the only question is which user(s) bent his ear about this, and who (if anyone) put them up to it. Any guesses?

Posted by: Moulton

Just as AN/Moulton divided the WP community, Jimbo's ill-advised intervention in Wikiversity has widened a chasm that was already present at Wikiversity before WAS 4.250 and I arrived there in early July.

It's the same chasm I've characterized before, and it permeates the culture at large (not just WMF-related projects).

In some ways it resembles the divide between Galileo and Pope Urban, although I'm not about to write the kind of dialogue that got Galileo into hot water with the Inquisition.

For those of you with 300 edits here, there is much more detail posted in the Moulton Thread in the 300 Club.

Jimbo showed up on the Wikiversity-en IRC channel today and our dialogue there may or may not be Galilean or Pinteresque. But it's worth a read if you want to see a 63-yr old schmeggegy scientist from MIT and the Boston Museum of Science go up against the God-King of WMF.

Posted by: Milton Roe

He's after D. Tobias, now, a relatively safe target since not an admin or steward, and since he posts HERE.

Edits two and three are threats to "remove" Tobias from the project for messing with Moulton's bio. Says it's because Tobias is trying to "extend and prolong" the controversy.

Jimbo's gunna show us how NOT to do that.

Ready, Jimbo: demonstrate.

Posted by: Shalom

Milton, I think your mind takes you on wacky adventures sometimes, but if I should take your statement seriously, blocking Dan Tobias would be an exceedingly dumb thing for Jimbo to do (even by his own standards), and would generate exactly the kind of backlash that would undermine his power.

Posted by: everyking

I got a kick out of your exchange with Jimbo; reading it was well worth the time. I don't know enough to form an opinion on whether you should remain on Wikiversity, but I am certainly convinced that Jimbo is out of line in showing up on a project where he had never previously edited to unilaterally impose a ban. If the admins on Wikiversity are going to go along with that, they are only undermining their own community processes and discrediting themselves.

Posted by: JoseClutch

Agreed - a block on Dan T. would cost Jimbo a fortune in community goodwill. Of course, Jimbo has that fortune, but I think he'd be loath to spend so much for no little.

Moultan, on the other hand, is at worst no cost, maybe net gain. Few editors, and no real "Editors of Influence ™" see the situation as a bad thing, even if they worry about project sovereignty.

Posted by: dtobias

Yes, it's rather weird that an edit I made nearly a month ago on a page which had no further edits over the succeeding weeks until Jimbo got there was "extending and prolonging" the controversy, while Jimbo jumping in and reverting it and threatening me with a ban much later wasn't... that's just as Bizarro-World-like as the assertion that I'm a "troll" for reverting a single-purpose drama-only account, Centaur of Attention, which seems to deserve that label much more than myself.

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Do I actually have that much community goodwill on my side? I'd be impressed if that were true, but it's not always clear.

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Posted by: Shalom

Wait, I didn't actually read Jimbo's second and third edits to WV when I made my last comment. I didn't believe he actually said that until I read it with my own eyes.

Dan's WV contribs all have to do with the Wikipedia Ethics project. However, there's a huge difference in perception between shutting down the project versus banning an editor for his involvement with the project. Furthermore, Dan's edit to Moulton's userpage can hardly be considered trolling even by the most Draconian standard unless Moulton himself doesn't want that blog linked from his userpage.

I almost want Jimbo to make good on his threat to see what the reaction will be.

Posted by: dtobias

I still kind of like maintaining my perfect no-block record, though...

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Posted by: Shalom

I can sympathize with that.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

I always wondered if DT would get some balls someday.

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like today is not that day.

Jon

Posted by: Shalom

Jon, it's not that hard to get blocked if you want to get blocked. It is hard to get blocked if you don't want to get blocked but are disagreeing with people who have the ability to block you. That's not "balls," it's just how the system works.

Posted by: Emperor

Wikipedians crave this stuff. Attention from daddy is always nice. Right or wrong, at least he's playing with you.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

The question is whether one's own Integrity has a higher priority than Kamaraderie with the Klan.

Of course, it's always possible that DT has a different definition of Integrity — after all, Wikipediots have Ediotic conceptions of just about every word in the Dicktionary.

Jon

Posted by: Ottava

I thought my comment on your talk page was to the opposite?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

You are either an idiot or you think I am.

Most likely both, but I don't really care.

Now bugger off.

Jon

Posted by: Ottava

We can be fair and point out that Cary Bass has participated in a few places at Wikiversity, so the Wikimedia Foundation as a whole has had involvement with the project.

Cary Bass also cleared the way for Jimbo to make an account (by removing the false Jimbo name). So, I think that Cary could be considered a proxy that connects Jimbo to the project for many months.



Okay, last time I try to help.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Meh, the adventures my mind takes me on, you have no idea. But this one isn't a fake one.

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jimbo_Wales

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Okay, both it is.

Jon

Posted by: Shalom

Milton, if you read my last post, I basically admitted as much.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Sorry, I hadn't yet. Yep.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

DT, WAS, and other Smoothers are the John McCains of Wikiputia. They affect to be independent thinkers and even tout themselves as "mavericks", but if you track their actual voting records and especially the way they disapparate when any forthright act might put a smudge on their Virginities, you will see that they always toe the Wiki-Party Line in the end.

Jon

Posted by: JoseClutch

Gauging community goodwill is always hard. Depends on circumstances. In this case, the "Dan was troublemaking" is a pretty easy case to make, and "Dan is a long time agitator" also goes. But it's countered by your usual good faith and respectfulness, which probably go a long way. I am surprised by these things from time to time, too, though historically I have thought I got a good impression of goings-on by watching and not getting too involved. A test of community goodwill is not advised, however. Those often end badly.

Posted by: dtobias

Like it's actually a more useful approach to goad, taunt, and troll people in power on Wikipedia just for the fun of it, provoking them into banning you, and then continue to tweak their noses using sockpuppets to ensure that you stay banned, all the while insisting that you're always right and everybody who disagrees with you is always wrong, and that you are eminently qualified to make pompous pronouncements about all the philosophical flaws of Wikipedia and how the only way to fix them would be to scrap all their community-created policies and replace them with ones you made up? That approach has been really successful for the various people around here who have tried it.

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Posted by: Moulton

Here is the main prepared message which Jimbo Wales brought to the Wikiversity IRC channel earlier today:

I interpret that to mean he is standing down from his http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jimbo_Wales to the project:

The trolls he is referring to are Centaur of attention, Salmon of Doubt, and KillerChihuahua.

Posted by: Floydsvoid

I can't help but observe, Mr. Moulton, that as someone that studies large dynamic online communities, you do a piss-poor job of interacting with them. Or is that planned

Posted by: Milton Roe

----------------

No, we'll just make sure past mistakes are not forgotten. Jimbo can threaten to simply "remove you" but he has to do it in public, and nobody ever forgets that.

So here's Jimbo and SlimVirgin working over Gary Weiss's TALK page, apparently because WORDBOMB Bagley had, a noob then, possibly because he had made the comment that Gary posted on WP as "Mantanmoreland." Before he had a change to fix it, he was banned. SlimVirgin always claimed she couldn't remember if she'd warned him first, or not. But those stuff has been oversighted so we'll never know.

But then Jimbo steps in, and does the first wrong thing, Oct 30, 2006, courtesy blanking the deletion dicussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=&user=&page=Wikipedia%3AArticles+for+deletion%2FGary+Weiss

Somebody wants to know why the discussion was deleted by Jimbo himself out of "courtesy"? Who gets THAT kind of personal courtesy from Jimbo? Mantanmoreland himself has the answer:



In TALK archive 2 which happens soon after, you see a real war. There's Cla68 and Dan Tobias, and socks Mantanmoreland, Samiharris, and Mantan supporters Durova, et al.

A comment by Dan:



Alas how little you know in retrospect Slrubenstein, for Mantanmoreland and Samiharris' demise is still far in the future. And Tobias is correct.

But now, Jimbo a day later (last talk page) finally gets behind Durova, G-dett, and the whole crew supporting Mantanmoreland on Oct 20, 2007 (this is the time of the Gerard rangeblock on Broadweave in Utah) but not without getting some flack. It draws Cla68 a 24 hour block.



One of the better replies to Jimbo I've seen. One of the first mentions of a cabal. It comes 6 weeks after Jimbo's "shoot on sight" comment about OVERSTOCK people. Water under the bridge between, as Durova resigns/is desysoped soon after (Nov 26, 07, about a month after her highhanded Cla68 block, but of course this is not her main problem, as highhandedness with !!, Giano, and others bring her down. Bang, bang, Durova.). But it's the also the last statement Gelexander will ever make on WP. That user is not blocked, but that user has had enough. After posting a mission statement the same day, he or she goes away. Not a sock from the history, just a disgusted editor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Galexander

So that's now up to the end of 2007. We all know what happens in 2008: it all comes unglued. Mantanmoreland and his calvalcade of socks are exposed, most being those Jimbo has befriended. The economy tanks. No more hairy-chested Durova after Nov. 2007, as mentioned. Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae and Bear Sterns go down (and today, Lehman Bros!) and the feds are suddenly concerned with naked shorting. Looks like somebody was right. Looks like Jimbo missed the pissed-off editors socking merely to communicate a problem with real world POV-pushing, and was bamboozed by the deepsocks, spinning the real content. He allowed abusive editors. He did courtesy deletions. He didn't listen to Cla68. And he certainly didn't listen to Dan T., who was in there on this case, on the other side, right where he should have been.

Any of this beginning to sound familiar? I mentioned SlimVirgin just once, right at the beginnning. It's not entirely her, this time. But we seem to have superficial, highhanded, powerdrunk Jimbo Wales, who NEVER, ever, seems to get it right.

Posted by: dtobias

And I always have something appropriate in my iTunes library to accompany whatever is being discussed... Thanks for the comments about me, by the way.

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Now playing: http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/madonna/track/like+a+virgin
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Posted by: Shalom

Dan, that was funny. You have a lot of iTunes.

Posted by: Moulton

If you meet the Buddha in the road, block him.

In a sense it's "planned" but not by me. If I were living in a pre-scientific era, I might speak of "God's Plan" but such language is considered quaint by modern standards of public discourse.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson speaks of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God. Today we would speak of the "Natural Course of Events" (per Natural Law) rather than speak of "God's Plan". But it means the same thing.

The drama that is in play is an oft-recurring (and thus predictable) drama that arises when the dominant player is operating at Kohlberg Level 4 and the non-dominant player is seeking to operate at Kohlberg Level 5. This drama has many famous examples in history, some more familiar than others. The version that seems most apt in this go-round is the version which Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole portrayed in the encounter between Thomas à Becket and King Henry. Ever since the dawn of civilization, this same drama plays out many times in every generation. Eventually you will find yourself in this same dramatic passage, either in the role of King Henry (the character in power who operates at Kohlberg Level 4) or in the role of Beckett (the character out of power who operates at Kohlberg Level 5). It is all but inevitable that the character at Kohlberg Level 4 will move to annihilate the character at Kohlberg Level 5. How could it possibly be any other way?

If none of the above makes sense to you, then you are in the camp of Jimbo Wales, firmly entrenched at Kohlberg Level 4 of the game, and utterly oblivious of the existence or desirability of Kohlberg Level 5.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

I'm afraid your performance makes me think of someone complaining about being bitten by a dog who wants to get that dog put down.

A man going about his business gets attacked by a dog without provocation, causing nasty wounds. The man calls the police and shows them the dog and his wounds. The dog is unpredictable and is known to bite without provocation, but he insists on demonstrating that the dog is dangerous by poking it with a hefty stick. It bites him. His friends agree that dogs shouldn't bite, but can't help noticing the hefty stick that he wields. The owner gets his own big stick out and proceeds to wield it against the man and the police stand back as they are not sure who has committed the worst crime. Assault! the man cries, arrest them! while poking the dog and the man with the hefty stick. Blows are exchanged. The dog fights back. The police decide they can do nothing as you are on private land and sidle away, and the land owner gets his security guards and throws the man out while singing protest songs about injustice, kicking and screaming on the way.

The interested observers watching this know that the man got badly bitten, and are sympathetic for the bandaged wreck in front of them, but are bemused at the way the man went about trying to sort out the problem. They sidle away when they see the hefty stick being wafted in their general direction in case they are about to get educated too.

You are allowed to stop banging your head against a brick wall. I understand the feeling of well being is quite to be recommended.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Added to that is the problem that one can't really be sure the dog wasn't provoked in the first place.

Posted by: Shalom

What if the man fed the dog a biscuit?

Posted by: SB_Johnny

If you throw snowballs at a dog, he'll probably think you're playing at first. When you start beaming him with iceballs, he'll not want to play any more. When you start hitting him with a snow shovel, he's probably going to bite you.

Not many will come up to the plate to defend someone who abuses animals.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

Welcome to the Review SB_Johnny.

No dragons here, I believe.

FWIW, I was impressed at your forbearance at WV.

Posted by: Moulton

I am not Dumbledore, either.

I'm afraid you've misjudged me.

Please do not compare me to Elphaba Thropp. http://durova.blogspot.com/ is playing that green-skinned character.

I'm the red-head in this drama.

I am playing the roles of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and Professor Marvel in this reprise of http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#The_Ring_of_the_Neener_Bomb.

Everyone else is playing the role of the Munchkins.

Well, almost everyone.

Kato, Greg, and Awbrey are playing the roles of Tom Servo, Mike, and Crow down in the front seats, whilst Somey and Selina are playing the roles of Statler and Waldorf up in the balcony.


There is no doubt that my method failed. It was guaranteed to fail. After all, did you expect me to play the role any better than Socrates, Jesus, Beckett, Galileo, Gandhi, King, Mandela, Alice, or Dorothy?

At least Alice and Dorothy realized their Kafkaesque http://www.hardnewscafe.usu.edu/archive/may2007/083107_wikipedia.html was only a dream.

Some people here seem to think that Wikipedia is real life.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

At one time I thought you (Moulton) were an unfortunate fellow who confused a MMORPG for an encyclopedia or a university. I no longer think you are confused at all. You are aware of WV/WP's true nature. You are intent upon implementing your own hack to the game in which you can play Gautama, Jesus or Socrates. You set out acquiring Kohlberg Points until you can arrange your very own Passion Play. This is clever, educational and entertaining. Remember though... playing a MMORPG about enlightenment no more results in attaining enlightenment than playing one about an encyclopedia or university will result in scholarly achievements.

Posted by: dtobias

In other words, you're lacking in brains, heart, courage, and knowledge of how to get home again, and you're a fraud who's trying to bamboozle people.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

Yep, including WR.

Posted by: Milton Roe

I get to be Tom Servo, Crow or Mike. I had my hand raised first. Meeeeeeee!!!

Posted by: Moulton

Surely you did not mistake me for an authentic science educator, using authentic didactic methods did you?

Posted by: sarcasticidealist

Well, of course the WMF has had "involvement" with the project. They own the servers, pay the staff support, and hold the relevant copyrights (not of content, but of design, etc.). And yes, Cary Bass is an employee of the WMF, and his job description includes acting on the WMF's behalf, so no problems there.

But what does this have to do with Jimbo? He's not an employee or officer of the WMF, and I've seen no indication that he's authorized to wield the power of the WMF on Wikimedia projects. I'm not seeing the link you see between Cary and Jimbo.

Posted by: Ottava

M.O.U.L.T.O.N.

Massive Online Universe Loosing On Networks?





Could someone with more experience (Alison, Lar, etc) explain to him the relationship? Or am I just way off base here?

Posted by: dogbiscuit

No, but that little escapade undermines anyone who wants to intercede on Picard's behalf as they are now just part of some silly game that Moulton has been playing and can safely be ignored, and I thought you were sincerely concerned about that.

Posted by: mikeu

Mu301 also http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Colloquium&diff=prev&oldid=327391 for the ban and then added a comment about http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Colloquium&diff=prev&oldid=327880.

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Mu301

Posted by: sarcasticidealist

Well, before I can tell you how off-base you are, you have to identify which part of what I said you disagree with.

Posted by: Milton Roe

No. Jimbo has no legal authority to do the things he's doing, except as the WMF board allow him to, without removing him. And those people are in the position of Roman Senators when confronted with a self-proclaimed dictator-for-like like Julius or Augustus Caesar. Or even a Nero. The question is, who is going to stab him first, and if one of us does, it had better be all of us. Because aborted plots get the first guys thrown out for treason, and then they're out. So everybody keeps his own council, and one day the praetorian guards themselves will have had enough, and Jimbo will be out on his ear.

And everybody in the outside world will be sooooo surprized then, just like when major corporations dump their CEOs. You know-- the ones that everyone on the board of directors had kissed up to, right up until the day before.

And Jimbo's not EVEN the CEO--- just an old director with a history. He the head of the army in his private little banana republic. Constitutionally, he's nowhere. But he can't be ignored, unless the government is prepared to banish him entirely. Think Pinochet (Grape Republic? ). Anybody who stands up against him without everybody else doing so, is going to disappear.

Posted by: sarcasticidealist

Unless he wields power in the name of the community, in which case it's the community that's being negligent in tolerating his misuse of the sysop tools.

Of course, nobody's willing to answer the question of whether his power nominally comes from the Foundation or the community (and yes, the community's power ultimately comes from the foundation too, but the distinction is obviously still meaningful).

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Old King Jimbo knows to keep a few e-musing Court Fools around, like DT and WAS, just to name few, by way of maintaining the pretense of allowing Diversity Of Opinion (DOO), jest so long as they don't DOO anything that would make a DIFF.

It's called Rebellion In Service Of Regime (RISOR).

Jon

Posted by: Shalom

I tried to answer that when you asked me, but I came to a conflicted conclusion. To be more precise, nobody who has the ability to dictate the answer is telling us the answer.

Posted by: Adam Smithee

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/thumb/6/63/BountyHunters.jpg/250px-BountyHunters.jpg

Posted by: Shalom

I'm getting a 404 error.

Posted by: Adam Smithee

Yeah... helps when I post the right link doesn't it?

Posted by: The Joy

The far left one completely in black.

Posted by: Lar

I might have at first, but there is no danger of that now.

Posted by: CrazyGameOfPoker

Bossk.



You're giving Jimbo too much credit. Vader was very competent at carrying out his work.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Knot 2 Menschen Er War Mein Vater …

Jon

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

That's pretty close to my own assessment of the latest event. Really, calling KillerChihuahua by what was apparently her first name on the site was not only colossally stupid, it was an asshole move. It seems to me it was motivated not by what Moulton thought was right, but by what he thought he could get away with. I've been sympathetic towards Moulton, thanks to my own experiences with the same editors, but that sympathy is waning.

(Personally, I still wonder why Jimbo needed to be brought in, as it seems that a custodian on Wikiversity should have been able to take care of it. Not to be overly insulting to SB_Johnny, since he actually stepped up to do the initial short-term block, but I do wonder where the rest of the custodians' cojones are. It doesn't speak well that I, of all people, was the one that ended up removing her name from the edits.)

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

It's the Very Idea of permitting pseudonyms in a community with pretensions to academic values that is the main absurdity at Cabalversity. Moulton probably just got so swept up in the delusion that he was talking to adults that he forgot he was still talking to Kabal Kartoon Karacters.

Jon

Posted by: Rootology

Cute, with the IP address from MIT:

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/18.85.28.223

http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=User:Moulton&curid=62801&diff=328757&oldid=327983

Posted by: Ottava

There was a slow process going on of trying to have Moulton work with others, including KC.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Speaking of Kabal Kartoon Karacters, why don't you two go back to your Sandbox and make mud-pies — we observe COPPA rules here.

Jon

Posted by: Milton Roe

But on the action page it's claimed outright by Moulton.

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/18.85.28.223

Posted by: Rootology

Oh, I didn't say it wasn't him. That's fairly obvious. He's also back in IRC after getting banned from it, on a new IP and handle now.

This is just going to end with MIT getting blocked because of him.

Posted by: Ottava

I believe this matter has been taken care of.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

True. I've attempted to work with him on multiple issues going back more than a year now, but Jimbo claims that http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Colloquium&diff=prev&oldid=327312. So, unless Jimbo was misrepresenting things, it sounds to me like those admins need to grow a pair and, at the minimum, speak up. From what I've seen, those admins didn't even have the guts to stand up and say they were the ones that asked Jimbo to do their jobs for them.

Posted by: Ottava

I know a significant amount of admins on project and off project were discussed. I also know that there were those within the Wikimedia Foundation that have experience with Wikiversity and witnessed some of the disputes first hand.

Posted by: Floydsvoid

Thanks for the movie tip. It's at the top of my queue now.

Also thanks for the pointer to the Kohlberg levels. I'm not a big fan of psychology but this seems to have some useful truths to it.


Is that another roll of the dice? Surely you are running out of squares you can move to?

Shakespeare had plays inside of plays.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

I know off-project admins complained, but, from the perspective of the average editor at WV, it sure looks like Jimbo came out of nowhere. Centaur of Attention had only recently gotten around to making a formal request for action on the page, from what I've seen.

If admins can't handle the problems on their own project, that's bad, but it looks even worse when, to all appearances, they never even tried to deal with it themselves. I'm wondering if it's related the the problems with JWSchmidt, but, if so, it's still pretty bad that they short-changed the attempts to address problems within the project.

Posted by: everyking

Have any conditions been outlined under which Moulton would be allowed to edit again?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

The usual Wiki-Prefrontal Robotomy, I'm guessing.

You know, the one all you "guys" had.

Jon

Posted by: Moulton

Here is my presentation of the http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/foundations-of-ethics/3iyoslgwsp412/10#.


What usually happens in these encounters is that the operator at Kohlberg tries to make the set of legal moves the Null Set. At that point I am obliged to do something creative and unexpected that the rules don't address. Recently I've been writing atrocious song parodies on my blog, lampooning the machinations of the Red Queen.

The thing about creativity is that the space of imaginable moves is of a higher order infinity than Aleph-Null. Rulesets can only outlaw a countable number of maneuvers.

I'm a better scientist than artist, but if Jimbo & Co want to be the subject of atrocious works of art, who am I to deny them their 15 minutes of fame?

Posted by: Moulton

SB_Johnny, and MikeU, would you please comment on the speculative theory that "an unknown number of admins requested that Jimbo be the one to make the block" on the (reliable) theory that there would then not be a consensus to overturn the block, even if the consensus were that it was improper for Jimbo to have been asked to make the block (and improper for him to have acceded to doing so)?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Two characteristics of a good scientist:

• The capacity to unearth his initially buried assumptions.
• The capacity to change his initial hypotheses or models.

Symptoms of a "scientist" without those capacities:

• Head, Brick Wall.
• Brick Wall, Head.

Resistant Learner, Educate Thyself.

Jon

Posted by: Moulton

The problem isn't unearthing them. The problem is testing them. Right now I'm having a devil of a time testing H1.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Sorry, I lost count at H_0. What is your H_1 again?

Jon

Posted by: Ottava

I'm going to try a three phase approach (or three projects) that should help Moulton demonstrate his awareness of community standards and his ability to work with others. Afterwards, I hope the community will have enough basis to trust him as a contributor and welcome him back.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Ottava,

Please restrict your Cult Internal Affairs to Wikipediot spaces.

You obviously have no clue what a Total Phreaking Idiot you reveal yourself to be when a Pseud like you affects the arrogance to lecture Moulton on matters of conscience and conviviality.

Now Get The Fuck Out Of Our Faces Until You Grow Up.

With All Due Respect,

Jon

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Per Ottava's comment, we'll see what happens, but most of the editors commenting on the block seemed willing to consider an unblock at some point. Who knows if the silent contingent will ever speak up, but it seems that Moulton has a shot.

Posted by: Moulton

The Inverse Consensus Gambit

Yesterday, Erkan Yilmaz suddenly turned in his 'bits' and went dark on WV and on IRC.

Today, SB_Johnny suddenly blanked his user page and replaced it with note that he was "On break until further notice."

Meantime, in IRC, we have the following hypotheses on the table:

H0: Benign AGF (Assume Good Faith) that nothing sinister, nothing unusual, nothing extraordinary has happened.

H1: Speculative (and as yet unproven) hypothesis that "an unknown number of (unidentified) admins requested that Jimbo be the one to make the block" on the (reliable) theory that there would then not be a consensus to overturn the block, even if the consensus were that it was improper for Jimbo to have been asked to make the block on their behalf (and improper for him to have acceded to doing so).

H1 is a falsifiable and testable hypothesis, so I have (elsewhere) proposed a simple experiment to test it. Those here who are a systems scientist, can figure out the experimental test without much difficulty.

There are other hypotheses (H2, H3, etc) which we need not clutter this post with at this time.

On edit... Yet another WV Custodian, Emesee, has also resigned his bits. This comes after http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Log/block.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

For the record, he called her by her first and last name on another page, both on the page and in the edit comment. I blocked him for 2 hours while I ran around looking for someone to oversight it.

As for the whole "how did Jimbo get involved thing", yes, it was a total failure of cojones on our collective parts (on my part especially). But we did not ask him to do something, we certainly did not seek him out, and the reasons he gave were not the ones we thought he was going to give (or at least not the ones we thought we were supposed to have agreed to).

Honestly, it was a big whirlwind, we were busy working on http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Request_custodian_action/Review_of_JWSchmidt at the time, and the way it went down was a bit of a shock. Next time we can get together we'll try to figure out who thought what and when (there was very little first-person correspondence involved), and we'll air it out on the colloquium (as opposed to here... why so nosy?). Just be patient: unlike Moulton, JWSchmidt, and Jimbo, the others involved have actual jobs and/or other responsibilities, and we've already spent more time than we had to spare lately :-).

Posted by: Moulton

Tracy Walker and her fellow editors in IDCab not only called a lot of people by their first and last names, they wrote atrocious lies about them on the Internet's 7th most visited website, and then acted abusively toward anyone who sought to correct their egregious and inexcusable errors.

If Paul Mitchell, Tracy Walker, Ian Ramjohn, Tim Makinson, Jim Schuler, "Bob Stevens", "Jaime F.", and the others think they can hide behind pseudonyms, whilst pretending to be centaurs, salmon, or chihuahuas, they have another thing coming. Wikiversity is not FurryMuck.


It's not too late to stand up to him, Johnny.

I'm sure you are aware that Cary Bass and Jimbo Wales began their Internet careers with a soft-core porn portal.

Perhaps they are still into S&M Bondage Fetishes, but I for one do not appreciate their outrageously sadistic practice of hurting people while gagging them. If they want to act out their sick S&M Bondage scenes, let them go back to Bomis.Com where such abusive and exploitive behavior is the norm. Bondage scenes have no place in a scholarly learning community, full stop.


All you have to do, Johnny, is evolve to a Social Contract, and all those Po-Mo performance artists playing cutesy animals will go find another fantasy role-playing game to screw around in.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

SBJ —

Welcome to Reality. By way of orientation, try to get used to the idea that none of the Rational Adults who inhabit this Reality give a Rat's Ass what sort of Wiki-Penance you Wiki-Priests and Wik-Priestesses beg the e-dulgence of Moulton to e-dure in your Blasted Wiki-Purgatory for what you regard as the Gawdawful crime of using a real name — known to all here — for one of the Kabal Kartoon Karacters in your Wiki-Parody of Hiya Learning, a site for sore idiots that besmirches the very name of every real learning institution that any of us ever attended.

If you cannot adjust to this Reality, then please go back to your Wiki-Playpen and make mudpies or something.

Sinsearly Yours,

Jon

Posted by: dtobias

How, exactly, do you know anything about rational adults or reality, Jon? Read about them in a book once, maybe?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Greg and Kato and I consulted by email with numerous Rational Adults By Acclamation (RABA's) whose names we cannot reveal for fear of Exposing Them To Unwanted Attention From Irrational Infants, and we formed a Strong Consensus that all of us were Rational Adults By Mutual Admiration (RABMA's), but that you are really a Total Twirp (T²), and so we have sent our Rational Adult Bots (RAB's) to the far corners of the Internet to warn everyone about you. Hope you don't mind — it's not like it's an abuse of Rational Adult Power Tools (RAPT's) or anything like being a Rational Adult Dick (RAD).

Y'know, The Usual Way …

Jon

Posted by: Ottava

Can we have an administrator please delete this?

Please.

No more personal names. This act is what got us in this mess.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

How about this — we'll give you a list of things we would like deleted.

Fair 'Nuff?

Just Give Us A Month …

Okay, Maybe Till Christmas …

Ho, Ho, Ho …

Jon

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

That's like blaming the US financial industry meltdown on excessive regulation.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

It's all Obama's fault. I saw a Mackaine ad that said so.

Jon

Posted by: the_undertow

Eh, just one phase - a simple unblock should work.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Well, that actually explains a lot. I just figured somebody should be asking the questions, and I can't help commenting on how it looks from my perspective. I can see how the situation with JWSchmidt seems to have come to a head with the incident. Patience, I can do, if there's an acknowledgment that problem exists and will need to be addressed. From where I'm sitting, it just seemed like no-one was asking the hard questions.

On the other hand, Moulton's increasing obsession with "outing" means I'm seeing fewer reasons why an unblock would be a good idea, though.

Posted by: Moulton

Kadima Productions

I take vigorous exception the cutesy approach to mean-spirited http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/narcissistic-wounding/3iyoslgwsp412/9#.

I propose that, going forward, we limit our mean-spirited narcissistic wounding to the confines of an utterly atrocious http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2008/09/ring-of-neener-bomb.html, with The Fiery Angel as the only authorized provider of the musical score.

Animal costumes may be worn, but are not mandatory, as Cats has already been done to death.

Posted by: gomi

[Moderator's note: The Jon Awbrey-initiated discussion of the Review being used as an extension of Wikipedia Talk pages has been moved to WRR. -- gomi]

Posted by: Lar

I was wondering the same thing myself.

Further I am at a loss as to why Moulton continues to cite real names of people who prefer to be pseudonymous here. Doing so strengthens the argument of all who say he should not have editing privs restored.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

The explanation is rather simple. It is precisely because this is a part of the Real World, and some of us here are Rational Adults, and those of us who qualify as Rational Adults Realize that accommodating the wishes of others to use their pseudonyms is a Courtesy that is rationally extended only to those who are Courteous in return.

Do you see how that works yet?

Jon

Posted by: SB_Johnny

I've always found that the guy who decides to "be the better man" generally prevails. There are cases where it's really necessary and relevant to point to the real name of the person you're talking to (and/or about), but in most cases it's not. Showing respect to your opponent is a very good debate tactic. Intentionally pushing their buttons is a great tactic if you don't want to continue the debate.

I doubt even Karl Rove would run attack ads during Spongebob Squarepants, eh?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

I knew http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Squarebob_Spongepants&oldid=81347302 …
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Squarebob_Spongepants&oldid=81347392 was a friend of mine …
Oh wait …

Nevermind …

Jon

P.S. Since you are ν here, I will explain this once — lectures on Civility from Wikipediots are likely to inspire Rank Proφanity. So watch out for that. ~~JA

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Or perhaps because using real names is just a cheap shot used by trying to gain the upper hand or get revenge in an internet dispute.

Posted by: Floydsvoid

Ahhh, so you are performing something akin to Wiki-Collider experiments.

Cause a crash & burn and do a post-mortem analysis to see if the sequence of events conform to theory.

Seems here you had gotten started an ethical debate amongst level 5 WVers when out of the blue a level 4 WMFer swoops in with the ban-hammer and smashes everything to smithereens. Shame really, would have been interesting seeing how the WVers resolved it on their own. I don't think all is lost since there are some after-shock rumblings still going on.

You can call me grasshopper, just don't call me Bill

Posted by: the fieryangel

Hey, just to throw a curve ball into this thread: a little bird told me that Jimbo has just had all four wisdom teeth pulled....

Maybe he'll feel better about this in a week or so?

In any case, this is not the time to be making appeals to the GodKing!

Posted by: Moulton

H0: (Null Hypothesis) Assume Good Faith.

H1: (Lar) Something other than H0, but not sure what.

H2: (Jon) Reciprocity (Mimesis) is a two-way street.

H3: (Sxeptomaniac) Revenge Motive.

H4: (Moulton) Is there a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau) (per Thoreau)?

Of the five hypotheses, one of them is falsifiable and testable by anyone, which makes it a valid scientific hypothesis that may be tested in a synthetic community such as Wikipedia or Wikiversity.

Essay question: Does Thoreau's idea make any sense, at least in some situations? Is the present situation one of those? Why or why not? Support your answer with evidence (e.g. from Moulton's experiment), analysis, and reasoning. Be prepared to defend your point of view, and to compare your thoughts to those of other scholars who undertake to the play The Ethics Game.


Yes, I was surprised that an unregistered player of The Ethics Game came in to dramatically demonstrate the lower portions of the http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/foundations-of-ethics/3iyoslgwsp412/10#H1-Integrated-Kohlberg-Gilligan-Model in a way so reminiscent of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket.

That sharpened up the chasm between the 4th and 5th rungs on Kohlberg's Ladder.

The important question is what (if anything) anyone is learning from this unplanned (i.e. accidental) exercise in drama-driven learning.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Moulton, I don't mind being a part time volunteer lab rat for a good cause (or even on a whim). You don't pay me enough to be a full time lab rat.

Posted by: Moulton

Nobody's paying me, either to protect the anonymous editors of IDCab from being sued for libel or losing their bits for egregious violations of ethics in journalism.

Posted by: Floydsvoid

The first rule of The Ethics Game is that you don't talk about The Ethics Game.

Any talk about the game is a card played inside the game.

Don't show your hand and play one card at a time like everyone else.

Are Moulton's goals to research psychological phenomena or to inflict revenge on his adversaries? On a human level revenge can be oh so sweet. Particularly for a just and righteous cause.

That's what my card tells me.

Posted by: Ottava

Am I the only one tired of Moulton hiding behind Jargon and outdated psychological theories that determine "levels"? There was a saying that you don't actually understand something unless you can discuss it in plain English.

Posted by: Lar

While we're giving SB Johnny tips... If you ignore Jon Awbrey, you're going to miss some funny stuff, he's an awesome phrase turner.

However you won't actually miss anything important, because you've heard it all before.



Good thing, because whatever the heck it is you're doing, that isn't it. You couldn't be less effective if you tried.



No. But of course it's been decided by the Powers That Be ™ here that you have no standing.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Especially as now he'll obviously be even less wise than formerly.

Dental pain is something I woudn't wish on anybody. Speedy recovery, Jimbo!

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

And We'Re all Sick up to here ↑ with the Sounds of the Moonie Mantras that Wikipediots Chant to Drown out the Feedback from Reality that might've once Saved their Weenie Encyclopedia from Terminal Suckitude, but has No Chance of it Anymore.

For my part, I heard it all back in the 60s and 70s, when Cults at least had a bit of rhythm, and far better fascion sense.

Now go shave your heads or something, so we'll know to steer clear when we see you on the streets.

Jon

Posted by: Moulton

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Cormaggio/Moulton%27s_block#General_discussion....

Posted by: thekohser

Jimbo's first phone call to me (the one where he hung up when I answered, then a couple of hours later blocked my account on Wikipedia, then when I re-tried the number that had called me, he explained that he had had a bad connection earlier in the day from...) wait for it... the DENTIST'S OFFICE!

Posted by: The Joy

And that's the tooth?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Scholium. My notion of Reciprocity is inspired by Martin Buber, not Marcel Marceau.

Jon

Posted by: Milton Roe

Ah, dentists. Apropos of all our tatt threads:

Posted by: the_undertow

Not fair at all. I have 14 tacks and am terrified of hypodermic needles. This is a case of 'one of these is not like the other.'

Posted by: Moulton

Fear Projector

It occurs to me that the arrival of Godzilla-King and the Fearsome Basilisque on the black side of the chess board have intimidated and alienated at least half of dozen players on the white team. So far, Erkan, Emesee, SBJ, and Ottava Rima have pulled back from the game, leaving WAS 4.250 and JWSchmidt as the only active chess pieces on the white side of the game board.

But I digress.

Can anyone suggest the name of the fear that the Fearsome Basilisque is referring to?


The term 'Mimesis' comes from http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20080314/worrying-about-wheel-warring-in-our-wikiwoe/, not Marcel Marceau.


This is also a case where someone who is not afraid of Godzilla-King, the Fearsome Basilisque, or Virginia Woolf needs to saunter into this lunatic scape-goat psychodrama and stare down the Phreaking Basilisque.

Undertow, I have confidence you will not turn to stone if you glower at the Fearsome Basilisque.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Then attribute it to him, as it has nothing to do with me, and do not confound it with genuine reciprocity.

Yes, I know all about Predator-Prey Mimesis and Dyadic Cyclones, and it is precisely that species of 2-dim Duelistic Thinking (DT's) that sucked all those More Science High Alums into that LeStrange Distractor with IDeists and Pseudoscientologists.

Jon

Posted by: Dzonatas

Moulton, you make yourself an easy target, but it is not like you are giving out the ammunition.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

I've never been reluctant about expressing my criticisms of Moulton, but when you come right down to it, at least he's trying to do something about the Moraless Moronic Monsters that just keep on cranking out of Jimbo's Wiki Meathead Foundary.

If only his dog-ed persistence were leavened by a modicum of adaptive and anticipatory sentience, then I might be able to toast him with Champagne and not just Harvey Wall Bangers.

The root of the problem seems to be that he Wants To Believe so desperately in the whole Wiki-Panoply of Wiki-Pretty Mythology that he just can't seem to revise his initial Hypothesis — drunk straight out of Jimbo's Magnum O' Hype — as to what the Real Purpose of Wikipedia has always been.

For that he has my utmost sympathy, as I can still just barely remember a time when I wanted to believe all that, too.

BTWT … ATIN …

Jon

Posted by: Milton Roe

All I can say is: "You have got to be kidding."

Posted by: Moulton

The discussion on Wikiversity regarding Jimbo's unprecedented actions there continues to http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Colloquium#Block_of_Moulton_for_incivility.

Just as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Moulton hopelessly divided the community at WP, Jimbo's http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Scholarly_Peer_Review_of_Managerial_Practices_Demonstrated_in_the_singular_contributions_of_Jimbo_Wales at Wikiversity has similarly deeply divided that community.

In the meantime, Ottava Rima has contacted Rosalind Picard and received feedback from her. Regarding her WP BLP, Picard writes, "I can http://web.media.mit.edu/~bkort/OttavaRimaStudy.html#Comments_by_Moulton with a few other things here and there but I won't, and besides the bio is so much better now than it was when I was receiving a large number of harassing emails from http://newscafe.ansci.usu.edu/~bkort/Claims.html."

If anyone is curious about those "harassing emails" arising from the false and defamatory content in that BLP, I was on the copy-to list and received them too. I will make them public to anyone who does not wish to remain mindlessly oblivious of the considerable harm caused by IDCab's persistent publication of those http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Purple_Haze and defamatory claims regarding Picard's purported view of Creationism vs. Evolution.

Posted by: everyking

Moulton, as improper as Jimbo's action was, it's clear the WV community isn't entirely comfortable with what you were doing. Why don't you just promise to stop doing what they object to and see if they'll let you back in?

Posted by: Moulton

How to Play Bomis Boyzâ„¢ Bondage and Discipline Games, WMF Style

What I'm doing that they take vigorous exception to is http://underground.musenet.org:8080/utnebury/oasis.html in accordance with http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Scholarly_ethics.

I accept that it is an egregious and unforgivable violation of WMF policy to Bear Accurate Witness in accordance with the Principles of Scholarly Ethics, and that I will http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Community-Wide_Peer_Review_of_Exceptional_Practices be roundly excoriated, blocked, banned, bound, gagged, kicked, and unceremoniously locked up in the hall closet for having the temerity chutzpah to engage in authentic scholarship. So be it.

If it was good enough for Socrates, Beckett, Galileo, Mendel, and Darwin, Piaget, and Speilrein, it's good enough for me.

Let them do their damage. It's only a http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/.

Posted by: Ottava

We've been trying to tell him that since the block.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Knock off the martyr routine. You've been engaged in a crusade, not scholarship. The only reason you've gotten blocked and your talk page protected at WV is because you made damn sure they had no other choice. I have a hard time believing you didn't know exactly what would happen when you posted an email with the full header on your talk page.

At least Rosalind Picard has the good sense to realize that Wikipedia is, in the big picture, not that big of a deal. Really, getting your user space deleted was "http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moulton&diff=329900&oldid=329891"? Is that your "scholarly" assessment? Remind me, just how many people died as a result of that deletion? Arrested? Injured? Lost property? Really bad paper cut?

Frankly, I don't think I plan on supporting any unblock action on WV until you can stop acting like a jackass. Like the latter part of Norman McLaren's short film Neighbours (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2976945051371832639), you seem to have lost all perspective regarding any tangible goal, and just fight for the sake of the fight.

Posted by: Moulton

They had another choice. They could have decided to advance from Kohlberg Level Four (Anankastic Machiavellianism) to Kohlberg Level Five (Rawlsian Social Contract Model).

What died was any claim to being an authentic encyclopedia, crafted by authentic scholars with authentic credentials, who defend their scholarship with authentic peer review.

Posted by: Somey

Would a legalistically-oriented social contract have specifically allowed you to post the full headers of the e-mail in question, though? Given that any such contract, in a Wikimedia context, would certainly include respect for user anonymity as a core principle?

Posted by: Ottava

I tried to explain to Moulton that Kohlberg was a psychologist and not applicable to sociological structures. I then stated that I am a Hobbsian, and that if he wants to deal with me in a sociological way, he will have to change his approach quite a bit.

Posted by: Moulton

I am not familiar with the notion of a "legalistically-oriented social contract" as that would be an oxymoronic contradiction in terms.

The mutually agreeable terms of engagement (whatever they might turn out to be) would (by tautological definition) be mutually agreeable terms of engagement. If one of those terms embraced anonymity (instead of authenticated bona fides as a credentialed scholar), then that would become a defining characteristic of the site. If the anonymous characters presented themselves as 1) garbed in animal costumes and 2) not subscribers to or adherents of http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Scholarly_ethics, then I would likely apprehend the site to be a variety of Post-Modern Theater (perhaps even a Theater of the Absurd) modeled after Cats or FurryMuck or Wikipedia.

With respect to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committe#Current_members, you will note that they are openly published at Wikipedia. Are you aware of any recipients who have declined to be responsible officials at Wikipedia, and who have elected to hide their e-mail addresses to avoid responsibility?


I prefer to deal with you in a scholarly way.

If you wish me to treat you in a sociological way, I am prepared to put on my hat as an ethnologist who studies online cultures and the post-modern characters who inhabit cyberspace under imaginative avatar names and costumery.

Posted by: Somey

I disagree, but perhaps we can agree to disagree...


Are you saying that the "full headers" of the e-mails in question contained only a reply-to/from address, already available on a WMF site, with no IP address or server routing information whatsoever?

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Ah, so deleting your user space was the end of scholarship on WP. Now where have I heard that particular brand of egotism before? That's right, it's the same as the "IDCAB", when they've equated opposing their behavior with being "anti-science".

The blame for your experience at WV failing to reach Kohlberg level 5 lies primarily with you and your overblown ego, Moulton. A social contract would involve a little give-and-take, meaning that you occasionally listen to others when they tell you your behavior is inappropriate, and change accordingly. You insisted on doing things your way to the detriment of other editors, so you got tossed, and I didn't see anyone terribly surprised that it happened (only at the way it went down). Frankly, your love for bringing up Kohlberg's model might be a little more convincing if I saw a little evidence you understood any of it.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

No, scholarship ended the instant they permitted pseudonyms, which means it never got started.

Jon

Posted by: Rootology

So if it was you and JWScmidt vs... the entire rest of the WMF, did you ever even consider you may the one that's wrong, or are you too smart to admit that that you weren't smart enough?

Posted by: the_undertow

Are you unnaccepting of his works due to his occupation? That seems silly. Kohlberg's moral theories most certainly apply to sociological structures, and are seen as guiding principles in business ethics - an huge aspect of sociology.

Posted by: Rootology

...and we're back to the argument that you and I historically had, that the WMF was never intended to be a peer-reviewed educational or scholarly source in the traditional context, and my belief that many scholars or career educational institution types dislike the WMF systems explicitly as the WMF systems have the connotation and public perception that the skills and value of the educational professionals--for example, yourself and Moulton--are devalued and not that special anymore.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

I nominate Rootology for State Of Florida Elections Commissioner.

Jon

Posted by: Rootology

Sadly, the winners do get to write history in some cases...

But seriously, who exactly in the WMF besides Scmidt supported Moulton's Quixotic mission to apply his personal utopian vision of what an online project should be?

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

The way I have come to understand Moulton is that it is his view that absent a mutual agreement between himself and the sites he participates on he does not accept the legitimacy of any rules, be they "community" or provided by the operators of the site. Moulton is then free to engage in behaviors, obnoxious to others, that he would almost certainly be willing to "trade off" in the course forming the "social contract." The only limits he then recognizes are whatever external ethics he brings with him.


Of course I am interpreting here and Moulton might care to correct my understanding.

Posted by: Rootology

Moulton, can you clarify if GBG is correct? That's what I'd always, thought, too.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

O G, I would have supported his Academic Freedom to continue the inquiry in question, but I found out rather quickly that any notion of Academic Freedom is a total freaking joke at Cabalversity, as it is in all other WMF spaces.

"You have the right to remain ignorant" — that's the only freedom they fight for there.

Jon

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

I'm aware of your stance. My point is that Moulton's statement is highly conceited and more than a little ridiculous. WP's problems do not revolve around him.


I must admit I have been coming around to that interpretation as well. Perhaps I was just naive when I believed that he was actually open to dialogue.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

I have gotten the impression that Moulton isn't comfortable being "just one of the guys". I think most of the Wikipedians who come up for harsh review here (including the ones Moulton doesn't like) have the same discomfort.

But isn't the whole point of Wikipedia and its sister projects to make rock soup? Everybody brings something they know about (and/or are interested in researching), and it all gets mixed in to make a tasty result. The readers of Wikipedia don't really care who wrote the article that settles their bet at the bar, so the editors of Wikipedia shouldn't be uncomfortable with pseudonimity, let alone anonymity.

Which reminds me, I need to figure out who gets my edits in my will :-).

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

I'm not saying that he is not open to dialog. Far from it in fact. He is completely oblivious to the power imbalances inherent when a single contributor wishes to re-negotiate rules for a site with hundreds or even millions of other users. I'm not sure that this is bad thing or not. It would be more convincing if Moulton could cite an example of two where this approached has resulted in successful participation on sites other than his own.

Posted by: Cedric

Well, not just any ignorance, but rather wiki-approved brand ignorance. It's all about the branding. So sayeth the Jimbo. Praise and glory to his name!

Let us prey . . . .

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

I was away for a while, so I must have missed all that.

My main problem with Moulton at present is that his current practice is Anti-Educational.

It took me only a few days at Cabalversity to realize that anything I contributed or discussed there would be deleted or shoved under some rug or another in very short order. Moulton must know this — so he puts himself beyond much sympathy when it finally happens.

But the most anti-educational thing that Moulton is doing is accepting the under-lying premisses of participation in WMF sites, and thus he feeds the lie even as he plays patty-cake with it.

Jon

Posted by: Ottava

Please provide links to the pages that were deleted.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

A fine custodian you make!

I've been parading this elephant through the principal's office for a couple of weeks now, and you just now show up with your Wiki-Pachydermy Bag?

Jon

Posted by: Ottava

I gave you plenty of time to provide links to what you felt was unfairly deleted. Why not? I can't read your mind. I can provide a complete list, however, according to the delete log of Jon Awbrey, it is blank.

So. Come on. Out with it.

Edit - both Jon Awbrey and JonAwbrey accounts at Wikiversity have a blank "Deleted user contributions" log.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

You do understand that I was speaking English when I used the word "delete", don't you? Not whatever dialect of WP:RoboBleep you are speaking?

Clues 4 Duh Clueless

Jon

Posted by: Moulton

A social contract is a set of promises made voluntarily. It has nothing to do with the Hammurabic Method of Social Regulation. Covenents and Social Contracts were devised as a sane alternative to Hammurabi's Idiotic Idea.


Go http://aggieblue.blogspot.com/, verbatim. Do you see any headers?


There has never been any scholarship on WP. It is against the rules to engage in scholarship on WP.


Kohlberg Level Four behavior is, by definition, inappropriate in a community that evolves and advances from Level Four to Level 5. Anankastic Machiavellianism is anathema to Kolhberg Level 5 and higher.


"Think about right and wrong, and one immediately falls into error." —Taoist Proverb

"If you want to get the plain truth, be not concerned with right and wrong. The conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind." —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seng-ts%27an


It's not that I do not accept the legitimacy of rules. It's that I understand rules to define a class of system known as a "game". In general such rule-driven systems may take on the character of a drama rather than a simple game (like chess). However, rule-driven systems are what they are (and are generally not what most people obliviously imagine them to be). Mathematicians have known for well over a century that rule-driven systems are mathematically chaotic.


The reason I propose to evolve from dysfunctional rule-driven systems to function-driven systems is because function-driven systems are functional. I prefer functional systems to dysfunctional ones. (So did Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Augustine, Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Lagrange, Poincare, Einstein, Gandhi, King, von Neumann, Feynman, etc, etc. It's not exactly a new idea.)


GBG has formed a flight of fancy unsupported by solid evidence, sound reasoning, or coherent analysis. However I give him credit for submitting it to scholarly peer review by a subject matter expert on Moulton's mindset.

I hope you are now disabused of GBG's amusing flight of fancy.

Posted by: sarcasticidealist

Um, don't you think that maybe the bigger obstacle to Wikipedia being a scholarly resource is that it's written almost entirely by people who are not, in any sense of the word, scholars in the subject matter about which they write? Because sure, anonymity bad and unaccountable and all that, but I would think that if we're listing obstacles to scholarship on Wikipedia, mine would rank above both yours and Moulton's.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

I hope you realize that I am trying here. I described what I had seen in what I hoped was fair and neutral terms without taking cheap shots. Could you please continue to disabuse me by:

• Telling me what then is the substance of your "social contracts, and;"
  
• Can you provide an example of somewhere you have joined a community that has extended a social contract that you found to be just and mutual.

Posted by: Somey

You could have just said so in the first place... Anyway, if that was all it was, then indeed their stated rationale for banning you was bogus. (That's not to say you don't have an uncanny ability to make people want to produce bogus rationales for banning you, of course!)

As for the other thing, well... any social contract that doesn't provide a means of grievance-redress, usually in the form of legal restrictions and remedies, isn't really a social contract - it's just an exercise in Utopian folderol production, which on the internet would be absurdly easy for people to game and abuse if actually put into practice. And you'll never get there on any Wikimedia (or related) project - their system is already too easy to game and abuse, and the kind of unanimity-of-purpose required for something like that can't possibly exist in the kind of contentious environment they've created. You might be able to do it on some sort of "ideologically pure" invitation-only site, though... But if I were in your shoes, I'd probably just give up on the internet completely, except for private e-mail, and maybe MP3 downloads.

I suppose that's just my opinion...

Posted by: the fieryangel

Moulton isn't just "one of the guys", in any sense of that expression. He's an expert on this stuff. You can't not take that into account. Hence your problem.

And no, WP is not supposed to be about making "stone soup": it's about writing an encyclopedia. Some people are qualified to write an encyclopedia and some aren't. Unfortunately, on WP, those who are qualified to write an encyclopedia are weeded out of the process because of interpersonal issues such as this. So you get....stone soup....or as Greg K put it, the sausage factory.

That might be very nice, but it's certainly not an encyclopedia.

Posted by: Moulton

The substance of the social contracts is define http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/foundations-of-ethics/3iyoslgwsp412/10#, along with http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/foundations-of-ethics/3iyoslgwsp412/10#H6-Social-Contracts. At the bottom of the example are links to the http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/contents.shtml upon which the example is built. The model site (which is now a commercial enterprise) is founded upon the seminal work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger who (literally) wrote the book on http://www.google.com/search?q=Lave+Wenger+Communities+of+Practice. That model site also has a http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/iacenter/ccovenant.shtml. In the late 1990s that site hosted a public community, of which I was long a member. (As their business grew, the site discontinued the public community in favor of devoting all their staff to supporting their corporate client communities.)


It hadn't occurred to me that people had formed a wholesale flight of fancy based on el zippo de nada, rather than inquiring into the substance of the issue. I would have thought that by now people here would have learned to be skeptical of haphazard claims and assertions. I would have thought that by now people here would have learned to independently verify anything they heard from the quarters of Wikipedia, since it is widely known (and even openly admitted) that Wikipedians are not a source of reliable information.


And therein lies the moral of the story. Do you see how easy it is for people to gin up bogus rationales, utterly unsupported by a shred of evidence, analysis, or reasoning? And do you see how astonishingly gullible people are when it comes to uncritically accepting such bogus claims? That's how the US got into an idiotic war in Iraq.

Somey, a culture that throws away science doesn't have future, full stop.


Somey, the Internet is a collection of host computers that abide by a sophisticated protocol known as TCP/IP. It's an ingenious protocol, unprecedented in the annals of human history. And guess what, Somey? It works beautifully. It's highly functional. It routinely resolves conflicts efficiently and without an intervening judging agent. The principles of TCP/IP are apparently ill-understood and unappreciated by the lay public, even though the public now relies on it for their daily bread.

A few years ago, Rosalind Picard wrote an allegory for the computer age, entitled http://underground.musenet.org:8080/bkort/utnebury/RUR.html. TCP/IP literally made the Internet work. And now we have cyberspace inhabitants who similarly deny the foundation principles of the highly functional protocols that make their astonishing denial possible.


And now you have mine, as well.

Posted by: Ottava

We blocked his talk page because he posted more real names and their email addresses. Look at the email closely. 5 real names. One of the concerns with Moulton was the posting of real names. He was warned and asked not to.

Posted by: Random832

I can't find the email - where did he post it?

Posted by: Ottava

Embeded link, can be found at the top of page ten in Somey's post (the quote from Moulton).

Posted by: Moulton

A Simple Science Experiment by an Anthropologist from Mars

Posted on http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton by http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Moulton/Barsoom_Tork, Anthropologist from Mars...

Notice that, in accordance with the protocols of the scientific method, Barsoom Tork is attempting to falsify hypothesis http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Community-Wide_Peer_Review_of_Exceptional_Practices. That's how scientists operate. If a scientist has an hypothesis that is otherwise well-supported by solid evidence, sound reasoning, and coherent analysis, he nonetheless tries like the devil to falsify it through an experiment over which the scientist has no personal control of the outcome.

Barsoom Tork has absolutely no control of the outcome of his unblock request. The outcome is entirely out of his hands. The allied custodians of Wikiversity have all the power and an unfettered opportunity to absolve themselves of the thesis presented in hypothesis http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Community-Wide_Peer_Review_of_Exceptional_Practices.

All it takes to overturn a consensus is one person who stands up and says, "There is no consensus, therefore the extraordinary and unprecedented act of Jimbo Wales does not stand in this community of scholars."

Will http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Community-Wide_Peer_Review_of_Exceptional_Practices be reified or refuted?

Place your bets.

I understand that http://underground.musenet.org:8080/utnebury/MontanaMouse.html will report the outcome.

Posted by: Random832

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ARBCOM, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dtobias are all open about their real names (if those are their real names). So is Cla68, as far as I know, though I don't have a link handy to back it up.

So if by "5 real names" you meant "5 real names, only one of which was problematic in any sense" (I don't know who K. V. is, but erring on the side of caution here - though, if I'm picky, there's no connection to a username), then - sure. But that's a bit disingenuous.

Posted by: Ottava

Since "unblock requests" are normally performed by uninvolved admin, and seeing as there are none, well, I think you are currently SOL.

We already told you what you have to do to get back in. I don't think anyone has changed their mind, nor do we trust you right now not to post personal information.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

I highly doubt his area of expertise is ethics, psychology, or sociology. He goes into depth on Kohlberg and a couple of other things constantly, but he hasn't shown the breadth of knowledge one should expect from an actual expert.

Posted by: Ottava

Second. I got into a dispute with him in IRC over his misuse of Kohlberg et al.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Folks who like that sort of thing can start a poll later to vote for the BIGGEST OBSTACLE, but all I did was mention one of the factors that prevents Kabalversity (no, Mr. Google, not Kabul University) from having any chance of supporting a community of scholars.

Jon

Posted by: Moulton

I have discovered that it is especially challenging to demonstrate any expertise in an academic subject whilst one is bound, gagged, kicked, and locked up in a closet. I am still researching the frontiers of an ethical best practice whilst dealing with aficionados of a Bondage and Discipline Culture, as the literature is a bit sparse in that branch of Applied Ethics.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Sparse? You have got to be kidding!

You might well begin with a bit of lighter fare:

http://books.google.com/books?id=llxkHcvsUBcC

Jon

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Oh, now I know what the Velvet Underground were on about.

Posted by: Moulton

Somehow or other, I don't think the Bomis Boyzâ„¢ ever read that kind of highbrow literature. That kind of 19th Century literature would more akin to what Ottava Rima studies down there at Cathartic University.

Posted by: mikeu

I am also open about my real name; it is on my userpage. But, I choose not to post my email address on wiki to prevent spammers from harvesting [*] it. For me it is not about privacy. It is simply an attempt to limit how much crap arrives in my inbox. I think that it is reasonble to respect that.

-mikeu

[*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_address_harvesting

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Interesting excuse, but you had plenty of time on WV to demonstrate a little bit of your supposed research. Instead, you just beat the same old drum.

I could buy that you perhaps are an expert in one of the hard sciences, but you've shown little understanding of even some of the more basic concepts of the humanities disciplines. You don't even seem to grasp a case study's structure and purpose (although I suppose there's the possibility you were just feigning ignorance).

Posted by: Moulton

If you have a better model, by all means craft a better case study.

One has to lead by example.

If you find my example wanting, by all means provide a superior example for all of us to learn from.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_Ethics/Case_Studies1&oldid=328651#Case_3_.E2.80.94_.27Privileged.27_information_and_competing_priorities_-_w:User:Privatemusings I wouldn't claim that it's perfect, but he did a very good job. I'll put one of my own together at some point, but there are other issues with the project that need to be cleared up first.

Posted by: Somey

Sorry, I just assumed it had been oversighted.


Are you saying I "uncritically accepted" their claim that you'd posted an e-mail with "full headers"? (And it wasn't even to you, it was from you!) If that were true, why did I ask you about it, instead of them? And words like "astonishingly" are just hyperbole, Moulton - this isn't the sort of thing most people would take the trouble to look up even if it actually were as important as, say, a false pretext for military adventurism.


Evasion. You know what I mean by the term "the internet," and besides, all I was saying was that you're wasting your time trying to reform (or advance the social development of) that system. Either way, the nuts 'n' bolts inner workings of the network aren't what we're discussing.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

el zippo de nada

you're welcome to the lighter?

Jon

Posted by: Somey

Is that supposed to be http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Centaur_of_attention?

Posted by: Ottava

There is a KC (Killer Chihuahua).

Posted by: Moulton

I have no idea why Mike Umbridge Umbricht oversighted my outgoing mail to members of ArbCom and to other principal respondents in the case. That makes no sense to me.


I presume you asked me rather than them because I am a more reliable source of accurate information than them. But as to their reasons, I have no theory of mind to explain why they act as they do. (However, JWSchmidt likens it to the McCarthy era "red scare".)


Please don't assume I know what you mean. The Internet is a well-defined term to those of us who were already using the Internet long before Al Gore invented it.

Posted by: Ottava

Until you realize it, your talk page will probably stay protected.

Posted by: Random832

And that's another thing.

The cheap shots really aren't helping win people over to your side (though that one at least is not NEARLY as bad as the comparisons to kristallnacht and 9/11)

Posted by: mikeu

The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is offering classes at wikiversity on techniques to block curses, hexes and jinxes cast by Moultons and other Dark Creatures.

-mikeu

Posted by: Ottava

We could totally nerd out for Halloween and do a Harry Potter theme.

Posted by: Somey

Well, that may be one of your biggest problems right there - thinking that "the internet" is a "well-defined term."

It isn't!

Posted by: Moulton

No. Centaur of attention on WV is not one of the Harry Potter Furries Furies who is a respondent at ArbCom. Centaur of attention (aka Blogger 'Skip') is evidently a subordinate employee at Macys San Francisco Operations Center who has been on WP for about a year and a half as Odd nature. He/she signs his/her letters to the editors of the Hard News Cafe as "http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=18890&st=450&p=129600&#entry129600" and is fiercely loyal to another content manager there named Paul Mitchell.


That's another Furry/Fury in the Potterverse, ably portrayed by an amateur thespian named Tracy Walker, a horticultural maven in Florida.


Neil and Viridae offered a http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=20492&view=findpost&p=132307.


It's not the scale but the the character that makes the analogy correct. It's like mountains and molehills. The analogy is one of similarity of shape. That means one can use the analogy to reason about the case, scaling everything (including the emotions) accordingly.


Wikipedians have never stopped doing a Harry Potter theme, since Harry Potter is a metaphor for modern times.


The culture that has settled into cyberspace should not be confused with the underlying technology. Think of the underlying technology as the soil of a garden. What grows on that soil is a matter of what is being cultivated. The soil is indifferent to the foliage that takes root. The foliage, however, competes for a place in the sun. What's important is the kind of strange fruit the foliage yields. Soil itself is not toxic, but some plants in the garden can nonetheless bear quite toxic fruit, just as the financial markets on Wall Street can yield toxic securities.

Posted by: Ottava

By "metaphor" you mean "is" right? Because its not a metaphor. It is quite clearly about modern times because all of their characters are in it (even more so than C.S. Lewis). You could say that Lord of the Rings was a metaphor about its time (which it wasn't).

We need to work on your vocabulary. You keep using technical terms in a skewed way.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

I was going to comment that you are just as bad about this kind of thing s as Moulton. On reflection, however, I don't think that is true. Moulton is far worse than you at skewing discourse, using language in an unhelpful manner and making discussion difficult. But the factor that gives the impression of equivalence is that Moulton has much more to say of substance, so he is worth the additional bother....sometimes.

Posted by: Moulton

Gnosimnesic Recovery from Agnosimnesia

By "metaphor" I mean "metaphor", where "metaphor" is a literary variety of analogy, model, or simulacrum, wherein the abstract internal structure is preserved whilst changing the color of the paint and the backdrop on the stage.


I am using technical terms in a technical way, consistent with http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/the-first-book-of-system-design/3iyoslgwsp412/15#.

Posted by: Ottava

And your point is? See, heres the thing. I responded to Moulton. You responded to yourself. You might as well have just posted in the Tar Pit for your inanity.

Are you bored? Lonely? Just felt that you needed to post so that people know that you are still around? What is your point? Oh, thats right, you never claimed to have one. My mistake.



Except not. You use terms from other fields without respecting those fields' definitions. You are a linguistic Viking in the rape, pillage, and plunder sense.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

My point is that Moulton, difficult as he is, has something to say, at least sometimes. I don't see that in you, ever. If you want a private conversation use a phone or something other than a forum. Did you notice the number of your own posts that end up in the tar pit?

Posted by: Moulton

What part of Agnosimnesia didn't you understand?

Posted by: Ottava

Funny, because I actually contribute to the Wikimedia system and you... oh, thats right, you make really piss poor posts and claim to moderate, when you really do nothing.

Wow.

Did you ever notice that I really don't care about someone as worthless as you? Do you really have anything to contribute? Really? Do you? Even your piss poor attempts at flames are pathetic and add nothing.

Who are you? Someone who got banned and whined a bit until the Poetlister idiots boosted you to moderate this site?

Does anyone even care who you are? You are just some nameless person who can't even make anything worth while here, let alone anywhere else.

So do bug off. You shown no understanding of the Moulton affair, and your commentary has very little to contribute besides "Look at me! OMG! I'm 13! I need attention". Seriously, child, why don't you go bugger off and harass other people?



Its comments like that and your general attitude which will bury you deeper so that you aren't brought back on Wikiversity, Moulton. We have been very patient and spelled out clearly how you could have even got back onto Wikipedia, and you refused.

Posted by: Moulton

A Jeffersonian Declaration of Scholarly Rights

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:SB_Johnny#PM:

We hold these precepts to be discoverable, that all scholars are creative equals, that they are endowed by the architecture of their brains with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are 1) the right to engage in discovery learning by the scientific method and 2) the reciprocal right to remain utterly oblivious by the adoption of inscrutable methods currently unexamined by modern science. To demonstrate these alternatives, dramatic encounters arise, deriving their predictable scripts from the recurring anecdotes of human history. Whenever any form of liminal social drama arises, it is the duty of the scholarly ethnographers to document and analyze it, and to derive new insights into the challenge of promoting improved scientific scholarship. —Moulton 17:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

This is another Ottava shill attempt to move a lost argument out of public view by trying to throw it into the tar pit. Please leave this public for awhile.

Posted by: Somey

Poor analogy - plants in a garden can be cut down or pulled out, and completely destroyed, by anyone who happens along, which is clearly not true of the internet. Moreover, any botanist will tell you that soil isn't indifferent to what takes root, not even close. And there's always a lengthy growth period for a plant, whereas on the internet, things can appear suddenly, fully-developed, and without warning... I could go on...

The fact is, there is no viable real-world analogy for the internet, and anyone who thinks there is is deluding himself (or herself, as the case may be). It has to be understood on its own terms, which is why dealing with problems like Wikipedia is so challenging. It may be that part of your problem is that you assumed that everyone would be naturally receptive to your ideas, simply because they were (in your opinion, at least) good ideas. But of course, interactive websites don't work that way. If you want something that works the way you want it to, you really have to build it yourself; if you want anyone else at all to adopt it, you have to give it away; and if you want it to be popular, you have to compromise all over the place.

Meanwhile, when something like Wikipedia appears, threatening to do all sorts of damage to real-world culture and society (not to mention making the internet "suck" far more than it would without it), then you have to deal with it in multiple, complex ways - because it's a multiple-aspect, complex problem. Not something that can be solved with pie-in-the-sky "social contracts" and quasi-philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

Do I sound cynical? Sorry about that...

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

There is always the option of moving individual posts to the Tarpit.

Jon

Posted by: Moulton

The Internet is interesting precisely because it features an innovative architecture the likes of which human civilization has not seen since God originally invented life on earth.

TCP/IP is a highly functional (and peaceable) protocol, unlike the highly dysfunctional rules of engagement that Homo Schleppians have been using since the dawn of civilization.

It's been 15 centuries since Augustine first suspected there was a flaw in the system that Hammurabi first committed to stone some 3750 years ago this month.


Although I'd like to be able to take the credit, it was Leonard Kleinrock, Vinton Cerf, and Robert Kahn who had the better idea.


Yah, I know. It's the Jon Awbrey Effect.

Just beware, Somey. The next phase after Cynicism is Bitterness.

You really don't wanna go there.

It's healthier to do http://ultra.musenet.org:8020/media/poster.html instead.

Do you want to join me on the http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2008/09/ring-of-neener-bomb.html?

Posted by: Ottava

I don't move posts into the tar pit. Its pathetic internet wannabes like you who mouth off and fail to contribute who move things to the tar pit. You attacked me, and you are too pathetic to be able to have an accurate retort.

You are pathetic. Go ahead, leave it up, try to make people think that you are some how amazing because you proclaimed such. No one here is your friend. No one here is friends with another. Why? Because you don't know how to treat people properly, let alone understand how systems work.

You are an anonymous idiot, and you think you are clever because you can make some assanine comment? I'm sure everyone is laughing it up, because we all know how amazing you are.



Or, perhaps people thinking that the internet is a magical fairy tale land with unicorns and the rest are just dreamers.

The internet is part of reality. All things are part of reality. Just because you wish it wasn't true as you hide behind a false name and attack others, doesn't mean that people haven't been doing exactly that for thousands of years.

One of the oldest fallacies is the modernist fallacy. In short, its the modern world thinking that they are special and unique compared to the rest of history. History repeats, humans stay the same, and nothing is actually new.



Augustine didn't care about Hammurabi. Moulton, stop merging philosophers and thinkers with random political figures while ignoring what they actually believed in. The name dropping doesn't serve you, and is just another reason why you were unable to work with others.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Am I misunderstanding you, or are you confusing computers with people? Last I checked, the consensus is that computers and people are still two very different things, and communication protocols for computers are not the same as human language and communication, nor are they ever likely to be, outside of special applications.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Has Moulton, who you castigate and nanny about behaving himself on your worthless WMF project, done posting anything as offensive, disrespectful and disruptive as your last two posts directed at me? Of course not. He has only called real people by real names and not conformed to your minor rules. Thank you for the object lesson on hypocrisy.

Posted by: Random832

Wonderful; more cheap shots . The only users I can think of whose names are Harry Potter references are a not-very-active-anymore administrator called "Lord Voldemort", and of course Grawp. And it's not clear how the term "furry" is relevant to either.

Posted by: Ottava

If you actually read the posts, then yes, he has made some really nasty attacks against people, on and off Wikiversity.

And I have far nastier things to say to you. You started the attacks, and I am not one to let such an opportunity go.



Introducing the world furry would probably be an evolution along Moulton's claim that there are Po Mo theater productions. A furry would be pretending to be a certain individual. I think Moulton wishes such a thing to be a case, as he has many alternate personas, such as Barsoom and Clarice that he loves to bring out.

Posted by: Random832

But the backdrop (at least, as far as the time period is concerned) is quite literally the years of 1991 through 1998. That's like saying that New York City as portrayed in Law & Order, or Marvel Comics, or anything else, is "a metaphor for" New York City. It's not. Gotham is a metaphor for NYC. Metropolis is a metaphor for NYC. NYC simply is NYC.

Posted by: Ottava

Besides the question if Metropolis is NYC or Chicago ( ), I wonder if Moulton was shooting for the term "analogous". It would seem to be more appropriate (if there was a greater contrast, that is).

Posted by: sarcasticidealist

Hey GBG - I realize the viewpoint that Wikipediaspace has anything valuable to contribute isn't very popular around here, but I think WP:DFT is pretty sound advice all the same (not that I think Wikipedia invented the concept).

Posted by: Milton Roe

I don't really think that a human whose spent his or her whole life digging up roots and chasing small or large animals for food, and has a mouth full of rotting teeth, is probably "the same" as most of us are, in many important ways. Really bad breath and jaw pain is just the beginning.

Sure, perhaps our ancestors had many of our same emotions. But a lot less time to process them. And the kind and quality of knowledge can't be compared, since even I've had more time to read and think than all of my human ancestors, save (perhaps) a couple. Life for most humans was historically nasty, brutish and short. Most humans themselves were nasty, brutish and short. And if they managed to survive to puberty (odds bad) even sex for them was likely nasty, brutish, and short. I dunno about your life, Ottava, but mine's a considerable improvement over this.

Nothing is actually new? There are some substances you need to try, mountains you need to climb, coral reefs you need to dive. And learn how to fly.

Suggestion for you: the idea that there is a giant "modernist fallacy" is the darling of a bunch of clueless wine-sucking academics who've spent their whole lives pushing "classics" at a bunch of bored college sophomores, with this idea being the major justification for their sorry jobs. Sophomores who feel instinctively that the human condition actually has changed in a lot of important ways since the Greeks and Elizabethans, much less the neolithics--- and who are actually correct if they happen to live in the rich developed world, and have managed to duck the major wars and economic crises. But since the dang class is part of their gen-ed requirements, they can't get out of it and have to do a lot of pretending.

"Why yes, professor, now I see that the "Savage" who quotes Shakespeare is actually morally superior to the shallow creatures in Brave New World... No wonder he is existentially driven to commit suicide. That would be just the thing to do..."

Nope, not buying it. Yeah, we still die at the end of it. But meanwhile, for an increasing number of us, that Bucket List is a completely different one. Have you jumped out of an airplane with a parachute, yet? Aldous Huxley tried LSD, but think he missed skydiving.

Posted by: Ottava

If you are a Republican - Just look at the Democrats.
If you are a Democrat - Just look at the Republicans.
If you hate either - Ron Paul sucks you loser, get off the internet.

Posted by: Moulton

I notice that recently, Wikiversity was visited by a Centaur (of attention), a Salmon (of doubt), and a Chihuhua (of vorpality). That sure sounds to me like FurryMuck or some other kind of fairy tale world inhabited by animal avatars.


I don't see Somey as attacking others, or even wishing the Internet to be anything other than what it is.


The oldest fallacy is the one committed by Adam and Eve, when they committed the fallacy of dividing things into two binary categories variously named Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Lawful and Unlawful. Replacing a continuum with two binary categories is a lamentable mathematical error.


The error that Augustine cared about was the same error tht Hammurabi reified when he cast his particular collection of laws in stone.

By the way, http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM is one that Jimbo should review:




Protocols are not just for silicon-based information processing entities. Protein-based information processors can use them, too. An entity doesn't have to be silicon-based to be functional.


"Furry" is a reference to FurryMuck, a popular online virtual community of the 1990s where everyone adopted an animal avatar (something like Cats).


Opportunity for what? Opportunity to engage in the http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/narcissistic-wounding/3iyoslgwsp412/9#?


Not 'Clarice', but http://wc1.worldcrossing.com/WebX/?224@1019.wGgNaMbHwf8@11f78146@.1de2d928/45, the http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/caprice/3iyoslgwsp412/23#.

The Internet is rife with Post-Modern Pre-Apocalyptic Theaters of the Absurd. It's not a new genre. Comic Opera dates back a few centuries, at least.

Posted by: Moulton

Take note of the above, as it comes up again...


Please see above, where I actually said, "By "metaphor" I mean "metaphor", where "metaphor" is a literary variety of analogy, model, or simulacrum, wherein the abstract internal structure is preserved whilst changing the color of the paint and the backdrop on the stage."


Barsoom Tork is a Martian Scientist (an Anthropologist and Ethnologist who studies Earth Culture, including Cyberspace Cultures).

Scientists are not politicians. We might be policy-makers who employ system models to derive optimal policies, but we are not politicians.

The reason is simple.

Politicians deal in rules, rather than mathematical functions that arise as the solution to system models. Except in very simple cases, the optimal regulatory policy for a complex system cannot be reduced to the kind of simple rules that politicians are obliged to deal with.

That same observation is the modern variation on the one Augustine made some 15 centuries ago. And it's the same observation found in the Adam and Eve story of Genesis.

All that was missing in that story was the obvious question, "What would be more divine approach?" And had the author of Genesis had the mathematical vocabulary at hand, she would have suggested that a more graceful option would be to employ a continuously differentiable function with a non-zero gradient everywhere.

Posted by: Ottava

So get out your dice, hope to roll and six and smite them with your skillz.



Possibly, if you deny that Adam had the power of onomatheia. But if you deny that, why even bother believing in Adam and Eve?



No.



Opportunity to trample over amateur flamers.




I think you need to invest in a better dictionary, or at least one with proper definitions. I can think of a few that you could use.



Oh yes. The metaphysical master Moulton expressing what the great nature goddess would have done.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

OK. You didn't actually dispute anything I said. Yes, humans and computers both have protocols, but an internet protocol is very different from a human one. They serve very different purposes, and to suggest that TCP/IP is somehow applicable to human communication tells me you don't understand people, computers, or both at a fundamental level.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Um, I"ve tried to stay out of this, but since you've strayed into the hard sciences, I get to have my two-paragraph say. Much as I hate the idea of binary thinking in the often "continuously differentiable" possibile model equations for understanding the universe (especially the social one), its a big mistake to imagine that the universe itself is constructed entirely of some Einsteinian "continuously differentiable function with a non-zero gradient everywhere." Which for the non mathematical of you, means smooth hills and valleys everywhere, and no cliffs or edges. Also without any "yes and no" parts.

Well, that's wrong. The above manifold works fine for low-energy field equations and QM probability functions. However, the universe presents us with plenty of objective non-continuously differentiable functions! They are called "particles." And a lot of events are inherently binary, inasmuch as when the probability wave has collapsed, the event has either happened or not, and there is an excluded middle. The atom decays or not. It emits or absorbs a photon or not. The nerve fires or not. That's just the way it is-- God threw in some integers. There's are elements 1, 2, 3 and 4, because they have 1, 2, 3 or 4 protons. There are no elements pi or square root of 2, or even elements 1.5 and 2.5. That just isn't how the world was set up-- non continuity. So find a better metaphor for fuzzy logic, since physics is not going to support you all the way, any more than it did Einstein.

Posted by: Moulton

I beg to differ.

Please see these http://underground.musenet.org:8080/bkort/dialogues/Intro.html from 1985, which illustrate my point — namely that functional protocols for the dialectic process are universal, and not a function of whether the information-processing entities are http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Moulton/Barsoom_Tork.

Posted by: Lar

My null hypothesis (H0) is that Barsoom Tork is a figment of your imagination, and not a very funny one at that.

H1 would be that Barsoom Tork exists in physical reality, and is a provable hypothesis.

Prove the validity of H1. Make sure you do so in a way that conforms to our mutually agreed to social contract...

If you refuse to do so in a way that is acceptable to me, I reserve the right to remind you of that, at length, at every opportunity, whether or not it's relevant to the matter being discussed.

Posted by: Moulton

Mike Umbricht blocks 260,000 IPs in Eastern Massachusetts

# 01:16, 30 September 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs) blocked 68.160.0.0/16 (Talk) with an expiry time of 2 hours (anonymous users only, account creation disabled) ‎ (blocked user evading block with multiple ips)
# 01:16, 30 September 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs) blocked 68.162.0.0/16 (Talk) with an expiry time of 2 hours (anonymous users only, account creation disabled) ‎ (blocked user evading block with multiple ips)
# 01:16, 30 September 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs) blocked 68.163.0.0/16 (Talk) with an expiry time of 2 hours (anonymous users only, account creation disabled) ‎ (blocked user evading block with multiple ips)
# 01:15, 30 September 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs) blocked 141.154.0.0/16 (Talk) with an expiry time of 2 hours (anonymous users only, account creation disabled) ‎ (blocked user evading block with multiple ips)
# 22:22, 29 September 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs) blocked 68.162.0.0/16 (Talk) with an expiry time of 2 hours (anonymous users only, account creation disabled) ‎ (blocked user using multiple ips to avoid block)
# 22:21, 29 September 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs) blocked 68.160.0.0/16 (Talk) with an expiry time of 2 hours (anonymous users only, account creation disabled) ‎ (blocked user using multiple ips to avoid block)
# 21:34, 29 September 2008 Emesee (Talk | contribs) blocked 68.163.102.11 (Talk) with an expiry time of 1 week (anonymous users only, account creation disabled, cannot edit own talk page) ‎
# 21:32, 29 September 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs) blocked 68.163.0.0/16 (Talk) with an expiry time of 2 hours (anonymous users only, account creation disabled) ‎ (blocked user evading block from multiple ips)
# 21:21, 29 September 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs) blocked 141.154.0.0/16 (Talk) with an expiry time of 2 hours (anonymous users only, account creation disabled) ‎ (blocked user evading block from multiple ips)



IRC with Mike Umbricht...

(09:14:40 PM) Moulton: And JMWH planted a site on the web called WP; and there he put the editors whom he had made.
(09:14:40 PM) Moulton: And out of software JMWH caused to grow every template and userbox that is pleasant to the sight, and good for information and fun. The Wiki of Administrative Bits was in the midst of the encyclopedia, and the Wiki of the philosophy of the knowledge of good and evil.
(09:14:40 PM) Moulton: And JMWH took the editor, and put him into the encyclopedia to dress it and to keep it.
(09:14:40 PM) Moulton: And JMWH commanded the editor, saying, Of every philosophy of the Wiki thou mayest freely eat:
(09:14:40 PM) Moulton: But of the philosophy of the knowledge of civility and incivility thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
(09:19:37 PM) mikeu: You should be very carefull to avoid phrases like "...thou shalt surely die." That sounds potentially threatening.
(09:49:09 PM) Moulton: It's from Genesis. Are you familiar with that story?
(09:51:02 PM) mikeu: it is not a quote from Genesis. Your theatrics have crossed the line and are now disturbing
(09:51:58 PM) Moulton: It's from Genesis 2:17.
(09:52:16 PM) Moulton: Do you know why the author of Genesis put in those words?
(09:53:46 PM) mikeu: no it is not, but more importantly you are sending me messages that include phrases about death and that is unacceptable
(09:53:54 PM) Moulton: I'm not making this material up, Mike. It's been in the culture since the dawn of civilization.
(09:54:37 PM) mikeu: you need to stop contacting me
(09:54:41 PM) Moulton: Do you know how many people a year die as a result of not heeding the warning in Genesis 2:17? The statistics are not hard to come by.
(09:55:04 PM) Moulton: And this is not theology I am speaking of. This is scientific sociology.
(09:55:25 PM) Moulton: The theology got there first, but science has since caught up.
(09:55:36 PM) mikeu: are you suggesting that i will die if "do not head the warning" ?
(09:56:04 PM) Moulton: There is a statistical increase in deaths from not heeding the warning.
(09:56:14 PM) Moulton: Do you know what the statistic is?
(09:56:17 PM) mikeu: 21:54 mikeu you need to stop contacting me
(09:56:56 PM) Moulton: You need to stop disrupting the learning process. It's unbecoming, unseemly, unscholarly, and unethical to disrupt the learning process.
(09:57:35 PM) Moulton: You may not like the lessons, but they are not fictitious or mythical. They are well-grounded in science.
(09:58:34 PM) mikeu: stop contacting me
(09:58:45 PM) Moulton: The lessons may, at one time, have originated in unscientific stories, but the modern science cannot be ignored.
(09:59:10 PM) mikeu: "stop contacting me" is all I have to say to you
(09:59:13 PM) Moulton: Stop disrupting the human learning process. It is arrogant of you to disrupt the learning of others.
(09:59:47 PM) Moulton: As long as you arrogantly interfere with the learning process, the world will contact you and beseech you to discontinue the practice of disrupting learning.
(10:00:42 PM) Moulton: If you want me to leave you alone, Mike, you have to get out of the way of scientific discovery learning.
(10:01:43 PM) Moulton: If you can't stand the science, go back to fairy tale worlds.
(10:03:21 PM) Moulton: I expect Wikiversity, a 501(c)(3) enterprise, to support the mission of education, not interfere with it and disrupt it.



Notice how Mike manifests a mix of fear, ignorance, mistrust, and lack of empathy. That's the toxic cocktail he received from Jimbo. And that toxic cocktail is not healthy.

When someone with that toxic cocktail also exercise political power over others, the result is known by another word that really does appear in the text of Genesis 2:17.

The combination of political power along with fear, ignorance, mistrust, and lack of empathy is called Evil in that ancient text.

There is little anyone can do about Mike's fear, ignorance, mistrust, and lack of empathy. Those are his issues to struggle with. But he ought not to have political power over others whilst in the grips of that toxic cocktail.

Posted by: UseOnceAndDestroy

If some kook popped up on my screen and starting blurting clumsy mock-biblicals about death at me, I might be rather creeped-out too. Those lines couldn't be better designed to trigger meaningless melodrama.

Posted by: thekohser

Oh, come off it, UOAD.

It's a slight modification of a Bible verse, which Moulton was using as an analogy (knowledge of civility for knowledge of good and evil), and this dopey Mike actually DENIES TWICE that it's even in the Bible! It sounds to me like he's about 16 years old.



And the King James version sayeth:



Jesus Christ, save us from these feeble-minded children who not only contribute to Wikipedia, but RULE it with their oppressive tools. They can't even properly spell "careful".

Greg

Posted by: UseOnceAndDestroy

I wasn't disputing the source of the words or the fecklessness of the wikikid.

I do dispute the characterization as "fear, ignorance, mistrust, and lack of empathy", and later "Evil" - when all I notice is a fairly predictable response to some baiting with an incongruous copy-n-paste.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

What I am uncomfortable with, is given that Dopey Mike has explicitly said that this slightly creepy phrasing (which quote doesn't actually work as the bible seems to be saying "stay ignorant - it's good for you in the long term.") the character Moulton deliberately does not seek to allay any concerns. It's a bit of a silly game for the character Moulton to be made to play. It is in character, goading people into persecuting the Moulton character.

Barry's role-playing games became tiresome some time ago, and I am quite happy to assume it is my inferior intellect that means I just don't see the higher purpose, but it also concerns me that these games of ambiguity do not reflect well on WR. In my personal view, the Moulton character is walking a very fine line, and I'm not sure he has a good sense of balance.

Posted by: thekohser

Getting half of Boston blocked from editing Wikipedia for a couple of hours -- higher purpose. Perhaps Wikipediots will begin to understand that massive blocking is inherently in conflict with the encyclopedia "anyone can edit". They should do away with one or the other.

Oh, wait... it's not actually an encyclopedia. It's a revenge platform. Thus, Moulton's just playing according to the design. So, what's the problem?

Posted by: dogbiscuit

I am aware that Moulton points out the inconsistencies and holes in how Wikipedia works. I am simply not a fan of taking to the low ground to do it. When I get to the point that I think, I don't like how he was treated, but I can understand why they did it and I would do the same" then the experiment fails, in my book. It's all a bit "Please don't poke the bear, it will attack." Let's see what happens if I poke it. Oh, it attacked. So what? I mean, its a bit like big game hunting in London Zoo.

Posted by: Moulton

Actually, the passage doesn't say to remain totally ignorant of the concept of Good and Evil. What the passage hints at (but doesn't come out and say in plain math) is that Good and Evil are two extremes of a continuous axis, and that dividing all acts into just those two labels does violence to the mathematical concept of gradations and degrees.

We can excuse the authors of those ancient texts for not suggesting the adoption of a continuously differentiable http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/disjunction-dysfunction-and-the-error/3iyoslgwsp412/13#, as Archimedes, Newton, and Leibniz hadn't quite gotten around to inventing the Calculus yet.


The line I'm sauntering is the one mapped out in the gracefully divine http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/disjunction-dysfunction-and-the-error/3iyoslgwsp412/13#.


The problem is the same one faced by Moses, Socrates, Buddha, Lao Tsu, Hillel, Jesus, Beckett, Galileo, Darwin, Thoreau, Gandhi, King, Mandela, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama.

The problem is how to get more Wikimedians to think as insightfully as NewYorkBrad and Alison.


Merely pointing out the dysfunctionality is rather futile, don't you think? Why do you suppose Socrates and Jesus elected to act out their dramas rather than just point out the problems in a brief essay posted on their dusty blogs?

Galileo did try writing a Socratic dialogue. The Pope threw him in the hoosegow anyway.

If I were as gifted as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mark Twain, or JK Rowling, I'd just write yet another version of the same novel.

Alas I suck at storycraft and dramaturgy.

Which is why I appreciate how terribly important it is.

Posted by: Kato

What? That problem when your feudal, theocratic dictatorship that impoverished millions is taken from you, and you spend the rest of your life being funded by American propagandists and courting celebrities, to try and get it back?

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

All that proves is that WP doesn't live up to its own hype. It's like going all out to prove fast-food burgers don't look like what's shown in the ads. Big deal.

Posted by: Somey

Once again, Moulton, you're deliberately and purposefully using obfuscation, deception, cherry-picking, and largely-meaningless jargon to evade the key issue.

You know very goddamn well that the person you were "chatting" with wouldn't have known the Bible well enough to assume that you weren't trying to creep him out, or even threaten him, with that reference to "death" - but you did it anyway. And yes, this does reflect badly on us for tolerating you while you do things like this. You don't even get to argue that point, it's not for you to decide.

Getting yourself banned over there, whether it be on WV, WP, IRC, or TIAA/CREF, doesn't mean you get a pass over here, Moulton. If you're going to play games with these people, don't try to use WR as your personal scoreboard, or you'll find that the plug will be pulled very quickly.

Posted by: Moulton

Salmon, Salmon, everywhere. Nor any Cop to think.

I guess that makes us even.

I'm supposed to be such a hot-shit educator and I can't even get a http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Requests_for_Deletion&diff=prev&oldid=340186 to recognize a http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Requests_for_Deletion&action=history at reprising http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Moulton/Albatross.

Posted by: thekohser

The Wikipedia sign says, "This bear is actually quite docile, and it has been trained to not attack most people who poke it, so if you should decide to poke the bear, please do so with the grain of salt that not all trained bears are perfect on every given day. If you should, on the small chance, be attacked by the bear (either having poked it, or not having poked it), the Zoo is not responsible for the bear's actions, and you most likely deserved to be attacked, whether you actually poked the bear or not."

Moulton (and I, and Jon Awbrey, and Kato, and JohnA, and any of many others) seems to be saying, "Please change your sign. It's misleading and irresponsible, and too many people have been mauled by this bear of yours."

Posted by: the fieryangel

Count me in on that list too!

Posted by: dogbiscuit

Fair comment. I just see this particular effort as on a par with PETA and breast milk. It makes a point, sure; it highlights an issue; but eeeeew!

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

I used to think it was accidental; that he did it because he's outside his area of expertise and isn't good with people. It's become increasingly apparent that it's intentional.

Posted by: Rootology

He does it because when anyone does successfully challenge Moulton, if he ever even begins to concede defeat, his own entire Po-Mo Theater of the Absurd will collapse like a house of cards. When I ran into him on the Wikiversity IRC and called him out on it, after I was unable to get a straight answer, he did absolutely every last thing in his power to avoid providing a straight answer. He did the same thing to Jimmy Wales when Jimmy went into IRC on Wikiversity (those IRC logs that Moulton then published here). Evasion allows Moulton to continue his game, which is all it is now.

It doesn't benefit Wikipedia Review, because as Somey says, this message board is now just being used as a public scoreboard venue for Moulton to still tweak the noses of the people he "lost" to on Wikipedia. If Moulton loses the venue of Wikipedia review, he's essentially out of a game--no one that he wants to have hear his message will just arbitrarily go his dozen websites.

Wikipedia Review, as many are fond of saying about Wikipedia, shouldn't be a giant revenge platform.

Posted by: dogbiscuit

Remember that Moulton is one of his online characters, who plays the role of a researcher, experimenting. Part of those experiments are carried out on WR as well as Wikipedia. Much as the Moulton character complains that he did not ask to be the foil for Wikipedia's juvenile games, I don't remember signing a consent form for being a part of his games either.

If I sound aggrieved, it is only my current cold-induced crotchetiness. I'm not particularly put out by this little episode; I was more put out by some of his earlier shenanigans which strongly suggested that his blitzing this board was part of a game or experiment - that WR was being used for some personal aim at the expense of the rest of the users. This was not the character that I enjoyed, even though he was a little idiosyncratic. That's why my tolerance levels are low, regardless of the ills visited upon him.

Posted by: Moulton

At least my objectives are posted openly (and have been for over a year).

What were the objectives of M. Baxter, who had considerably more influence than me on this board and on Wikimedia projects?

Posted by: Rootology

What objective? To play with us?

Why are you unwilling to ever debate any of these issues without playing by your own rules? Do you have acute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome#Characteristics? I'm asking seriously--you're acting like a textbook Aspie that I know, behaviorally.



Who cares. Are you incapable of not redirecting and evading?

Somey, just ban him if he won't stop playing Wikimuck with all of us.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Me too.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Howsabout:

Jon

Posted by: Moulton

My http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Objectives have been posted for well over a year.

Here they are again, for the mouse-click impaired...


If you wish to learn through the medium of play, I am prepared to employ play-based methods of science education.


Rules? What rules? I don't believe in rules (except when playing board games). I believe in functions, because they are more functional than rules.

See http://underground.musenet.org:8080/utnebury/oasis.html.


Those who were bamboozled by him care.

Posted by: Rootology

You: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)



And we come to the crux of it. You are better than us. You know more than us. You are a special butterfly, floating above the rules and social norms of society, be they Wikipedia, Wikipedia Review, or anything else. Good luck with that worldview. You've just become functionally irrelevant and of little use, and I can't honestly see you ever getting back into Wikipedia, which you clearly so very, very, very badly want.






Being that I was one of the most heavily bamboozled, and I no longer care myself, it's a moot point. He's no more relevant or useful to our online societies than you yourself are now. I'm sure someone who is in the Revenge Business will probably slam me for this, but fuck it. You're devolving yourself into a useless joke of what you pretended to be. Good luck with that.

Paging Somey.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

This i something I have a big problem with here on WR. LOADS of you (and probably me too) could be accused of being Aspie or Schizoid (having our own little preoccupations that we go on at lenghty about in language others might not understand). I can't understnad half of the comments being made on here half the time. Why- because I'm stupid? Er- probably not. My last IQ measured 145, I'm an a academic ya-ya-ya. But some of you (especially the WP paramours)- you go on an on about this and that, and you sound odd. And I know that my own field of specialist knowledge is looked down on and I'm seen to 'go on' by some, and seem odd (oh yes- and 'emotional' too- but then I am a woman- and a fighting mother at that!).

So- does this mean we should ALL be banned, because -well why? Cos others like to speculatively psychoanalyse and fancy they know all about our mental statuses (or should that be stati?) and only the sane (as judged by, say, Rootology) can stay? Because loads of people 'play games' by resorting to shameless logical fallacies like the variations of the ad hominem or red herring ('you're a dick' and 'death comments in the bible scared me' drama two recent examples) just to get the last word - so if Moulton is deemed to be 'playing games'- what about the rest of us (or you?) Because some people make statements that mean no sense to others? There'd have to be a mass cull.

And I didn't join WR to play Wikimuck. I find Wikipedia and its ways to be excrutiating and demoralising. I think it needs careful scrutiny from political and academic standpoints because of the ways it impedes, with adverse effects, on the 'realworld'. So perhaps I should be banned too. But i thought WR was for that sort of thing. Was I mistaken?

Either way- whatever my own opinion of Moulton's comments - likely we've all got opinions of others here. Here's a suggestion - Why don't we NOT go to Somey with banning demands?

Posted by: Rootology

The idea of a mass cull of the stupid population wouldn't offend even my delicate liberal sensibilities some days.

The simple points of this entire discussion are 1) Moulton thinks he's better than everyone else--he's not 2) it's clear that some people simply are railing here a year or more after they were booted from WP that really just want to get back "in".

It's not that hard. Don't act like an asshole, and just ask nicely and sincerely.

Posted by: Emperor

Pathetic? Assanine? Accurate retort?

AWESOME!!!

Posted by: Moulton

Oh come off it. People have been doing mathematics for thousands of years. Archimedes had the Calculus two millenia before Leibniz and Newton. Lagrange and Poincare had the roots of Chaos Theory long before Edward Lorenz came up with his special butterfly function. And Augustine of Hippo had a credible analysis of the failure of rule-based systems well before any mathematicians put his ideas onto a rigorous technical footing. This is hardly graduate level material. It's been in the literature, both with and without mathematical underpinnings, for some 3500 years. You would think that an encyclopedist would know this kind of fundamental material.

Posted by: Rootology

And more nonsense and evasion. Will your own Po Mo Theater end if Somey takes your final tiny stage from you?

Posted by: thekohser

Then there's people who just can't let the "simple points" reiterate themselves to the corner of irrelevancy. They have to jump up and down on them, crying about the unfairness of it all. Then they have to really act like an asshole and declare who wants "in" to their club.

Thanks, Root. I wish you could advance yourself to the higher plane of "I'm going to put this person on Ignore before I have an aneurysm", but you seem blinded to that possibility.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Groan. OK- the 'simple points' are that you and a few other wikipedia lovers THINK Moulton thinks he's better that everyone else; that you and a few other wikipedia lovers THINK "it's clear that some people simply are railing here a year or more after they were booted from WP that really just want to get back "in"- just because you have an apparent investment in wikipedia: oh yes, and from my point of view, the level of ad hominem attack and other logical fallacies from Wikipedia lovers on their own site and now here is becoming a tidal wave ('arsehole,' dick', what next? nicompoop? I don't think I have the strength...) and has rendered rational debate impossible. Whereas I often don't agree with Moulton, and his cultural references might mystify me or I might be slightly irritated at times - which doesn't make Moulton 'bad' just because MY response might occasionally be so - he's not stooping to ad hominem attack.

All this "It's not that hard. Don't act like an asshole, and just ask nicely and sincerely." That's a classic wikipedian ad hominem trait as well (and rather Jimbo-ish: I've seen that sort of demand written in a similar way before from him). You're accusing me of being incivil basically, and I think it's to divert attention from WHAT I've said, which REALLY offends you, not the way I've allegedly said it. Calling you on YOUR comments has got your goat, even though it was perfectly reasonable of me to do so, riddled as they were with problems as previously delineated.

Posted by: UseOnceAndDestroy

And the progress made toward those "objectives" through tagging the hapless wikidrone as "Evil" is....none at all. Especially not the first one.

It would be fair to guess there's a real objective that isn't on this list at all.

Posted by: Rootology

There ARE some people that were legitimately driven off of Wikipedia for acting like total unrepentant douchebags, who then turn up here claiming they're going for some noble goal, or that they're the victims of Some Great Wrong That Should Be Made Right, but then still end up basically using Wikipedia Review 95% of the time as the giant revenge platform which they claim that Wikipedia is.

If you've really got that 145 IQ (to go with my 135 IQ, the last time I was tested when I was in high school) please don't ascribe what I said to all users, and please don't put words in my mouth or accuse of me of flinging around ad hominems and logical fallacies or being something that equates to "filthy wiki-insider". I was pushed out of Wikipedia far earlier than many of the people that washed up here, and I *did* ask nicely, expecting nothing, and am back on there. If someone really wants to actually do something, it's possible. It just means putting your penis (or I suppose vagina) back in ones' pants and not insisting on constantly slapping others with it.

Moulton's entire purpose since the Picard article is basically secured against the forces of evil seems to be to see how much he can piss up KillerChihuaha, Filll, OrangeMarlin, Jimbo, and everyone else that had the temerity to treat his Preciousness like a normal person rather than the entitled little shit he thinks he is.

And Greg, no, but no. It's time all the fucking bitchy primadonnas on both side get knocked down a peg. Fuck Moulton's agenda, and sorry, but you're constant needling of Guy is just as childish and immature as the now extremely sporadic needling you get on Wikipedia.

Posted by: Neil

Tar pit?

Posted by: Rootology

Only if Moulton goes head first.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

I'm sorry Rootology- what on earth are you talking about? Penises and Vaginas escaping pants and slapping people? (How does a vagina actually DO that?) Little shits? Douchebags? I've put words in your mouth? Primadonnas? This is sounding more and more like a rant and therefore cannot be taken seriously. You STILL haven't successfully argued anything - all we can ascertain is you don't like Moulton.

But you do write like someone who has an investment in Wikipedia (personal, emotional, intellecutal- I don't know). It's not ad hominem for that to be pointed out, as it DOES affect how this whole 'argument' is being constructed. Some of us DON'T have that investment- it makes our terms of reference somewhat different to yours, and the large amount of others with similar investments who seem to have turned up- so of course it's going to be commented upon.

I was looking for evidence about Moulton's behaviour that warranted all this reaction (I'm not Moulton's groupie thank you very much- no offence Moulton)- and THIS is has been the most elusive thing- again, extended disco versions of how bad he is- can't find the actual reasons- apart from personal dislike of his style of writing. Now this whole 'debate' is probably going into the tarpit because- I dunno- the liberal use of obscenity in place of rationally set out premise?

Posted by: Neil

Rooty, I like you normally, but you may want read your own signature and go for a walk or something; you are abnormally flustered.

Posted by: Moulton

I do have other goals, outside of the scope of Wikipedia (but not outside the scope of the http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission).

Here is my own http://underground.musenet.org:8080/orenda/ from the Orenda Project:

Posted by: Somey

Posted by: Neil

Is mocking Moulton more or less childish than blocking him? Discuss.

Posted by: Somey

More, and certainly more visible in the short term as well, but we also have to make it clear that we're not letting Moulton continue to post here because we actually take him seriously, or subscribe to any of his quasi-academic notions of how online communities should operate.

I mean, I could have just said that outright, but I've always found that direct statements are a bit less effective than sarcasm.

Posted by: mikeu

I apologize for the ad hominem attacks that I've made.

-mikeu

Posted by: Moulton

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Inherit_the_Windmills

When it comes to quixotic quests, perhaps none is more http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2007/06/loss-of-traction-and-intractability.html than nudging a hopelessly dysfunctional system in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokononism direction of enlightenment.

A year ago, Dave Souza had http://austringer.net/wp/index.php/2007/06/27/augustines-ghost/#comment-113416 me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo, who is notable for having introduced the term "Original Sin" into the conversation. Of course, being a systems scientist rather than a theologian, I'm more inclined to analyze ''http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/the-first-book-of-system-design/3iyoslgwsp412/15'' rather than reckon anything as mortifying as "Original Sin." Still, it occurred to me that Augustine might have been on to something, so I took a closer look at what he was blathering on about with all of that godspeak.

Turns out a few of those pioneering oligarchs (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi, among others) had introduced a tragic logic error into their calculus. Rather than call it "Original Sin," I'd rather call it "Hammurabi's Original Logic Error" or "Humankind's Original Logic Error." Either way, the acronym comes out http://www.google.com/search?q=HOLE+Hammurabi+%22Original+Logic+Error%22, so that one can smile and say that those who embrace their flawed paradigm have a HOLE in their head.

But I digress. It's difficult to do peer-reviewed original research in the field of http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/disjunction-dysfunction-and-the-error/3iyoslgwsp412/13#, so one is obliged to follow the lead of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco. Eco said, "Whereof we cannot make a theory, we must tell a story instead." And I say, even if we ''can'' make a theory, we damn well better present it as a story anyway, since theory tends to make most people's eyes glaze over. Alas, I suck at http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/cognition-affect-and-learning/3iyoslgwsp412/2#H5-The-Bardic-Arts, which is why I like to hang out around http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Moulton/Montana_Mouse. Mebbe some of their gift will rub off on me someday.

Meanwhile, I struggle with a compromise somewhere between http://underground.musenet.org:8080/utnebury and http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2008/09/ring-of-neener-bomb.html. I figure it can only get better, cuz it can't get much worse.

The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down

Midi: http://ultra.musenet.org:8020/media/nighttheydroveolddixiedown.mid

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Moulton/Barsoom_Tork is my name, and I rode on the paintball train,
Til so much rivalry came and tore up the tracks again.
In the fall of skandalon, we were rollin, just trollin for bait.
I took the train to Wiki, that hell, it was a time I remember, oh so well.

The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the people were stingin'.
They went
Na,
Na, na, na, na, na,
Blah, blah, buh blah,
Buh blah blah, blah blah

Back with SBJ at Epiphany, and one day he said to me,
"Moulton, quick, come see, a-there goes http://wc1.musenet.org/WebX?14@@.1de2d928/924 on a spree!"
Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if Jimbo's no good.
Just take what ya need and efface the rest,
But they should never have wiped out the very best.

The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the people were stingin'.
They went
Na,
Na, na, na, na, na,
Blah, blah, buh blah,
Buh blah blah, blah blah

Like my father before me, I'm a working man,
And like http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey before me, I took a rebel stand.
Well, he was just pissed off, proud and brave,
But the http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jimbo_Wales laid him in his grave,
I swear by the verse below my feet,
You can't raise the Torkel back up when it's in defeat.

The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Moulton Down, and all the people were stingin'.
They went
Na,
Na, na, na, na, na,
Blah, blah, buh blah,
Buh blah blah, blah blah

CopyClef 2007-2008 Joan Baez and Barsoom Tork Associates.

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Moulton 01:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Well, I don't think Moulton is bad as much as annoying and counter-productive in most cases. His arrogance is the main reason he's lost most of his allies at WV. Up until recently, I have described myself as http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Learning_from_conflict_and_incivility/Sxeptomaniac&oldid=325816, but that's ended.

Moulton has demonstrated that he can not move beyond his self-centered obsession with getting back at those who he feels wronged him on WP, and, in the process, being recognized as "right". He states what would be reasonable goals, but does not act on them. He makes creative excuses for his bad behavior in seeking revenge, but those excuses do not stand up to scrutiny, so he has been increasingly dishonest with those who point out that his behavior does not mesh with his stated goals. I can start working through links if you really want them, but it would take some time, as he tends to do little things to test the limits of what he can get away with, rather than clearly and blatantly cross the line.

Posted by: Moulton

Please support the above thesis, H1, with solid evidence, sound reasoning, and coherent analysis, and then kindly submit it to scholarly peer review in accordance with the protocols of http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Scholarly_ethics.

What experiments have you done (or propose to do) to falsify H1, in accordance with the protocols of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Method of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis?

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

I was expecting you to post the same old nonsense. I've adjusted my "thesis" regarding you in the past, and will do so again if you prove me wrong. However, you're not going to do that by making http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Requests_for_Deletion&diff=340771&oldid=340606 for your behavior. Come on, that article doesn't describe anything remotely close to what you're doing.

Posted by: Moulton

Science doesn't work that way, Sxeptomaniac. Your name implies skepticism. In science, one treats every thesis with healthy skepticism — especially one's own pet theories. And then a diligent and conscientious scientist tries like the devil to disprove his hypothesis. What experiments have you done, per the protocols of the scientific method, to falsify your thesis?

Without that exercise, Sxeptomaniac, your thesis sinks like a millstone for lack of evidence, analysis, and reasoning.

Posted by: Moulton

I accept your apology, Mike.

But please note that binding, gagging, kicking, and locking someone up in the janitorial hall closet is also an ad hominem (or is it ad avatarum?) attack.

Have you decided yet to stand down from your hostile actions against me?

Specifically, have you decided yet to stand down from this action (on my Wikiversity talk page) rather than respond to questions about it:


More than one day has elapsed. Where is the review, Mike?

I urge you, for your own emotional well-being, Mike, to eschew and discontinue the sociopathic practice of engaging in non-consensual acts of bondage, discipline, kicking, and gagging of authentic scholars affiliated with well-established institutions of higher learning. I do not appreciate being treated as if I were one of Jimbo's Bomis Boyz™ fetish objects.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Well even what you've said here is remarkably vague. I dunno- maybe if, like me (and it appears, Moulton in the past), you've had all sorts of **** slung at you (false accusations to the point of defamation which can ruin you in the real world, misrepresenting your position - with the same possible effect, locking out, deliberate gerrymandering, the odd veiled obscenity, ad hominem ad hominem ad hominem ) on wikipedia - AND IT'S BEEN DEEMED PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR by 'the community' - you can't help wondering what terrible things Moulton has been doing to generate the responses he has (as the bar has apparently been set so high!)

But evidence of these heinous wrongdoings are still not forthcoming.

Which leads me to believe that we're dealing with a case of the same old same old at Wikipedia (whether it's WV or whatever) - power games, preciousness, a MASSIVE difficulty in sustaining rational debate and a tendency to resort to logical fallacy (a common problem with all discourses maybe- but one which appears to have become magnified on Wikipedia due probably to the influence of certain key people and their ways- it seems to have become part of the culture there).

I cannot understand why Moulton would even want to continue engaging with WP in any of its forms, frankly. But he does, it appears, like many of you. He seems to think Wikipedia can be 'fixed'. I would completely disagree, and could write my own thesis on why (as could a number of us on here, I suspect.) It looks increasingly that Moulton irritates people by his trains of thought and style of writing- but THIS IS NOT WRONGDOING per se, and could apply to many of us.

I remain sceptical as to the extent of his 'wrongdoings' because the bar for 'bad' behaviour remains so high on Wikipedia. Unless Moulton is engaging in misrepresenting others's arguments, engaging in various other ad hominem fallacies against people, defaming, calling people names, inciting others to attack people or gang up to suppress their contribution, deliberate gerrymandering, using the system to gain power over others, the case against him looks weak.

Posted by: Moulton

If you meet the Buddha in Cyberspace, off him.

There isn't any case against me, just as there was no case against Socrates, Archimedes, Jesus, Becket, Galileo, Darwin, Lavoisier, Galois, Thoreau, Gandhi, or King.

Given how easy it was for the community of the day to take down those luminaries (who made profoundly substantive contributions to the advance of civilization), is there any mystery about how easy it is for 21st century cyberspace characters in animal costumes to repeat the same hoary old script in the banal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show of the Internet?

Of course they are gonna take me down any way they can. Why wouldn't they? It's the oldest script in the annals of human history. Just ask Rene Girard, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, or Salman Rushdie.

It's just a banal reprise of the script of the Passion Play, a drama that reruns endlessly down through the ages.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Scapegoat+drama date back some 4000 years, and arise primarily because of a systemic flaw in the architecture of civilization itself — a flaw introduced when humans first began to plant crops and herd cattle and sheep some 10,000 years ago. The organizational flaw has long been recognized and remarked about. The oldest remark about it that I know of is found in Genesis 2:17 (although that early diagnosis understandably fails to suggest a better remedial practice).

Today, we have better insights into the solution to the original flaw in the architecture of human culture, but there is still no known way to explain it to the public, because it requires a college level education in mathematics to appreciate it.

And we all know how much math teachers are reviled.

When I was a grad student at Stanford, one of the http://www.google.com/search?q=Stanford+math+professor+Karel+deLeeuw+murdered.

It was a shocking occurence, but it reminded me that it is customary in human culture to murder our best teachers.

I'm hardly the best science educator on the net. I'm well-known for being hopelessly inept at promoting science in cyberspace.

All the more reason for them to wipe out http://newscafe.ansci.usu.edu/~bkort/Moulton.Parody.txt.

So why not? Cats have nine lives, but http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Moulton/Caprice has way more than that.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

I'm a little confused as to what you're accusing me of. You seem to be conflating Moulton's problems at WP with his at WV. I know I'm not the only one that felt he was treated unfairly during his original experience on WP, but condemn his behavior on WV.

Look, I'm not interested in power games. I just work on a few projects now and then because it interests me. All I want is for people not to make that more difficult than necessary, and will support the ability for others to do the same (within reason). I tried to help Moulton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Moulton#Outside_view_by_Sxeptomaniac. As a result of opposing those editors and associating with Moulton, I've been http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Sceptre,_Sxeptomaniac,_SirFozzie,_B&oldid=218462540 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=215599183#Guettarda_refuses_to_retract_offensive_personal_attack.

I attempted to help him on WP, but that doesn't mean I was going to unconditionally support him in his attempt to turn the WV Ethics project into a platform for a feud. Take, for example, his supposed "case study", in which http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_Ethics/Case_Studies1&oldid=307545#Case_4_.E2.80.94_Concordances.2C_Dossiers.2C_Scathing_Indictments.2C_and_Ethics, complete with a hyperbolic reference to Kristalnacht. That's not what case studies are for. I agreed that it should be removed as inappropriate for the project, and http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moulton&diff=329891&oldid=329860 when Moulton complained. However, Moulton continued to complain about my removal without giving a single reason why it should be considered a case study after all.

Perhaps you'd like a couple of examples of how Moulton played power games himself? It seems he was perfectly fine with http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Request_custodian_action/Review_of_JWSchmidt#Case_34:_Partnership_with_User:Moulton and http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Request_custodian_action/Review_of_JWSchmidt#Case_33:_Inappropriate_use_of_the_Wikiversity_IRC_channel.

Posted by: Moulton

It's not about helping me. It's about fixing the system that chews people up and spits them out. Such systems are hardly unique. They are ubiquitous in human culture.

What's interesting about cyberspace cultures (especially Wikis) is that there is a fairly complete historical record that can be studied to diagnose what is going haywire. What annoys me is when someone (who may well be haywire themselves) comes along and "frags" the study or oversights crucial portions of it.

When it comes to power, there is but one kind of power I recognize, and that is the power of knowledge. Knowledge is free for the taking by anyone and everyone. It warms the cockles of my heart when people acquire authentic knowledge, well-grounded in the scientific method of knowledge construction. It disturbs me when people seek political power (over the affairs of others) whilst in a state of obliviousness, mistrust, apprehension, anxiety, and antipathy. I challenged the editors of IDCab precisely because they sought to exercise political power whilst propagating trivially disprovable falsehoods about a hundred scientists, academics, and researchers. So they sought to bind, gag, marginalize, silence, and block me. What else is new? That kind of shenanigans has been going on since the dawn of recorded history. Why should Wikipedia be any different?

What fascinates me is the unsolved problem of introducing ethical practices into human culture. Aesop tried to do that with his simple fables. Moses tried to do that with his Ten Commandments. Hillel and Jesus tried to do that with their innovative teaching methods. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, and CS Lewis tried to do with their novels. I'm engaging with online cultures to see whether there is a shred of hope for humankind on the Ethics Frontier.

Today at MIT, http://www.google.com/search?q=Dan+Ariely gave a talk. Much of it was about his research on cheating. It was a long talk and he covered a lot of ground, but one disturbing conclusion emerged at the end. According to Dan, there is a fraction of the population who are unethical to the point of sociopathy, and there is no known practice for redeeming them. And yet they consistently rise to positions of power and influence in our culture.

Posted by: Proabivouac

There is something very fishy about this purported translation.

Posted by: Moulton

Please see http://www.orendaconnections.com/aboutus_name.php, which has adopted both the name and the philosophy of Orenda. That's the origin of the interpretation I have long used for the Orenda Project.

Posted by: Angela Kennedy

Whoa there! I haven't accused YOU of anything. I've said why the WHOLE case against Moulton looks weak. You've provided rambling diffs it would take me far too long to read- what are the actual EXAMPLES of ad hominem, 'lies', using power abusviely etc. I referred to in my earlier post?

Verbosity and hyperbole cannot form part of this case of wrongdoing- as I said before, there'd have to be a mass cull if this was the case (and you and I would be in the queue to get offed- as well as most of WR, WP and Guardian Journalists, to name just a few).

Moulton- please don't think I'm sitting in judgement of you either- I don't like how this is turning into somewhat of a witch-hunt against you frankly.

And just to be clear- I AM talking about the sitch at WV- which is part of the WMF, is it not? There's a whole new potential thread that could be formed on whether a Jim Wales venture (even an ostensible 'academic' one) is going to run into the same problems as WP per se in terms of culture and power games in the production of knowledge- a ubiquitous problem, yes: but as we have seen before, Wikipedia projects have specific problems in these areas.

Posted by: Moulton

Unkenschnupfen

Over on Wikiversity, JWSchmidt has likened the rantings of others there to a McCarthy era "red scare" — which had also been compared to the "witch hunts" of American Colonial History.

Since I've lived in Boston for the past 20 years, I've been to the historic sites in Salem where the Witch Trials took place. Their significance in American history is not lost on me. And while I was only a youth when Senator Joseph McCarthy was on his anti-communist tirade in the 1950s, the lessons of that shameful passage in American History are still fresh in my mind.

On Wikiversity, I've called for a http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Moulton#Scholarly_Peer_Review_of_Managerial_Practices_Demonstrated_in_the_singular_contributions_of_Jimbo_Wales introduced there by Cary Bass and Jimbo Wales, in contravention of fundamental principles of an academic culture.

Perhaps the practice of blocking good faith editors on Wikipedia is too deeply entrenched in the culture there to question the propriety of that bizarre regulatory practice, but Wikiversity is a different matter and a different culture.

To my mind, it is sophomorish and tacky to be binding, gagging, kicking, and locking up academic faculty and visiting scholars in the janitorial hall closet whilst skipping out on the authentic educational lessons at hand.

I urge people to take a closer look at Wikiversity, because I believe it exposes the seamy underbelly and Achilles heel of the Bomis Boyzâ„¢ B&D Culture that Jimbo built.

Posted by: Sxeptomaniac

Yeah the diffs are long long and rambling. That's exactly why I wasn't thrilled about digging through things. You're requesting evidence of behavior that has little to do with why Moulton was blocked from WV, despite Jimbo's misleading "incivility" reason when the block was placed. Moulton did attack editors a few times using real names, but most of those were oversighted, so I can't link to them. However, those were really more of the straws that broke the camel's back, rather than the sum total of the reason for the block.

You and I apparently have different ideas about what constitutes problem behavior. You list a few specific behaviors, while I've given a principle. Moulton was abusing the project for his own purposes, and refused to moderate his rather obnoxious behavior. That's why he was blocked. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Centaur_of_attention was blocked for pretty much the same reasons.

Posted by: Random832

Her contention seems to be that while others get away with things that are worse, nobody should be blocked for such "lesser" offenses as Moulton.

Posted by: Somey

I should probably state that while I agree with Sxeptomaniac's position, as well as Rootology's, about Moulton's recent behavior, there are a few things that aren't being stated here, and they really should be.

The main one is that, quite simply, "Wikiversity" is a terrible idea that should never even have been conceived of in the first place. It's a far, far worse idea than Wikipedia; everything about it is just wrong, wrong, wrong. I wouldn't even know where to begin. I'd also like to point out that I recognized this almost immediately, even going so far as to http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Uncycloversity:Main_Page, and nothing I've seen since has given me the slightest reason to think I was wrong in my initial assumptions.

In addition, most of the "sub-projects" of the WMF, such as Wikiversity, are much less populated with dedicated/committed editors than Wikipedia. The number of WV admins is what, 20 or so? It's much easier for someone with energy, determination, and lots of time on their hands to dominate a smaller site, particularly since MediaWiki gives admins so few effective tools to deal with people who do those kinds of things. As I've stated many times, even relatively low-tech boardware like the system we use here on WR has vastly greater capability for protecting itself against people like Moulton than any MediaWiki-based site has. It isn't even close! What all this ultimately means, IMO, is that the people running Wikiversity are likely to be incredibly frustrated when presented with the sort of personal and logistical challenge that Moulton represents.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that Moulton's activities on Wikiversity may actually be the sort of "necessary evil" that's required to (eventually?) help turn Wikiversity into the ghost-town it deserves to be, but that's obviously hard cheese on the people who participate there in "good faith" - many of whom are the sort of decent, well-meaning, perhaps-even-altruistic folks that make up roughly half of the Wikipedia community. But (in case you wanted more cliches) if Wikipedia is trying to make stone soup, Wikiversity is trying to make a silk purse out of a really ugly sow's ear.

That doesn't mean Moulton has to come to WR and broadcast a play-by-play of everything he's doing to make those peoples' online lives miserable, though. That's the part I really object to, in case I hadn't made that clear enough from the outset.

Posted by: Moulton

Do you then agree that Jimbo's charge of "incivility" was bogus?


I did refer to KillerChihuahua by her real name. How is that an attack? I called upon her to abide by the http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Scholarly_ethics when editing within the http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Ethics#Learning_Ethics_in_Online_Media. Reminding a new editor at Wikiversity of the applicable protocols for scholarly studies is hardly an attack.


The purpose of the project was to introduce the principles of ethical reasoning, and to demonstrate the application of ethical reasoning to authentic ethical conundrums as they arise from time to time in WMF-sponsored projects.

Do you consider the construction of educational resources related to Media Ethics, and constructing innovative solutions to real-time ethical conundrums to be "obnoxious behavior"?