Dirty tricks cabal or just idle talk? Options

[carbuncle]

There are some strong accusations being thrown out about members of a certain closed mailing list.

Concentrated stalking and attacks against Russavia

Yesterday a member of a closed e-mail list named "Wikipediametric" forwarded me their archive asking me to do something about it. Out of the 3000+ emails more than a half is filled with discussion how "to get" and "attack" Russavia. Among the suggested methods were stalking Russavia edits, carefully crafted edit warring (making sure that no member of the group would make more than one or two reverts), low level personal attacks designed to engineer civility blocks for Russavia's responses, block shopping, attempts to out Russavia. "Friends of Russavia", particular User:PasswordUsername, User:Offliner, User:YMB29 as well as User:Anonimu were also under similar attack. The group was also discussing ways to plant their own checkusers, methods of creating sockpuppets untraceable by checkusering, etc. So far I have not found a single discussion or even kudos for creating noncontroversial wiki content but long series of joy on every block for the people listed as their enemies, particular Russavia. They specifically discussed how to nurture special relations with Sandstein and use them to block their enemies. Among the most active members are User:Digwuren, User:Biophys, User:Piotrus, User:Molobo, User:Radeksz. The emails are almost certainly genuine. It looks like for at list half a year Russavia was a target of constant coordinated attacks by a group of active wikipedians quite skillful in the art of achieving victory by banning their opponents. I am not sure he was aware of this particular group but the editing history of articles touched by Russavia is quite telling by itself. I do not think it is in the project best interest to let them succeed.

I am not sure what to do about this archive. I will forward it to the Arbcom and I could provide it to any administrator I trust. I would not give it to nonadmins (including Russavia himself) or anybody else (unless the authors give me permissions) as it contain a significant amount of personal information that might be abused. Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

This post has been edited by carbuncle:

[LaraLove]

And the plot thickens. Some Wikipedians are dropping bricks from their bums today, I bet.

Someone grab the popcorn. This, my friends, should be a good show. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/popcorn.gif)

[MBisanz]

It would appear that Arbcom finds that there is at least a colorable claim to the allegations: WP:AC/N#Eastern European mailing list.

This post has been edited by MBisanz:

[Nja247]

I say let there be full disclosure and then let the community decide.

[thekohser]

Here is the full disclosure:

Wikipedia is a multi-player role-playing game, disguised as an encyclopedia. Anyone who seems shocked or disturbed when this truth is empirically revealed has either lost the game or is feigning their shock or distress.

[LaraLove]

I say let there be full disclosure and then let the community decide.

No. Personal information need not be released like that. However, I agree with whoever suggested that certain emails be posted with personal information and email addresses removed. It was also suggested names be removed, but that's just silly.

If admins were participating in these threads and plotting to attack or harass an editor, the evidence should be presented and they should be desysopped. Past that, community discussion should take place with the incriminating emails (personal info removed) released to determine what actions should be taken otherwise, up to bannings.

I don't recognize most of the names in this drama, so I don't remember who posted and I don't care to go find it now, but one of the accused said he does not give permission for anything he said on the list to be revealed. Period. Then went into some legal bullshit and crybaby whining about how things were said with the expectation that they would remain private. Boo hoo. Good job at admitting guilt, though.

[No one of consequence]

I say let there be full disclosure and then let the community decide.

No. Personal information need not be released like that. However, I agree with whoever suggested that certain emails be posted with personal information and email addresses removed. It was also suggested names be removed, but that's just silly.

If admins were participating in these threads and plotting to attack or harass an editor, the evidence should be presented and they should be desysopped. Past that, community discussion should take place with the incriminating emails (personal info removed) released to determine what actions should be taken otherwise, up to bannings.

I don't recognize most of the names in this drama, so I don't remember who posted and I don't care to go find it now, but one of the accused said he does not give permission for anything he said on the list to be revealed. Period. Then went into some legal bullshit and crybaby whining about how things were said with the expectation that they would remain private. Boo hoo. Good job at admitting guilt, though.

If there really are 3000 emails it would be pretty impractical to release a redacted copy and not make any mistakes. If this ends up being the evidence used for permanent desyopping and sanctions, I would like to see disclosure and discussion of redacted examples as part of Arbcom's formal decision.

Folks shouldn't hold their breath, though. This could take a while.

[carbuncle]

I say let there be full disclosure and then let the community decide.

No. Personal information need not be released like that. However, I agree with whoever suggested that certain emails be posted with personal information and email addresses removed. It was also suggested names be removed, but that's just silly.

If admins were participating in these threads and plotting to attack or harass an editor, the evidence should be presented and they should be desysopped. Past that, community discussion should take place with the incriminating emails (personal info removed) released to determine what actions should be taken otherwise, up to bannings.

I don't recognize most of the names in this drama, so I don't remember who posted and I don't care to go find it now, but one of the accused said he does not give permission for anything he said on the list to be revealed. Period. Then went into some legal bullshit and crybaby whining about how things were said with the expectation that they would remain private. Boo hoo. Good job at admitting guilt, though.

Releasing partially redacted info would certainly give people something to occupy themselves with, but as Piotrus says "Russavia was not that often discussed" and "list contains a ton of private information" and "the group archive was hacked" and the real villain will not "hesitate to adjust their 'evidence' to make it more appealing" and people on the list made "comments would prefer they don't get back to people with admin/arbcom power" and "it is inherently impossible to judge whether the alleged archive is real or not ". Obviously the only thing to do is deleted these fake, hacked, personal, compromising, yet still fake, emails and forget about the whole thing.

This post has been edited by carbuncle:

[LaraLove]

If there really are 3000 emails it would be pretty impractical to release a redacted copy and not make any mistakes. If this ends up being the evidence used for permanent desyopping and sanctions, I would like to see disclosure and discussion of redacted examples as part of Arbcom's formal decision.

Folks shouldn't hold their breath, though. This could take a while.

No, no. Not the whole archive. I mean certain emails. The most damning. This way the community knows what went on.

Releasing them all would be... well, it reminds me of when Kelly Martin was releasing early ArbCom-l emails individually. I forget who it was, but someone described it best as "intensely boring." It would probably be much like that to go through them all.

Releasing partially redacted info would certainly give people something to occupy themselves with, but as Piotrus says "Russavia was not that often discussed" and "list contains a ton of private information" and "the group archive was hacked" and the real villain will not "hesitate to adjust their 'evidence' to make it more appealing" and people on the list made "comments would prefer they don't get back to people with admin/arbcom power" and "it is inherently impossible to judge whether the alleged archive is real or not ". Obviously the only thing to do is deleted these fake, hacked, personal, compromising, yet still fake, emails and forget about the whole thing.

Are you one of the accused? If not, your AGF is staggering.

[carbuncle]

Releasing partially redacted info would certainly give people something to occupy themselves with, but as Piotrus says "Russavia was not that often discussed" and "list contains a ton of private information" and "the group archive was hacked" and the real villain will not "hesitate to adjust their 'evidence' to make it more appealing" and people on the list made "comments would prefer they don't get back to people with admin/arbcom power" and "it is inherently impossible to judge whether the alleged archive is real or not ". Obviously the only thing to do is deleted these fake, hacked, personal, compromising, yet still fake, emails and forget about the whole thing.

Are you one of the accused? If not, your AGF is staggering.

I'm practising up for my RFA. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[Somey]

So, has anyone attempted to make sense of the underlying dispute here? It looks like Russavia (T-C-L-K-R-D) is Russian and pro-Putin, and to some extent pro-Serbia (in line with the traditional Russian support of Serbia), whereas the people on the mailing list in question are... anti-Russia? Or just anti-Putin, or against pro-Russian attempts to whitewash Soviet history? Piotrus claims to be from Poland, and went to the University of Pittsburgh, so that would tend to reinforce that notion (i.e., he's likely to have a Western-influenced view of Soviet history).

Most of Russavia's edits are "wikignoming," adding categories and some rather unfortunate mass-stubbings of politician BLP's and the like, but I saw a few diffs in there like this one, the likes of which apparently led some of these mailing-list folks to accuse him of being a "neo-Nazi."

Sooo.... putting their tactics aside for the moment, I can't say I blame these mailing-list folks all that much for their dislike of Mr. Russavia. Then again, it's probably also true that a lot of the Russia-bashing that occurs on WP in general is unfair and inaccurate. Hence the problem, eh?

[Cla68]

So, has anyone attempted to make sense of the underlying dispute here? It looks like Russavia (T-C-L-K-R-D) is Russian and pro-Putin, and to some extent pro-Serbia (in line with the traditional Russian support of Serbia), whereas the people on the mailing list in question are... anti-Russia? Or just anti-Putin, or against pro-Russian attempts to whitewash Soviet history? Piotrus claims to be from Poland, and went to the University of Pittsburgh, so that would tend to reinforce that notion (i.e., he's likely to have a Western-influenced view of Soviet history).

Most of Russavia's edits are "wikignoming," adding categories and some rather unfortunate mass-stubbings of politician BLP's and the like, but I saw a few diffs in there like this one, the likes of which apparently led some of these mailing-list folks to accuse him of being a "neo-Nazi."

Sooo.... putting their tactics aside for the moment, I can't say I blame these mailing-list folks all that much for their dislike of Mr. Russavia. Then again, it's probably also true that a lot of the Russia-bashing that occurs on WP in general is unfair and inaccurate. Hence the problem, eh?

The Russia vs Poland vs Serbia vs Georgia vs Chechnya vs Azerbaijan vs Armenia vs the Bolshoi vs everything else related is one of the most ridiculously adversarial areas in Wikipedia.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Moulton]

The Russia vs Poland vs Serbia vs Georgia vs Chechnya vs Azerbaijan vs Armenia vs the Bolshoi vs everything else related is one of the most ridiculously adversarial areas in Wikipedia.

Ridiculous, if Wikipeida were an academically grounded encyclopedia. But not so ridiculous if Wikipedia were an MMPORG inhabited by rival gangs of players.

[Backslashforwardslash]

So, has anyone attempted to make sense of the underlying dispute here? It looks like Russavia (T-C-L-K-R-D) is Russian and pro-Putin, and to some extent pro-Serbia (in line with the traditional Russian support of Serbia), whereas the people on the mailing list in question are... anti-Russia?

He's Australian, but that doesn't mean he hasn't got Russian heritage.

This post has been edited by Backslashforwardslash:

[LaraLove]

The Russia vs Poland vs Serbia vs Georgia vs Chechnya vs Azerbaijan vs Armenia vs the Bolshoi vs everything else related is one of the most ridiculously adversarial areas in Wikipedia.

Ridiculous, if Wikipeida were an academically grounded encyclopedia. But not so ridiculous if Wikipedia were an MMPORG inhabited by rival gangs of players.

Yes, we get it. Game. Gangs. Players. MMPORG. Leveling up. We got it, Moulton. We got it.

[Cla68]

A case has been opened.

[Nevo]

So, has anyone attempted to make sense of the underlying dispute here? It looks like Russavia (T-C-L-K-R-D) is Russian and pro-Putin, and to some extent pro-Serbia (in line with the traditional Russian support of Serbia), whereas the people on the mailing list in question are... anti-Russia? Or just anti-Putin, or against pro-Russian attempts to whitewash Soviet history? Piotrus claims to be from Poland, and went to the University of Pittsburgh, so that would tend to reinforce that notion (i.e., he's likely to have a Western-influenced view of Soviet history).

Most of Russavia's edits are "wikignoming," adding categories and some rather unfortunate mass-stubbings of politician BLP's and the like, but I saw a few diffs in there like this one, the likes of which apparently led some of these mailing-list folks to accuse him of being a "neo-Nazi."

Sooo.... putting their tactics aside for the moment, I can't say I blame these mailing-list folks all that much for their dislike of Mr. Russavia. Then again, it's probably also true that a lot of the Russia-bashing that occurs on WP in general is unfair and inaccurate. Hence the problem, eh?

Oh, common! Russians got the whole state behind them with internet brigades and Historical Truth commissions funded by the Kremlin. If someone needed that badly to gang up against them, there was a reason why they couldn't be dealt with otherwise.

[EricBarbour]

FWIW, Russavia and some of Russavia's opponents have gained infamy
for idiotic editwarring over articles related to Russia and the Baltics.

Digwuren can claim this mess as his very own. A lousy Arbcom decision, if I did say so myself.

(Oddly, WR people thought Piotrus was a good guy, earlier this year. A guy
pushing a pro-Polish POV, in apparent violation of WP rules, is a good guy? Really?)

As Everyking said 2 years ago:

East European political articles, particularly regarding the Soviet era, are infested with extreme nationalism, Russophobia, and history distorted to the point of comedy. The worst ones I've seen pertain to the Baltic states. From what I've seen, it is not a case of warring POVs nearly so much as it is one POV exercising almost absolute control.

This makes one wonder: are there other mailing lists that assholes use to
secretly coordinate slimy attacks on their WP opponents??.........
golly, isn't this familiar sounding???.......... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

(And I notice they were talking about the mailing list contents being posted online
somewhere, openly readable by all. Wonder where. Yeah, I'm a sickie.)

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[victim of censorship]

FWIW, Russavia and some of Russavia's opponents have gained infamy
for idiotic editwarring over articles related to Russia and the Baltics.

Digwuren can claim this mess as his very own. A lousy Arbcom decision, if I did say so myself.

(Oddly, WR people thought Piotrus was a good guy, earlier this year. A guy
pushing a pro-Polish POV, in apparent violation of WP rules, is a good guy? Really?)

As Everyking said 2 years ago:

East European political articles, particularly regarding the Soviet era, are infested with extreme nationalism, Russophobia, and history distorted to the point of comedy. The worst ones I've seen pertain to the Baltic states. From what I've seen, it is not a case of warring POVs nearly so much as it is one POV exercising almost absolute control.

This makes one wonder: are there other mailing lists that assholes use to
secretly coordinate slimy attacks on their WP opponents??.........
golly, isn't this familiar sounding???.......... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

(And I notice they were talking about the mailing list contents being posted online
somewhere, openly readable by all. Wonder where. Yeah, I'm a sickie.)

You mean, an attack like this?
(IMG:http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/7455/wikifish.jpg)

[MBisanz]

So, has anyone attempted to make sense of the underlying dispute here? It looks like Russavia (T-C-L-K-R-D) is Russian and pro-Putin, and to some extent pro-Serbia (in line with the traditional Russian support of Serbia), whereas the people on the mailing list in question are... anti-Russia? Or just anti-Putin, or against pro-Russian attempts to whitewash Soviet history? Piotrus claims to be from Poland, and went to the University of Pittsburgh, so that would tend to reinforce that notion (i.e., he's likely to have a Western-influenced view of Soviet history).

Most of Russavia's edits are "wikignoming," adding categories and some rather unfortunate mass-stubbings of politician BLP's and the like, but I saw a few diffs in there like this one, the likes of which apparently led some of these mailing-list folks to accuse him of being a "neo-Nazi."

Sooo.... putting their tactics aside for the moment, I can't say I blame these mailing-list folks all that much for their dislike of Mr. Russavia. Then again, it's probably also true that a lot of the Russia-bashing that occurs on WP in general is unfair and inaccurate. Hence the problem, eh?

This is one of the long running trends I have seen. Basically there is an unreasonable editor pushing a POV or some other wiki-crime. But the other side facing them wants so complete a POV victory and lacks the range of skills of debate required to show the POV pusher is wrong, that they resort to the heavy handed tactics documented in so many cases (Cold Fusion, WMC-Abd, JzG-Abd, Homeopathy, etc).

I would imagine 90% of the people in this forum are closer to "the house's" view of Scientology than the COFS' view of its own religion, but objected to the way in which "the house" handled the cases over the years.

So I would not be surprised at all to learn that Russavia has an extreme POV or that he is pushing a POV. Just that his opposition couldn't articulate it to the satisfaction of the community and turned to these alleged mailing list shenanigans to accomplish the same result.

[GlassBeadGame]

The Russia vs Poland vs Serbia vs Georgia vs Chechnya vs Azerbaijan vs Armenia vs the Bolshoi vs everything else related is one of the most ridiculously adversarial areas in Wikipedia.

Ridiculous, if Wikipeida were an academically grounded encyclopedia. But not so ridiculous if Wikipedia were an MMPORG inhabited by rival gangs of players.

Yes, we get it. Game. Gangs. Players. MMPORG. Leveling up. We got it, Moulton. We got it.

Not really, if you "got it" you would leave. Not try to improve it, quietly work on articles, cut back on your editing or make the best of a bad situation. You would leave. It is not a trivial criticism if you really understand it. Any honest criticism can only be made from outside.

[Abd]

This is one of the long running trends I have seen. Basically there is an unreasonable editor pushing a POV or some other wiki-crime. But the other side facing them wants so complete a POV victory and lacks the range of skills of debate required to show the POV pusher is wrong, that they resort to the heavy handed tactics documented in so many cases (Cold Fusion, WMC-Abd, JzG-Abd, Homeopathy, etc).

Right. Alternative explanation: The "House" is wrong, i.e., the minority view is better supported in the sources. And to resolve this (which is it?) takes actually finding consensus, it can't be fixed by right/wrong judgments, blocks and bans. One of the most pernicious concepts invented is "Civil POV-pusher," because it leads to sanctions for proper behavior, based on an alleged "agenda." ArbComm has fallen into this trap a number of times, and I've only reviewed relatively few cases. People with a POV can be expected to "push" it, and if they are experts, it's normal that they will push hard, because experts tend to have a strong POV, they didn't invest years in study and developing experience for nothing! An editor who actually researches an article, becoming very knowledgeable on a topic (though perhaps still being short of "expert,"), has made a decision that the topic is worth the time, and that points to one of two likely motives: passionate opposition or passionate support, the "I just like being knowledgeable" position is more rare and haphazard.

What happens is that someone who becomes passionate on the minority side gets banned, much more rarely someone on the majority side, it's natural to the politics of it. Minor misbehavior on one side results in blocks and bans, it takes truly spectacular misbehavior on the majority side to end up with the same. That creates a serious systemic bias. Majority POV-pushing, which can generally be accomplished without blatant rule violations, is, in the end, more dangerous to neutrality than minority POV-pushing, because the latter is much more easily restrained.

[Jim]

Not really, if you "got it" you would leave. Not try to improve it, quietly work on articles, cut back on your editing or make the best of a bad situation. You would leave. It is not a trivial criticism if you really understand it. Any honest criticism can only be made from outside.

See, that's true wisdom.

You can't criticise the rules of a game you're playing, while you're playing it, while you've repeatedly accepted those rules, and continue to play them.

.... and expect anyone to take you seriously.

Get outside the game and criticiise from there - you're pretty well placed for that.

This post has been edited by Jim:

[LaraLove]

Ridiculous, if Wikipeida were an academically grounded encyclopedia. But not so ridiculous if Wikipedia were an MMPORG inhabited by rival gangs of players.

Yes, we get it. Game. Gangs. Players. MMPORG. Leveling up. We got it, Moulton. We got it.

Not really, if you "got it" you would leave. Not try to improve it, quietly work on articles, cut back on your editing or make the best of a bad situation. You would leave. It is not a trivial criticism if you really understand it. Any honest criticism can only be made from outside.

Blah, blah, blah.

I was saying that we get Moulton's view. GBG. I'll choose to loathe Wikipedia in my own way, kthx.

[Jim]

I was saying that we get Moulton's view. GBG. I'll choose to loathe Wikipedia in my own way, kthx.

Can I loathe it in my own way, and still appreciate the extra ways you've offered ?

Just asking...

[Friday]

The Russia vs Poland vs Serbia vs Georgia vs Chechnya vs Azerbaijan vs Armenia vs the Bolshoi vs everything else related is one of the most ridiculously adversarial areas in Wikipedia.

Ridiculous, if Wikipeida were an academically grounded encyclopedia. But not so ridiculous if Wikipedia were an MMPORG inhabited by rival gangs of players.

Yes, we get it. Game. Gangs. Players. MMPORG. Leveling up. We got it, Moulton. We got it.

Not really, if you "got it" you would leave. Not try to improve it, quietly work on articles, cut back on your editing or make the best of a bad situation. You would leave. It is not a trivial criticism if you really understand it. Any honest criticism can only be made from outside.

I don't buy this at all. There are any number of people who attempt criticism from the inside. Whether it's accomplishing anything or not, is of course debatable. But the same exact thing can be said of the criticism from the outside.

[LaraLove]

I was saying that we get Moulton's view. GBG. I'll choose to loathe Wikipedia in my own way, kthx.

Can I loathe it in my own way, and still appreciate the extra ways you've offered ?

Just asking...

You surely can, but rest assured I won't spout my ways off in every other thread.

[Moulton]

There are any number of people who attempt criticism from the inside. Whether it's accomplishing anything or not, is of course debatable. But the same exact thing can be said of the criticism from the outside.

Constructive criticism, analysis, diagnosis, and proposed remedies have been offered both inside and outside.

When it's done on the inside, it generally precipitates a warlike response, including transparent attempts to dismiss, marginalize, silence, or eject the critic. External reviews have the advantage that they are unlikely to be summarily erased by overzealous defenders of the wiki. At best, Jimbo and his minions can attempt to suppress references to such external reviews from within Wiki projects.

[Friday]

There are any number of people who attempt criticism from the inside. Whether it's accomplishing anything or not, is of course debatable. But the same exact thing can be said of the criticism from the outside.

Constructive criticism, analysis, diagnosis, and proposed remedies have been offered both inside and outside.

When it's done on the inside, it generally precipitates a warlike response, including transparent attempts to dismiss, marginalize, silence, or eject the critic. External reviews have the advantage that they are unlikely to be summarily erased by overzealous defenders of the wiki. At best, Jimbo and his minions can attempt to suppress references to such external reviews from within Wiki projects.

I mostly agree.. altho I would suggest that this means more criticism from the inside is a good thing. The more people engage in these transparent attempts to dismiss or silence the criticism, the more unreasonable they make themselves look. Eventually, it'll become fairly clear to most people what's going on. That's my (probably naive) perspective, anyway.

It's also worth pointing out that someone on the "inside" is not necessarily an "insider". I've been around the Wiki for a couple years, but I doubt anyone would consider me an insider.

[Cedric]

There are any number of people who attempt criticism from the inside. Whether it's accomplishing anything or not, is of course debatable. But the same exact thing can be said of the criticism from the outside.

Constructive criticism, analysis, diagnosis, and proposed remedies have been offered both inside and outside.

When it's done on the inside, it generally precipitates a warlike response, including transparent attempts to dismiss, marginalize, silence, or eject the critic. External reviews have the advantage that they are unlikely to be summarily erased by overzealous defenders of the wiki. At best, Jimbo and his minions can attempt to suppress references to such external reviews from within Wiki projects.

I mostly agree.. altho I would suggest that this means more criticism from the inside is a good thing. The more people engage in these transparent attempts to dismiss or silence the criticism, the more unreasonable they make themselves look. Eventually, it'll become fairly clear to most people what's going on. That's my (probably naive) perspective, anyway.

Correct. You are being naive, in that many people figured out years ago what is really going on, but nothing of consequence changes.

[Kelly Martin]

This is one of the long running trends I have seen. Basically there is an unreasonable editor pushing a POV or some other wiki-crime. But the other side facing them wants so complete a POV victory and lacks the range of skills of debate required to show the POV pusher is wrong, that they resort to the heavy handed tactics documented in so many cases (Cold Fusion, WMC-Abd, JzG-Abd, Homeopathy, etc).

I would imagine 90% of the people in this forum are closer to "the house's" view of Scientology than the COFS' view of its own religion, but objected to the way in which "the house" handled the cases over the years.

So I would not be surprised at all to learn that Russavia has an extreme POV or that he is pushing a POV. Just that his opposition couldn't articulate it to the satisfaction of the community and turned to these alleged mailing list shenanigans to accomplish the same result.

How many times have I said that Wikipedia is largely inhabited by people motivated by a desire to forward an ideology? Virtually all conflicts are either ideological clashes between issue champions, or stupid interpersonal squabbles. (And many of those that appear to be the latter end up being just personalizations of the former.)

[One]

How many times have I said that Wikipedia is largely inhabited by people motivated by a desire to forward an ideology? Virtually all conflicts are either ideological clashes between issue champions, or stupid interpersonal squabbles. (And many of those that appear to be the latter end up being just personalizations of the former.)

True, as always. Non-ideological editors aren't motivated enough to fight these conflicts; they just move on to other subjects where they aren't harassed.

[TungstenCarbide]

It would appear that Arbcom finds that there is at least a colorable claim to the allegations: WP:AC/N#Eastern European mailing list.

Looks like someone included Ikip as an involved party - though there doesn't seem to be any reason why. Not only can Ikip put on a great arbcom case but I suspect he can deviously funny when the mood strikes; "you arbs are so helpful"

[One]

It would appear that Arbcom finds that there is at least a colorable claim to the allegations: WP:AC/N#Eastern European mailing list.

Looks like someone included Ikip as an involved party - though there doesn't seem to be any reason why. Not only can Ikip put on a great arbcom case but I suspect he can deviously funny when the mood strikes; "you arbs are so helpful"

Everyone mentioned at ANI was listed as a party. It's a very rough list, and I have not doubt that he will be removed from it very soon. That said, I'm sure that he would produce a good independent evidence section if he were so inclined.

[MBisanz]

It would appear that Arbcom finds that there is at least a colorable claim to the allegations: WP:AC/N#Eastern European mailing list.

Looks like someone included Ikip as an involved party - though there doesn't seem to be any reason why. Not only can Ikip put on a great arbcom case but I suspect he can deviously funny when the mood strikes; "you arbs are so helpful"

Regardless of why he was added (I don't know either), it really doesn't matter who is actually on that list, other than to let people know when looking back at a later date who the biggest issues were with (personal opinion preceding). More pointedly, if someone is involved in an area and is lucky enough to not be named, and subsequently arbcom passes one of those broad "all are admonished"/"parties restricted"/general sanctions and the person not named goes around flaunting their luck by violating the sanctions, they are basically taking their editing life into their own hands.

[Cla68]

I would imagine 90% of the people in this forum are closer to "the house's" view of Scientology than the COFS' view of its own religion, but objected to the way in which "the house" handled the cases over the years.

That goes for me. I actually agreed with the IDCab that the Intelligent Design theory was a bunch of hooey but I just couldn't abide the bullying tactics they were using.

[don fugazi]

Regardless of why he was added (I don't know either) ...

Possibly purely because of his interest in things Eastern European via his sockpuppet account User:Odessaukrain

[Moulton]

I actually agreed with the IDCab that the Intelligent Design theory was a bunch of hooey but I just couldn't abide the bullying tactics they were using.

The practices of IDCab were so atrocious, I found it necessary to lampoon them with atrocious song parodies.

[Lar]

I actually agreed with the IDCab that the Intelligent Design theory was a bunch of hooey but I just couldn't abide the bullying tactics they were using.

The practices of IDCab were so atrocious, I found it necessary to lampoon them with atrocious song parodies.

That worked really well.

[Moulton]

I actually agreed with the IDCab that the Intelligent Design theory was a bunch of hooey but I just couldn't abide the bullying tactics they were using.

The practices of IDCab were so atrocious, I found it necessary to lampoon them with atrocious song parodies.

That worked really well.

Hey, it got Jimbo's attention. He not only came to Wikiversity to shut it down on behalf of IDCab, he personally contacted me about one of the parodies I had posted on my personal blog. It was the one that lampooned Filll. That was before FeloniousMonk got smacked down by ArbCom for egregious abuse of power. But it demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt where Jimbo's loyalties and machinations were aligned.

[Jim]

I was saying that we get Moulton's view. GBG. I'll choose to loathe Wikipedia in my own way, kthx.

Can I loathe it in my own way, and still appreciate the extra ways you've offered ?

Just asking...

You surely can, but rest assured I won't spout my ways off in every other thread.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

I'll try not to spout mine off either.

[Casliber]

How many times have I said that Wikipedia is largely inhabited by people motivated by a desire to forward an ideology? Virtually all conflicts are either ideological clashes between issue champions, or stupid interpersonal squabbles. (And many of those that appear to be the latter end up being just personalizations of the former.)

What I do wonder though, if across Wikipedia (and considering how the disputes parallel RL), and are there any cases of quite severe ones IRL that are relatively quiet on wikipedia...

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

The Russia vs Poland vs ... vs ... vs ... vs ... vs Armenia vs the Bolshoi ... is one of the most ridiculously adversarial areas in Wikipedia.

Bloody hell ... I know I have been away for a few weeks but what have the Armenians got against Ballerinas!?!

Ladders in my pantyhose or not, I am going to take sides with the Armanian cabal against the Ermenegildo Zegnians.

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy:

[Cla68]

MBisanz says that the emails have been posted online somewhere. Does anyone have the link?

[Mathsci]

MBisanz says that the emails have been posted online somewhere. Does anyone have the link?

Isn't it enough to know that the mailing list is entitled Wikipediametric?

[carbuncle]

MBisanz says that the emails have been posted online somewhere. Does anyone have the link?

The archive seems to have made its way to Wikileaks, which is oddly appropriate. I won't post the direct link here to avoid any more on-wiki criticism of WR.

[Cla68]

MBisanz says that the emails have been posted online somewhere. Does anyone have the link?

Isn't it enough to know that the mailing list is entitled Wikipediametric?

Thank you Mathsci, that did it. If those emails are genuine, and they appear to be, then they are extremely damning. Many of them are along the lines of, "Could someone go to History of Latvia and revert so-and-so? I've already used two reverts today. So-and-so editor is trying to tone down the criticism of the Tsars and needs to be stopped."

If ArbCom determines that the emails are genuine and matches them up with on-wiki actions, then I hope they ban the lot, with prejudice.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[tarantino]

FWIW, Russavia and some of Russavia's opponents have gained infamy
for idiotic editwarring over articles related to Russia and the Baltics.

Digwuren can claim this mess as his very own. A lousy Arbcom decision, if I did say so myself.

You called it Eric. The mailing list is run from wikipedometer.net, a domain owned by the Estonian Andres Soolo, also known as Digwuren.

http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIsVerify.aspx?do...prog_id=godaddy
http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIsVerify.aspx?do...prog_id=godaddy

[carbuncle]

FWIW, Russavia and some of Russavia's opponents have gained infamy
for idiotic editwarring over articles related to Russia and the Baltics.

Digwuren can claim this mess as his very own. A lousy Arbcom decision, if I did say so myself.

You called it Eric. The mailing list is run from wikipedometer.net, a domain owned by the Estonian Andres Soolo, also known as Digwuren.

http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIsVerify.aspx?do...prog_id=godaddy
http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIsVerify.aspx?do...prog_id=godaddy

Wiki pedo meter? I think we could use one of those...

[Apathetic]

What a sordid mess

[No one of consequence]

Thank you Mathsci, that did it. If those emails are genuine, and they appear to be, then they are extremely damning. Many of them are along the lines of, "Could someone go to History of Latvia and revert so-and-so? I've already used two reverts today. So-and-so editor is trying to tone down the criticism of the Tsars and needs to be stopped."

If ArbCom determines that the emails are genuine and matches them up with on-wiki actions, then I hope they ban the lot, with prejudice.

FloNight said something about password sharing. Is this discussed in the emails? This would be another thing that could be verified (through checkuser).

Edit:
OK, Tymek has admitted to giving out his IP. That means the emails could have been sent through Tymek's account by anyone else on the list looking to be a whistleblower.

Besides Tymek, did any other editors share their passwords?

This post has been edited by No one of consequence:

[MBisanz]

Besides Tymek, did any other editors share their passwords?

Evidence_presented_by_MBisanz presents a very bizarre line of questioning that indicates it is possible others shared passwords.

[No one of consequence]

Besides Tymek, did any other editors share their passwords?

Evidence_presented_by_MBisanz presents a very bizarre line of questioning that indicates it is possible others shared passwords.

That made my head ache. You seem to be implying that Piotrus emailed you, something which he now denies?

[MBisanz]

Besides Tymek, did any other editors share their passwords?

Evidence_presented_by_MBisanz presents a very bizarre line of questioning that indicates it is possible others shared passwords.

That made my head ache. You seem to be implying that Piotrus emailed you, something which he now denies?

Well specifically I allege I had a conversation with him on IRC at 9:24PM June 25, 2009 and references in emails dated 12:26PM June 27, 2009 and 2:38PM June 29, 2009 to the secret mailing list imply he has had conversations of the nature of my conversation around that time and with me, and that all of those things sync up to the subject of his edits at the time on Wikipedia. All of those occurrences he apparently denies or was not in control of his accounts when they were done.

Also Thatcher you may want to check my email to you of 9:38PM June 25, 2009 for a more full context.

[No one of consequence]

Well specifically I allege I had a conversation with him on IRC at 9:24PM June 25, 2009 and references in emails dated 12:26PM June 27, 2009 and 2:38PM June 29, 2009 to the secret mailing list imply he has had conversations of the nature of my conversation around that time and with me, and that all of those things sync up to the subject of his edits at the time on Wikipedia. All of those occurrences he apparently denies or was not in control of his accounts when they were done.

Also Thatcher you may want to check my email to you of 9:38PM June 25, 2009 for a more full context.

I got it now. I don't think the overall accuracy of the mailing list messages is in question, I think the claim is that the archive was salted with messages that were faked or altered to make them more incriminating.

[One]

I got it now. I don't think the overall accuracy of the mailing list messages is in question, I think the claim is that the archive was salted with messages that were faked or altered to make them more incriminating.

Yeah, that's the possibility that's harder to rule out. One could take a thread (headers and all) which discusses the weather and turn it into a discussion of vote stacking techniques.

Meanwhile, Durova has offered to use her techniques to determine whether the incriminating parts of archive are authentic, and the list members have enthusiastically agreed.

[Random832]

I got it now. I don't think the overall accuracy of the mailing list messages is in question, I think the claim is that the archive was salted with messages that were faked or altered to make them more incriminating.

Translated: "We are certain that the archive contains incriminating material", right on the heels of attempts to prevent arbcom from receiving a copy at all.

[TungstenCarbide]

Meanwhile, Durova has offered to use her techniques to determine whether the incriminating parts of archive are authentic, and the list members have enthusiastically agreed.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/popcorn.gif)

[No one of consequence]

I got it now. I don't think the overall accuracy of the mailing list messages is in question, I think the claim is that the archive was salted with messages that were faked or altered to make them more incriminating.

Translated: "We are certain that the archive contains incriminating material", right on the heels of attempts to prevent arbcom from receiving a copy at all.

They certainly have been desperate the keep the archives under wraps. I don't envy Arbcom's job, though. Someone has to read all 3000+ messages, find the ones that sound incriminating, check for diffs, and check for exonerating context.

[TungstenCarbide]

They certainly have been desperate the keep the archives under wraps. I don't envy Arbcom's job, though. Someone has to read all 3000+ messages, find the ones that sound incriminating, check for diffs, and check for exonerating context.

There seems to be people who like to do this. Case in point, the arbcom case is only three days old and has generated some 60,000 words over the case pages alone.

[EricBarbour]

MBisanz says that the emails have been posted online somewhere. Does anyone have the link?

The archive seems to have made its way to Wikileaks, which is oddly appropriate. I won't post the direct link here to avoid any more on-wiki criticism of WR.

Doesn't bother me. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif)

(It was moved yesterday anyway. Warning, 10 megabytes of text, mostly header info.
You will not enjoy reading it.)

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[Cedric]

Meanwhile, Durova has offered to use her techniques to determine whether the incriminating parts of archive are authentic, and the list members have enthusiastically agreed.

But of course. What wiki-scandal can be complete without the input of Durova, the Gladys Kravitz of Wikipedia?

(IMG:http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/1436/kravitz.jpg)

"Abner! Abner!! Come and look!

Those East Europeans are making a mailing list again!"

[Abd]

I got it now. I don't think the overall accuracy of the mailing list messages is in question, I think the claim is that the archive was salted with messages that were faked or altered to make them more incriminating.

Yeah, that's the possibility that's harder to rule out. One could take a thread (headers and all) which discusses the weather and turn it into a discussion of vote stacking techniques.

If it were true that Wikipedia makes decisions, not by votes, but by cogency of argument, and with structures that made it so, there is only one difference that off-wiki coordination could make, and that is that the quality of discourse would increase.

The problem is, of course, that the house was built on sand. There is absolutely no process guaranteeing that decisions on article content are made neutrally, based on argument and policy. Two editors, if they can make their arguments appear at least somewhat reasonable, can out-edit one any day, and ten can out-edit five, or even more than ten, if the ten have higher motivation and some self-discipline, are better prepared than the other editors.

Now, ten editors can tag team a smaller number without any off-wiki coordination at all. Further, off-wiki coordination can be handled by email without any central lists that would be vulnerable to disclosure by a mole, all it takes is cellular organization, very easy to do. It can also be done by phone or IM.

In the end it's moot unless it reduces to on-wiki edits, and if there is no on-wiki misbehavior, it shouldn't be a problem. But it is a problem, of course. The same problem as exists, in fact, without off-wiki coordination. Wikipedia decision-making is highly vulnerable to crowd pressure. Further, the only difference between what is being asserted about the mailing list is that it apparently has a POV agenda. The same kind of list without that agenda could have the same kinds of messages: "Got a problem at article X, can someone look at it?" And if the scale is modest this would enhance Wikipedia quality. So in order to decide that the Sekrit Mailing List is Bad, we have to make some kind of POV decision: they they are not seeking fairness neutrality, they are seeking an unfair advantage for their POV. But to them that looks like neutrality, I'd bet, and what they get without such coordination is biased and unfair.

Delving into off-wiki communication and coordination is a slippery slope, and it leads to no good. If it turns into a battle, I can say, with confidence, who will lose, and it will be the wiki. There is no way to prevent off-wiki coordination. I suspected some level of off-wiki coordination with the Cab, but made no effort to assert it, because, under the best of conditions, it's nearly impossible to prove, so all I tried to show was a kind of involvement, and not a reprehensible involvement, in spite of the tons of BS dumped over the claim by Cab members and then by some who should have known better.

Indeed, the structural concepts I've proposed, and will continue to propose, harness off-wiki coordination and attempt to voluntarily document it on-wiki. All that is done by attacking off-wiki structures is to make them invisible, where they can do more damage. Instead of fighting cabals and factions, encourage them, foster them, awaken them, because awakened factions can become intelligent and can cooperate. Until one editor can negotiate consensus on behalf of many, taking the conclusions back to "members" who trust that editor, and who will then support it, it will continue to be impossible to resolve the issues that create disruption, over and over.

There will doubtless be editors who have such strong off-wiki agendas that they will not sign on to any consensus that respects and gives due weight to opposing positions. But this kind of stubborn intransigence becomes visible in careful consensus process, which proceeds by breaking down arguments into subquestions that become more and more specific and evidence-based, where it can become quite clear who is willing to agree on the time of day with the other side and who is not.

Without this kind of process running (and my attempted point in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley was that it's essential to NPOV, otherwise we have at best, majority point of view, and, often, worse than that where factions are either naturally or consciously coordinated), there is no hope other than setting up central decision-making structures, abandoning the wiki model. I think the wiki model is sound if the problems of scale are addressed with necessary -- and natural -- structures. Otherwise it is ochlocracy, with the well-known problems of undisciplined direct democracy, which was abandoned as unworkable long ago. Representative democracy has its problems, but it is a step up, in general. There is, however, a synthesis possible that is both representative and direct, and I know this puts some readers to sleep, except that, in fact, they are already asleep, this merely makes them dream that they are bored.

Meanwhile, Durova has offered to use her techniques to determine whether the incriminating parts of archive are authentic, and the list members have enthusiastically agreed.

Dangerous, because the forger may have taken precautions, anticipating such an investigation. Never bet that you are smarter than an opponent who has plenty of time to prepare!

Those off-wiki communications were written in expectation of privacy. That should be respected. However, there are serious charges of coordination and cooperation in non-legitimate behavior. The list is actually moot. Was the effect of a set of editors the promotion of a POV? If so, then it should be sanctionable, or at least subject to injunction, regardless of whether or not the editors intended it.

Evidence of on-wiki behavior that was noticed as a result of the mailing list contents should be usable in discussion of possible misbehavior, but the mailing list posts themselves should never be copied on-wiki, nor should they be entered in evidence. Basically, authenticity of the mail is moot. Consider it a very complicated and complex claim of improper behavior on-wiki, and do not allow that claim to be reinforced by assertion of off-wiki evidence.

With the Cab, I did not make that charge of reprehensibility and possible sanction for members, but it was to some extent implicit, and my hope was that RfAr would serve as a warning that continually pushing a POV and avoiding proper dispute resolution, which is quite what the Cab had been doing for years, could eventually lead to consequences, but only if continued, and probably only if continued flagrantly.

But ArbComm, beyond one or two, maybe three arbitrators, wouldn't even look at it. Well, they get to suffer through more, and I can kibbitz from the sidelines, carefree. You get what you pay for, and, my guess, there will be more and more. If evidence has been allowed to blossom like what has been said here, without any guidance from the Committee, the hope of making sound decisions will remain unfulfilled except by accident. Knee-jerk impressions are probably right more often than wrong. but, then again, they can be easily manipulated by those who know how. Knee-jerk impressions are fine for ordinary administrative actions, but not for appeal from those actions. Too often, Wikipedia simply substitutes a second knee-jerk for an independent investigation.

[One]

Now, ten editors can tag team a smaller number without any off-wiki coordination at all. Further, off-wiki coordination can be handled by email without any central lists that would be vulnerable to disclosure by a mole, all it takes is cellular organization, very easy to do. It can also be done by phone or IM.

I think this is true. Smaller groups could coordinate pretty well just by alertly watching each others' talk pages, and participating in the same debates along with occasional emails from person to person.

In the end it's moot unless it reduces to on-wiki edits, and if there is no on-wiki misbehavior, it shouldn't be a problem.

I completely agree.

[Abd]

But of course. What wiki-scandal can be complete without the input of Durova, the Gladys Kravitz of Wikipedia?

I have complete confidence that Durova would attempt to do a fair analysis. However, were I on ArbComm I would move to exclude all such evidence as founded upon behavior very much to be discouraged: disclosure of mail written with an expectation of privacy. Individual editors could waive this, but they should understand the risks. Such individual editors, if they want to allow disclosure of their mail, should immediately provide their own list archives, if they have them, in order to assert forgery. Bad idea. Can of worms. Hot potato. Drop it immediately!

(Most likely behavior for forger anticipating scrutiny: use actual mails with content altered. That way, headers all fit editor times. Study and use actual language of the editors. All that's needed, probably, is to tweak it a little, give it some extra spin. Countermeasure: members of the list who keep their own archives immediately (like yesterday!) provide their own archives, as many of them doing this as possible. Then the sets of message can be compared with on-wiki activity to *compare* relative likelihood of authenticity. A lot of work, folks. I'm not at all sure it's worth Durova's time. But she might think it fun, I know I might.)

ArbComm should worry about this kind of list disclosure, and should take as strong a position as possible to discourage it in the future. I have an archive of Wikien-L. How about I post it, with all the email addresses of all those who sent mails, full headers, which, of course, also give IP addresses for these editors. That could be useful, right? I used mail like this in the past to identify a supposedly anonymous IP editor, who had a huge COI, and who just happened to be editing Wikipedia at the same time as sending identified mail to the list. Even better than checkuser, the data doesn't expire!

Do what you choose, of course you will, but don't say that there was no warning. Allow no advantage to those who burrow into the confidence of others and then post what they become privileged to see.

[One]

I have complete confidence that Durova would attempt to do a fair analysis. However, were I on ArbComm I would move to exclude all such evidence as founded upon behavior very much to be discouraged: disclosure of mail written with an expectation of privacy. Individual editors could waive this, but they should understand the risks. Such individual editors, if they want to allow disclosure of their mail, should immediately provide their own list archives, if they have them, in order to assert forgery.

I thought this would have been an obvious response. If the "real" archive was sent almost immediately to ArbCom after the initial leak, there would seem to be little chance that it was a forgery. We might then naturally conclude that for any differences between the archives, that the rapidly-sent "real" archive was in fact the real archive. But no such "real" archive has been forthcoming, and with every passing hour it would seem more likely that one could have enough time to sanitize the emails.

Perhaps if someone on the list could break ranks and send the "true" copy to ArbCom now? Otherwise, it seems intuitively sensible to conclude that the list was not all sunshine and lollipops.

[No one of consequence]

Perhaps if someone on the list could break ranks and send the "true" copy to ArbCom now? Otherwise, it seems intuitively sensible to conclude that the list was not all sunshine and lollipops.

They say there isn't one, but check the footers of the messages.

[Milton Roe]

Meanwhile, Durova has offered to use her techniques to determine whether the incriminating parts of archive are authentic, and the list members have enthusiastically agreed.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)

Since Kato has been adamantly asserting that, save for a stint in the armed forces doing nothing special, that Durova has never worked for any orgazation more nefarious and clandestine than the Girl Scouts--- what could she possibly have to offer in the way of special "techniques" of textural analysis? Eh?

If you poke her in the eye with a lollipop, will she not cry? And if you blow sunshine up her ass, is she not as likely to fart rainbows as the next person? Tell me why not.

[One]

Perhaps if someone on the list could break ranks and send the "true" copy to ArbCom now? Otherwise, it seems intuitively sensible to conclude that the list was not all sunshine and lollipops.

They say there isn't one, but check the footers of the messages.

Even if there's none, a subscriber should be able to filter their email account and convert the messages into a suitable format. There are tutorials for doing that.

[No one of consequence]

Perhaps if someone on the list could break ranks and send the "true" copy to ArbCom now? Otherwise, it seems intuitively sensible to conclude that the list was not all sunshine and lollipops.

They say there isn't one, but check the footers of the messages.

Even if there's none, a subscriber should be able to filter their email account and convert the messages into a suitable format. There are tutorials for doing that.

Yes, but at this point they could easily leave out certain messages, or never have saved them in the first place. You could check for altered posts, perhaps, but not pure forgeries. And you could request such archives from multiple participants and compare them, but they have had ample time to coordinate a response. The time to capture a pristine copy of the archive has long passed, if it ever existed.

The list page advertises an archive but it could be unpopulated, or it could have been recently deleted. We may never know.

This post has been edited by No one of consequence:

[One]

Yes, but at this point they could easily leave out certain messages, or never have saved them in the first place. You could check for altered posts, perhaps, but not pure forgeries. And you could request such archives from multiple participants and compare them, but they have had ample time to coordinate a response. The time to capture a pristine copy of the archive has long passed, if it ever existed.

The list page advertises an archive but it could be unpopulated, or it could have been recently deleted. We may never know.

The number of messages is large. If we had gotten one yesterday, I would have been inclined to believe it. But you're right that the time has probably passed.

[Abd]

(It was moved yesterday anyway. Warning, 10 megabytes of text, mostly header info. You will not enjoy reading it.)

Fascinating, actually. Some comment about RfAr/Abd-William M. Connelley. No mention of me that I've seen so far. But they seem to have appreciated the result with WMC.

The discussions on the list read like a cooperative group of editors with some generally shared POV and agreement. I saw some stuff that might seem SHOCKING to some, but nothing outside what is routinely done, in fact, by the Cab, and I see, on wiki, far more uncivil description from Cab editors of their opponents. So far, most everything I've seen is quite mild, but I can easily see someone going over it with a fine-tooth comb, looking for whatever might SHOCK arbitrators and others. Like someone suggesting, just IM me if you need a revert.

I fail to see how this is really different from what the Cab does, most likely with watchlists of each other's talk pages, articles of interest, and a bit of contribution-monitoring. A bit more conscious, and the impression I got was not of attempting to warp content. A well-known editor asks for opinions about the reliability of a source. Lots of purely social or technical stuff. Seems like a nice group. May I join?

One thing I Did Not Like. A suggestion from one editor that others be "just a bit provocative" to provoke an perceived enemy into offenses. But there were plenty of advices to be "nice." And none of this should be on Wikipedia, and I'm deliberately avoiding naming any names here. Other than WMC, of course, who wasn't responsible for what they said about him. It was pretty much true, and, in fact, quite moderate, with some praise for him, and, as well, an understanding of the problem.

Whoever compromised that list should be found and sanctioned, if possible. May not be possible.

ArbComm should shut this thing down immediately. These people expected the conversations to be confined to a selected list, and they had a right for that expectation to be realized. I saw nothing on the list that was so totally outrageous that a member would be likely to say, "This has to be revealed." Much more likely, it was a mole. This looks to me like, not a hack job, but simply a private email archive from someone who subscribed and kept the mails. The files are in Outlook format. But, sure, it's possible someone's computer was hacked, which makes it positively illegal, not merely reprehensible.

What people say in conversations with each other, in a protected environment, can be quite different from what they would say in public, and it is not necessarily true that the private conversation reveals their "true nature." There can be shared meanings and understandings that an outsider wouldn't attach. For example, was the suggestion about being just a little provocative a serious one? How serious? Judging a conversation ripped out of its context is quite dangerous.

I see worse here on Wikipedia Review than that list. Much worse. The only thing assertable from the list is some kind of secret coordination, there is clearly a level of that. But crushing such isn't the answer, at all, it's like trying to prevent the tide from coming in. This stuff will happen with present structures, and probably will be a part of improved structures which would harness it and compensate for it. Trying to stop it is like trying to enforce something contrary to human nature. It simply irritates everyone.

[Cla68]

Now, ten editors can tag team a smaller number without any off-wiki coordination at all. Further, off-wiki coordination can be handled by email without any central lists that would be vulnerable to disclosure by a mole, all it takes is cellular organization, very easy to do. It can also be done by phone or IM.

I think this is true. Smaller groups could coordinate pretty well just by alertly watching each others' talk pages, and participating in the same debates along with occasional emails from person to person.

I think the Global Warming regulars do this. If you put the GW-related articles on your watchlist, which I did some time ago, you can easily see how it works. The US-based editors watch the articles until they go to bed, and then the UK-based-ones take over when they wake up. I see it on my watchlist around 1 p.m. Japan time when the UK editors are apparently waking up and checking their computers. Around that time you will often see a series of reverts to the GW articles as they delete edits that they apparently don't approve of. I doubt they need to communicate much by email with that system.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Kelly Martin]

There seems to be people who like to do this. Case in point, the arbcom case is only three days old and has generated some 60,000 words over the case pages alone.

Of course there are. Wikipedia naturally attracts junior detective types. Better to have them stalking about on Wikipedia than running around messing with people's real lives, I say.

[MBisanz]

There seems to be people who like to do this. Case in point, the arbcom case is only three days old and has generated some 60,000 words over the case pages alone.

Actually rather short compared to the recent cases. I think Date Delinking was well over 500,000 words and WMC-Abd also broke the 500,000 word count by my estimation.

[TungstenCarbide]

There seems to be people who like to do this. Case in point, the arbcom case is only three days old and has generated some 60,000 words over the case pages alone.

Actually rather short compared to the recent cases. I think Date Delinking was well over 500,000 words and WMC-Abd also broke the 500,000 word count by my estimation.

Well the Bible has 774,746 words. I wonder if there has been an arbcom case that broke a million?

[Appleby]

I have complete confidence that Durova would attempt to do a fair analysis.

!!

what could she possibly have to offer in the way of special "techniques" of textural analysis? Eh?

And how would examining the texture help?

No, I recommend that Durova's offer should be declined with thanks.

This post has been edited by Appleby:

[EricBarbour]

No, I recommend that Durova's offer should be declined with thanks.

I recommend that Durova have her ass spanked and her computer taken away until she learns to be a good little girl, who plays with others properly.

Sadly, this does not seem to be a likely scenario.

The mere suggestion that this list archive is a "fake" is insulting. If it is a fake, it is an absolutely magnificent fake. Requiring many thousands of man-hours to devise and cross-check. And all I did was examine some random headers for inconsistencies. Such labor would likely be well beyond a group of Wikipedia trolls, and more like a project requiring the resources of a government or a large corporation.........

[tarantino]

Piotrus, the hub of the East European mailing list, is a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh. He published a paper earlier this year called Governance, Organization, and Democracy on the Internet: The Iron Law and the Evolution of Wikipedia.

I've yet to fully read or digest it, but a question arises in my mind, Is he a gonzo sociologist?

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Durova has never worked for any orgazation more nefarious and clandestine than the Girl Scouts--- what could she possibly have to offer in the way of special "techniques" of textural analysis?

More twattish language like "discredited" ... this time with the pseudo-legal "merit".

Where do they go to learn to speak like they were members of a Victorian gentlemen's club?

I abhor individuals who attempt the cheap trick of ... 'discrediting meritorious claims' by insinuating they are false ... or "could be" faked ... in the knowledge that it might just swing a 5 or 10%, improving their standing and benefit their POV.

'They is' or you can prove 'they ain't' ... otherwise, shut your trap.

[A Horse With No Name]

Piotrus, the hub of the East European mailing list, is a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh. He published a paper earlier this year called Governance, Organization, and Democracy on the Internet: The Iron Law and the Evolution of Wikipedia.

I've yet to fully read or digest it, but a question arises in my mind, Is he a gonzo sociologist?

I don't know how you define "gonzo" -- "Fear and Loathing in Wikipedia"? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

In all fairness, he is a very good writer. I once suggested that he concentrate on getting his work professionally published, rather than give it all away on Wikipedia. He could easily do a book on the history of Poland, considering the wealth of material that he brought to Wikipedia. Strangely, my suggestion baffled him -- I guess he never considered that there were publishing opportunities in the real world that involved getting paid and retaining copyright. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif)

[carbuncle]

Piotrus, the hub of the East European mailing list, is a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh. He published a paper earlier this year called Governance, Organization, and Democracy on the Internet: The Iron Law and the Evolution of Wikipedia.

I've yet to fully read or digest it, but a question arises in my mind, Is he a gonzo sociologist?

I've skimmed the first few pages, but haven't found any disclosure that the author is an admin (or at least was at the time).

In various discussions I observed it is rare for an editor to ‘‘pull rank.’’ On the other hand, administrators are expected to hold higher standards. Instances when an administrator threatens others with his or her power are likely to end up being reviewed on the public ‘‘Administrator’s Noticeboard’’ or even by the Wikipedia’s court, the ‘‘Arbitration Committee.’’

Yep. That's the WP most of us know, for sure.

[No one of consequence]

I've skimmed the first few pages, but haven't found any disclosure that the author is an admin (or at least was at the time).

Academically, that seems like a significant omission.

[TungstenCarbide]

Piotrus, the hub of the East European mailing list, is a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh. He published a paper earlier this year called Governance, Organization, and Democracy on the Internet: The Iron Law and the Evolution of Wikipedia.

I've yet to fully read or digest it, but a question arises in my mind, Is he a gonzo sociologist?

I don't know how you define "gonzo" -- "Fear and Loathing in Wikipedia"? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

I'd guess it means that you involve yourself in the thing you are studying or reporting on.

This post has been edited by TungstenCarbide:

[tarantino]

I don't know how you define "gonzo" -- "Fear and Loathing in Wikipedia"? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

The definition of gonzo journalism has varied over the years, but it's foremost practitioner said,

True Gonzo reporting needs the talents of a master journalist, the eye of an artist/photographer and the heavy balls of an actor. Because the writer must be a participant in the scene, while he’s writing it – or at least taping it, or even sketching it. Or all three. Probably the closest analogy to the ideal would be a film director/producer who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least a minor character.

There's a interesting New Republic book review titled "Gonzo Sociology" that is about C. Wright Mills. His writings influenced Thompson, who said, "[Mills] jolted me out of my chair. It's heartening to know that there are still people around with the simple guts to move in on the boobs with a chain-mace."

Piotr's paper examines whether an oligarchy exists on WP by studying how the verifiability policy evolved. He has made a few edits to the verifiabilty talk page during the period of his study, but more importantly he's an influential adminitrator who arguably was a "participant in the scene while writing it." The scene being that of the Wikipedia ruling class. One area where the comparison fails though is Piotrus, unlike Thompson, doesn't make it apparent (other than a link on his user page) he is a part of what he documents.

[TungstenCarbide]

I don't know how you define "gonzo" -- "Fear and Loathing in Wikipedia"? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

The definition of gonzo journalism has varied over the years, but it's foremost practitioner said,

True Gonzo reporting needs the talents of a master journalist, the eye of an artist/photographer and the heavy balls of an actor. Because the writer must be a participant in the scene, while he’s writing it – or at least taping it, or even sketching it. Or all three. Probably the closest analogy to the ideal would be a film director/producer who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least a minor character.

There's a interesting New Republic book review titled "Gonzo Sociology" that is about C. Wright Mills. His writings influenced Thompson, who said, "[Mills] jolted me out of my chair. It's heartening to know that there are still people around with the simple guts to move in on the boobs with a chain-mace."

Piotr's paper examines whether an oligarchy exists on WP by studying how the verifiability policy evolved. He has made a few edits to the verifiabilty talk page during the period of his study, but more importantly he's an influential adminitrator who arguably was a "participant in the scene while writing it." The scene being that of the Wikipedia ruling class. One area where the comparison fails though is Piotrus, unlike Thompson, doesn't make it apparent (other than a link on his user page) he is a part of what he documents.

Teenagers find HST cool. Now that I'm older I realize he was a good writer, very good, but made a living (to some extent) fucking with other people's lives. Here's a guy who parked out with booze on a marathon route shouting; "eat shit and die, you'll never make it" at the competitors; who claimed he wrote 'fuck the pope' on the hull of a famous racing sailboat with spray paint. I no longer think that Hunter's form of 'gonzo' is cool. He could have made a living with is wonderful writing, but chose to be a shithead too. I sometimes wonder if he were around today and fucked with me whether I'd take a baseball bat to his head. Of course, It's likely that he exaggerated his bad boy image to make more money.

[A Horse With No Name]

Teenagers find HST cool. Now that I'm older I realize he was a good writer, very good, but made a living (to some extent) fucking with other people's lives.

Today's teens read HST? That would be cool. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

[Kelly Martin]

Today's teens read HST? That would be cool. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

Today's teens read?

[MBisanz]

I've skimmed the first few pages, but haven't found any disclosure that the author is an admin (or at least was at the time).

Academically, that seems like a significant omission.

I believe Rule 9.02 of the Code of Ethics of the American Sociological Association would be the controlling rule, and it reads:

Sociologists disclose relevant sources of financial support and relevant personal or professional relationships that may have the appearance of or potential for a conflict of interest to an employer or client, to the sponsors of their professional work, or in public speeches and writing.

But he does link his WP page from his university profile and I don't know if he is even a member of the ASA, so it might pass a "letter but not the spirit of the rules" interpretation.

[Casliber]

Teenagers find HST cool. Now that I'm older I realize he was a good writer, very good, but made a living (to some extent) fucking with other people's lives.

Today's teens read HST? That would be cool. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

H=Harry Potter, T=Twilight ....and S = ....I dunno yet.... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif)

[trenton]

What's the outrage here? Isn't it common for MMORPGs to have "clans" and so forth to help them get ahead in the game? Or is the outrage that not every "editor" is the perfect neutral writer, tirelessly working for free only to enhance the sum of human knowledge (and Jimbeau's pocketbook).

Also notice the ass backwards response here. If a bank leaves money out in the open, unguarded, in the expectation that all people are good and will behave honestly and the money gets stolen, you don't blame the thieves; you blame the bank. A responsible organization would use this as an opportunity to review it's internal procedures and learn how to prevent such occurrences in the future. Wikipedia, on the other hand, convenes its kangaroo court and gets shocked that human nature is human nature everywhere, even in fantasy Jimbeau-land.

[Silverman]

If a bank leaves money out in the open, unguarded, in the expectation that all people are good and will behave honestly and the money gets stolen, you don't blame the thieves; you blame the bank.

The bank was stupid and negligent no doubt, and could probably be sued by anyone who lost money. Yet it is the thieves who have committed the criminal offence, not the bank.

This post has been edited by Silverman:

[GlassBeadGame]

Today's teens read HST? That would be cool. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

Today's teens read?

Nope, too busy "writing" encyclopedias.

[InkBlot]

There seems to be people who like to do this. Case in point, the arbcom case is only three days old and has generated some 60,000 words over the case pages alone.

Actually rather short compared to the recent cases. I think Date Delinking was well over 500,000 words and WMC-Abd also broke the 500,000 word count by my estimation.

Well the Bible has 774,746 words. I wonder if there has been an arbcom case that broke a million?

I don't remember the exact case, but there was one on Tony Sidaway which had him and Aaron Brenneman going at it so much, the workshop had to be broken down into subpages (along the major section headings of Proposed Principles, FOF, etc.) just so people could keep editing it. Those two went at it through many Arb cases for quite some time.

[Abd]

Piotrus, the hub of the East European mailing list, is a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh. He published a paper earlier this year called Governance, Organization, and Democracy on the Internet: The Iron Law and the Evolution of Wikipedia.

Fascinating. And very, very naive. Piotrus documents the evolution of a single policy document and generalizes from that to the entire project, making a host of unsupported assumptions and giving conclusions without establishing definitions and showing the process involved. He assumes, as well, that the policy document is binding, but there is no binding structure and, in practice, the document is frequently ignored.

He ignores the actual mechanisms of power and substitutes for them ideals. As an example, he quotes the current bylaws of the WMF regarding the election of Board members. Sure, the bylaws now provide that a majority of board members "shall be elected or appointed from within the community," and takes this as evidence of increased democracy: "The December 2006 change of the bylaws makes the Foundation more democratic, lessening any oligarchic power of the Board by increasing the number of members elected from the community of editors to over half of the Board, and giving them control over the elections of the Board members from outside the community." But apparently he failed to notice mechanism, and the degree of power retained by the board, which is total. That bylaw doesn't require any elections at all! Nor does it bind the board to respect any particular election result.

However, sure, in actual practice, a majority of board members are elected, as he says. But through what process, and with what kind of participation? The vast majority of editors take no notice of "central processes," except when those impact them personally. Most editors would look at a list of candidates for ArbComm or the Board and not recognize any of the names. When one is part of the oligarchy, it looks like there is no oligarchy. And while, in theory, anyone can join the group of editors who participate in central or centralizing process, like policy pages, in fact, if you do so without "credentials," blocks are highly likely. It is much easier to be blocked for "meddling in policy" than for outright vandalism. I've seen indef blocks for this from first "offense," no warning, whereas blatant vandals typically get three warnings. The oligarchy is very self-protective.

Piotrus argues wikitheory as if the ideal were reality: "Jimmy Wales and the Board are not officially responsible to the community but they can legally overrule its decisions. However, if they would ever use this power for anything other then resolving a legal issue in need of immediate attention, it would likely do irreparable damage to the community."

He then notes that the community could, in theory, up and form their own wiki, if the Board unduly interferes. What is missed is the practical reality. In order to do this, the "community" would have to be organized. There have been attempts to organize the community. When it has been done on-wiki, it has been crushed and salted, the strongest example being Esperanza. Esperanza encountered a difficult point in its organizational history; it might have overcome this, but, at that point, it was shut down by a huge MfD, I think there were something like 600 !votes in it. And what the Delete votes represented was an effort by a mob to prevent editors from voluntarily associating with each other. If there were two editors who wanted to "waste time that could be devoted to editing articles," why should the community prevent it? I can say why. Because off-wiki organization is the only threat that exists to the oligarchy's power. As long as the oligarchy controls the communication mechanisms of the "community," it can remain in control.

Wikipedia is not immune to the Iron Law of Oligarchy; it is, rather, an example of how basic a level the Law operates on. Piotrus never defines "organization" nor "oligarchy." If we look closely at what organization means, in a practical sense, it does indeed imply oligarchy, but Piotrus wants to have his organization and freedom from oligarchy at the same time. In this, he confuses Wikipedia with "the community." Wikipedia is organized, quite clearly. The community is not, except in ways that are almost entirely dependent on Wikipedia.

So what if the Community organizes? Would then the Iron Law hold? Of course it would! However, with some forms of organization, power isn't centralized at all, and the possibility of the community "taking their marbles and forming their own wiki" would be real, and practically possible, if it were needed. And any group dominating the Community organizational structure could face immediate and effective loss of power, if that power depended upon continued and constant support from the whole community, not just those centrally involved.

Wikipedia is thought of as a new form of organization; it isn't. How to set up a non-organized organization is a problem that was faced and solved long ago. In the Alcoholics Anonymous Traditions, Bill Wilson wrote: "AA as such ought never be organized, but we may set up service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve." What is the "AA" he referred to? Is it AA World Services, Inc.? Obviously not! That's a traditional board-controlled organization, with advisory elections, just as with the WMF. AA is the "fellowship," the entire community of people who work together on their common problem. In the structure Wilson set up, AAWS collects no endowment, and operates on the voluntary contributions of members, and the amount of those contributions is restricted. There are no dues. Publications are sold, but at very low cost, enough to cover expenses. And the central office has no authority at all over local AA meetings or members. And there are many other details of interest.

Wikipedia is, as it were, a vast collection of committees with self-defined membership, one committee per page/talk page pair. Behavioral rules, however, are not self-defined, when there is conflict; rather, there is reference to more central authority, to the much more restricted group of administrators (0.01% of registered editors, smaller if we discount inactive admins) and then, failing some "resolution" there -- which often means simply a decision that is enforced, not an actual dispute resolution -- there is ArbComm. No oligarchy? No centralized power? It was a colossally naive claim by Piotrus.

What is true is that the power of the oligarchy is restricted. It cannot directly coerce behavior except the behavior of those who are attached to editing Wikipedia, and who can thus, to the extent of the attachment, be bullied into compliance.

Never mistake a description of the oligarchy as a complaint about it. It is what it is. My view is that oligarchy is indeed necessary and intrinsic to organization, and that oligarchies are largely functional, but that if our goal is maximized unity and real consensus, as it was with AA, measures must be taken to ensure that the oligarchy is actually trusted by the whole community, or at least by those who are affected by the oligarchy. A member of an AA meeting doesn't care if there is a secretary of some other meeting who is, say, overcontrolling. And if there is a secretary of the member's home meeting who is overcontrolling, the member can choose to tolerate it for a time or not. The saying in AA is "All it takes to start a meeting is a resentment and a coffee-pot." And it is truly about that easy. I'm not an alcoholic, but I've started meetings in similar organizations. Extremely simple; if there is any need at all, it's easily done, and the new meeting is immediately connected to the rest. And that facility is quite how AA managed to grow spectacularly, it is much more successful than Wikipedia! With no central control. Instead, the center is effectively controlled by the membershiip, who can choose to fund it or not. The New York office of AA could fall into the Hudson, and it would have very little effect on the members of the fellowship. They do not depend on it, but it depends on them.

What I see with Wikipedia, and too often, is that the oligarchy makes decisions that would not be supported by most registered editors, were there to be a community-wide discussion. I can see this by what happens as discussion expands, but expansion is so difficult and so time-consuming that it is, in itself, disruptive. If it is done on-wiki, and without structure, i.e., restricted participation or what I call "noise control." Off-wiki structures can be built by participants according to what works for them, they can be open or closed, depending on the needs of the members. "Service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve."

And to nobody else. The oligarchy may succeed in sanctioning some members of the Wikipediametric list, but it will be, ultimately, ineffective, just as all attempts to crush independent communication ultimately fail in the long run. Problem is, sometimes it takes generations for this to become clear! That list may shut down and be replaced by other lists which are more careful about how they conduct themselves. At some point, sufficiently strong off-wiki structures may start to have a significant effect, but whether this will come in time to avert collapse, I can't predict.

The present visible course leads to collapse. Burnout rates are becoming higher, and can be predicted to continue to increase. Wikipedia is phenomenally inefficient; when you are running a Ponzi scheme, that can be ignored, but not for a sustained project.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Wikipedia is phenomenally inefficient ...

My point entirely.

Like most cults, they blow their own trumpets about big numbers ... but they are not measuring the even more vast scales of loss, damage and inefficiencies ... and why should they care to? They exist entirely outside of the wonderful marketing documents they send to trust funds ... they can pretend they don't exist ... and they are bad for business (bring the money in).

They foundation does not have to pay for them, their donors - the Pee-dians - do out of their own private and future lives.

The oligarchies have no interest in fixing them because doing so would risk creating threats to their position, e.g. a better system including better people that would oust of over ride them, and exist in a state of mind that is too excited and consumed by all the dramatic firefighting and bureaucracy.

It is something that you see often in clubs and the voluntary sector. A few mediocre but ambitious individuals grab the honeypot and them drive everyone else away ... especially the potentially brilliant ones ... surrounding themselves with even dumber acolytes.

The original purpose is lost and it largely turns into a game of self-defence.

[Abd]

Piotrus was desysopped based on ArbComm motion, pending the outcome of the case, and the arbitrator commentary specifically states that it is not for any finding of abusive action. I can't help but notice the difference with WMC. WMC edit warred on the case pages in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, multiple times, and edit warred on User talk: Hipocrite, and then finally blocked me during the case. And even then, a motion to temporarily desysop failed. Here, it passed. Why?

And it suddenly dawned on me. Rule 0 violation. Of course! The stability and often-unrestrained power of the oligarchy depends on the lack of off-wiki organization of editors. By starting and operating a mailing list that functioned as such an off-wiki organization, as a coordinating tool, as it would naturally become under some conditions, Piotrus violated an unwritten rule. This cannot be tolerated, and it is an emergency.

I do not believe that this thinking is conscious for most. Rule 0 violations are like that. Stating the rule, even thinking the rule, violates the rule, for those caught in the group-think. But I've seen examples of this kind of strong reaction before, and without this understanding, they make no sense.

Thus my prediction: Piotrus will not get his tools back, unless he apologizes profusely and abjectly, and immediately, and very creatively, expressing how wrong it was for him to start the list, and urging others to never even think of doing such a thing. Not likely for a self-respecting academic.

I should write to Piotrus....

Wikipedia Review is tolerated now, almost recognized. Why? Because it isn't coherently organized, there is way too much noise....

[A Horse With No Name]

Piotrus was desysopped based on ArbComm motion, pending the outcome of the case, and the arbitrator commentary specifically states that it is not for any finding of abusive action.

Anyone who knows Piotrus knows that he rarely used his tools -- his one block for 2009 was in January. The act of desysopping him had nothing to do with this ridiculous case -- if anything, it was just a cheap lawyer's trick to make Piotrus look like a guilty party at the start of the proceedings.

[CharlotteWebb]

Anyone who knows Piotrus knows that he rarely used his tools -- his one block for 2009 was in January. The act of desysopping him had nothing to do with this ridiculous case -- if anything, it was just a cheap lawyer's trick to make Piotrus look like a guilty party at the start of the proceedings.

+1

About like they did Everyking, except for the "proceedings" bit. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[MBisanz]

Anyone who knows Piotrus knows that he rarely used his tools -- his one block for 2009 was in January. The act of desysopping him had nothing to do with this ridiculous case -- if anything, it was just a cheap lawyer's trick to make Piotrus look like a guilty party at the start of the proceedings.

+1

About like they did Everyking, except for the "proceedings" bit. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

They did just go through the WMC-Abd case where it is likely that such a temporary desysop would have actually prevented a permanent desysop, so I am not certain the situation is as clear as you indicate.

[Apathetic]

PD posted, FYI

[Kelly Martin]

And once again Wikipedia reminds its editors: "Don't get caught."

So why is it that Piotrus, Digwuren, and Martintg get three month bans for off-wiki coordination, but Jayjg didn't even get a finger-wagging when clear evidence of his off-wiki coordination came to light?

Oh, wait, I forgot, the Arbitrary Committee doesn't believe in fairness, due process, or consistency. Forget I asked.

[Abd]

They did just go through the WMC-Abd case where it is likely that such a temporary desysop would have actually prevented a permanent desysop, so I am not certain the situation is as clear as you indicate.

I've argued that ArbComm should immediately suspend the admin bit of any administrator who is accused of misbehavior involving use of tools, of sufficient believability that a case is opened; where an admin is involved in noncontroversial use of tools for some critical function, they might be suspended for all other purposes without actually lifting the bit itself. I.e., the suspension would be "voluntary," and it would be understood that violation would result in immediate actual desysopping (pending final decision).

However, in this case, there has been little evidence presented of actual abuse by Piotrus, and given ArbComm's extreme reluctance to even suspend bits, even in the presence of actually shown -- and accepted by ArbComm as such -- recusal failure, we then can suspect selective enforcement.

What I see happening is an extreme reaction to off-wiki communication that may influence on-wiki action. Quite properly, the oligarchy recognizes this as a severe threat to their power, for they cannot directly control off-wiki coordination, and they can only sanction what comes to light through clumsiness; i.e., the least dangerous off-wiki coordination is the most likely to be found. I'd see the strong response as coming from frustration at inability to control a situation.

The events alleged to be a result of improper coordination are actually thin, and the kind that would result from practically any communication, on or off-wiki. An editor notes an edit war situation arising at an article. if the editor noted this on-wiki, on another editor's talk page, that other editor might well show up and assist. Would this be improper? Not generally. But if the same communication happened on the mailing list, it's now evidence of improper coordination?

The whole approach is an error and, ultimately, a blind alley. Human beings function better when they consciously coordinate and cooperate. The chaotic Wikipedia model attempted to depend on lack of coordination as supposedly encouraging neutrality; the theory would be that if you can't call in your friends, then you will negotiate consensus. But when a set of friends share articles in their watchlists, and regularly support a position, the effect of conscious coordination appears without necessarily the consciousness. Cabal without conspiracy. Then, to oppose the cabal, other editors might cooperate, and this new cooperation can also be considered a cabal, and if they consciously cooperate, why, they can be sanctioned if the conscious cooperation can be proven.

I've read some of the mailing list involved, and ArbComm notes that most traffic is innocuous. This was not a list created as a cabal. The kinds of communication that took place, that could lead to some fear of conscious coordination, were the kinds that would occur if people simply talk with each other about their work on Wikipedia, and the problems that they encounter. In so talking, sometimes editors would say things that they wouldn't say on-wiki, and that then such conversations, taking place with some expectation of privacy, would be revealed, is highly offensive. I've been reading a little case law on the revelation of private mail, and applying that here, there was no compelling interest that ArbComm would have that would warrant consideration of the off-wiki evidence; now the drafting arb, Coren, has specifically referred to posts in the list, which anyone seeking to understand the decision would then want to read, and the archive can be found on the internet.

ArbComm seems to excuse this by claiming that no "hacking" was involved, on the theory that it was a list member who revealed the mails. Arbs are aware that there is an issue, but the motion to disallow the evidence was rejected, while waiting for Newyorkbrad to forumlate some alternative, which didn't happen, and now the proposed decision does cite specific mails, without revealing the content of those mails, i.e., what statements were actually objectionable.

And it is looking like a series of editors are going to be banned for activities that are less serious than what ArbComm routinely excuses; I'd see the theory behind this as an attempt to discourage off-wiki communication, because such communication will inevitably lead to some level of coordination. They will fail, and in the process they will do significant damage to the project. What they are doing is banning the most knowledgeable and active editors on one side of a highly contentious set of issues, and this inevitably results in bias. After three month site bans, there are year-long topic bans. Nothing I've seen so far even remotely justifies this directly; I conclude that we are seeing Rule 0 violations, that kind of disproportionate response is typical when the real offense cannot be stated.

The biggest "sin": treating Wikipedia as a battleground. In other words, if you describe the project as what it is in certain areas, and behave according to that understanding, you are an offender. Meanwhile, take a look at the prominent image at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam (T-H-L-K-D) and then try to say, with a straight face, "Wikipedia is not a battleground."

(1) Some aspects of Wikipedia will necessarily involve strong measures.

(2) However, such measures, and the processes they involve, are always dangerous. Admins have told me how participating in dealing with spam led them to suspect a spam motive behind every edit, and to start treating anyone who was possibly a spammer with berzerker zeal.

(3) Content battles are normal and natural. Trying to stop "battling" is trying to stop humans from being human.

(4) If neutrality is desired, what must be provided is dispute resolution process; "combatants" are frequently unable to manage this on their own; expecting combatants to be masters of DR process and, at the same time, able to apply the principles to cases where they are personally involved, is utterly unrealistic. It's a skill that some might indeed develop. If they survive long enough. Most people will need help, and blame and rejection and warning and blocking aren't help and they certainly don't resolve disputes, they merely bury them, making them invisible for a time.

(5) Notice the lack of disputatious editing at cold fusion, for the most part, recently. So did it work, banning Pcarbonn, JedRothwell, and myself, not to mention ScienceApologist? Sure, when you ban an entire side of a dispute, the only editors with sufficient knowledge to balance an article from reliable sources, you can make "peace," but at the cost of neutrality. (It took me about six months to come up to speed on the topic, reading sources every day, and I'm continuing to find stuff, including mainstream peer-reviewed secondary source, supposedly the gold standard, totally ignored and assumed to be absent by the "majority POV editors" there. ArbComm accepted and cited as evidence against me, showing "tendentious editing," what was a blatant deception by a party to the case, easily shown, and ignored the contrary evidence, making no comment on it. Essentially, ArbComm ignored the content dispute, but accepted and cited evidence that depends on content positions as evidence of tendentiousness. Yes, that's a contradiction. It's unlikely that the evidence was actually read, in fact, it was cited because it supported impressions, and that's what I've long seen when the incompetent end up in positions of authority.

(6) As pointed out in a recent publication, Wikipedia has Dispute Resolution that doesn't resolve disputes. There is a theoretical basis for this, which better-informed editors will sometimes explain, but the problem is that it worked, sometimes, when the community was smaller and more united. It's presumed to continue to work in spite of massive evidence to the contrary. These are common phenomena in organizations like Wikipedia. That source relies on the canard that Wikipedia was considered impossible, but obviously works. No, the success of Wikipedia was predictable, in fact, by those who understood on-line process and organizational characteristics, but also its failures, which can easily be traced to structural defects, unsurprising due to the naivete of the founders, also very predictable. Kohser has pointed out that basic business ethics were disregarded; it's also true that basic organizational theory, well developed in the last part of the twentieth century, about how to foster consensus -- real consensus -- was neglected.

It's a bit like defending the aviation industry against accusations of failure to build safe aircraft, by pointing out the old and false theoretical rejections of the possibility of flight based on shallow analysis.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Abd]

And once again Wikipedia reminds its editors: "Don't get caught."

So why is it that Piotrus, Digwuren, and Martintg get three month bans for off-wiki coordination, but Jayjg didn't even get a finger-wagging when clear evidence of his off-wiki coordination came to light?

Oh, wait, I forgot, the Arbitrary Committee doesn't believe in fairness, due process, or consistency. Forget I asked.

Right. But actually addressing the problem of off-wiki coordination, and the implications, and the real issues, would require work that ArbComm is incompetent to undertake, as composed and as functioning. So it's doomed to erratic and incoherent response.

Individual arbitrators do issue individual opinions that are cogent, sometimes, but these easily get lost in the avalanche, and there is a culture, on ArbComm, of seeking "consensus," whereas in decision-making, it is far sounder for participants to vote their exact conscience. ArbComm runs by majority rule in decisions, but it seems that the most knowledgeable arbitrators are afraid to confront the majority, it wouldn't be "collegial" to point out blatant errors and misrepresentations.

Even if done civilly, which is what would expected of real colleagues, not docility and surrender of principle.

Do arbitrators have any idea of the effect on an editor of a "finding of fact" that is blatantly preposterous to those who know the facts, such as an editor upon whom this finding is dumped? ArbComm, in its own process, seems to be unable to distinguish between fact and opinion or subjective judgment, which makes it probably a good feature that they don't make content decisions!

Except they do make content decisions, by selectively banning editors based on content positions that the editors asserted, even when those editors followed the explicit rules.

[CharlotteWebb]

The most egregious finding of fact I see so far is the matter of Tymek's password, and they aren't really doing anything about that.

As far as off-site conspiracy to commit edit-warring goes, well hell... that happens all the time on IRC and, yes, here on WR too. I'm not sure how arbcom gets off claiming jurisdiction over this.

Epic win for the Russians.

[Abd]

Some specifics. Coren has drafted findings of fact. Many of them cite no evidence at all, yet may involve highly subjective, mind-reading conclusions. Of those which cite evidence, here is an examination that will include some description or quotation of list messages.

Use_of_administrative_tools_in_dispute

9) Piotrus (T-C-L-K-R-D) has used his administrative tools in disputes he and other members of the list was involved in in order to affect disputes and in furtherance of their point of view. [20090916-0602][20090915-0610] protection of Battle of Konotop

:Support:
:# There was also some bullying using his status. — Coren (T-C-L-K-R-D) 03:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Last first: "Some bullying" is not supported by evidence, but admin bullying is routine on Wikipedia, and very serious bullying has been roundly ignored by ArbComm, and recently.

The citations to the mailing list are supposed to be YYYYMMDD-HHMM, but don't match the list archive I downloaded. I think Coren has used his Outlook display of the mails instead of the time shown in the archive index, and/or has simply erred. I was able to figure this out, I think, the reference may be to messages 09/15/2009 18.02 (Piotrus) and 09/15/2009 18.10 (Radek), but the former is erroneously listed as 09/16, and the latter has little or no bearing on Piotrus, unless dicta by Radek, a simple intention to make a reasonable edit, not even actually done, somehow reflects on Piotrus' use of tools.

The first message in the list to address the Battle of Konotop problem was an appeal for advice, by [wpu]Hillock65[/wpu], 20090915-0524-%5BWPM%5D%20Advice%20is%20sought%20on%20situation.eml. Nobody would have blinked at a message like this on a noticeboard or administrative user page, except that some might have reacted to the mention of "Russian brigades," referring to multiple editors revert warring, Voyevoda (T-C-L-K-R-D) on Sept. 14, when Hillock65 was reverting as well, then HenrichB (T-C-L-K-R-D) on Sept. 15. HenrichB apparently registered to edit war. Voyevoda has, on his user page, "I'm interested in politics and history of Eastern Europe and I try to correct the one-sided view of history maintained by Poles throughout the Wikipedia." ArbComm is completely ignoring context, Hillock65 was faced with apparent abuse and asked for help.

Radeksz (T-C-L-K-R-D) , another list subscriber, reverted at 05:38, 15 September 2009. If the list index is UTC, this would be a rapid (and on the face proper) response to the complaint. That is, had the communication happened on-wiki, it would not, in itself, be improper, and ArbComm has laid out the principle the standard that if coordination that happens on-wiki would be improper, it is improper if it happens off-wiki. One might presume the converse, but apparently not.

Radek posted to the list,

Extensive changes w/o an edit summary or any text are probably a decent indication that sock puppeting is going on (the editor doesn't want to give themselves away by making 'signature' statements). Do you have any suspicions as to who the sock puppet is?

Anyway. Reverted that guy, and put it on the watch list.

Hillock replied:

I checked his info on Russian WP. He seems to be a legitimate user there. However, he probably doesn't speak English and is supporting his buddy there. Anyway, thanks for your help. I will monitor the situation, now that I've established that he is not a sock.

195.35.72.49 then reverted Radek, and revert warring began between IP editors.

Piotrus then replied,

Since most of the edits are from IPs/newly registered editors, I slapped
a semi-protection on it instead of reverting (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Piotrus did not edit the article, which, in fact, left it in the "pro-Russian" version. So Radek wrote to the list,

I'll follow it up with a revert to the "good" version in a bit.

. However, that revert was done by Marting, another list member.

Digwuren commented

Not necessarily; the "Those others are beating ours!" battle cry is a known way of Cartel picking up new (usually temporary) members. *But* Wikipedia's checkuser procedures don't always take that into account, so such tag-along accounts can occasionally be blocked as sockpuppets of somebody else.

The list archive stops Sept 16, the next day, so I can't tell if there were more edits on this topic; however, Voyevoda continued with reversions. I have not investigated the content, but Voyevoda was blocked by Backslash Forwardslash two days later, Sept. 17, for edit warring on the article. Other, different editors continued edit warring, and eventually, Will Beback, October 4, again blocked Voyevoda for edit warring, but then unblocked and instead full-protected the article.

I'm sure you are all now shocked, shocked by the vicious anti-Russian collusion here, it's as if Russians weren't even human beings. Not. Really, if this were typical of Wikipedia battles, on more sides than that of Piotrus, Wikipedia would be a much, much nicer place.

No good deed goes unpunished. Was Piotrus "involved"? It could be argued that this was a factional involvement, Piotrus was helping his "friend."

I tried to raise the issue of factional involvement, as distinct from article involvement, in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, and part of my slap-down was for raising the issue (I used the term "cabal" for it). Piotrus had not previously edited the article. His response was quite a moderate one. Piotrus did not abuse his tools, compared to what I see happen routinely. Far from being reversed, his semiprotection later became full protection.

Now, consider what would have happened if Hillock had not had access to the list. Hillock, faced with multiple editors, one appearing to be a sock, would have gone to AN/I, and there would have been a disruptive discussion, involving far more wasted editor time than the handful of brief posts on the mailing list. This was actually an example of how the list was helpful to Wikipedia. Possible dispute was actually defused, not inflamed, as it was explained that the new editor wasn't a sock, though possibly a meat puppet, and I saw no berserker condemnation of the "enemy."

The list "cabal" is a majority-POV-pushing one, at worst. This shallow evidence, note, is being used to justify desysopping Piotrus.

(There may be other evidence which would shift this impression, but it's important that ArbComm, in issuing findings of fact, cite the best available evidence, and certainly not the weakest! Thus what can be seen here, without doubt, is arbitrator incompetence; an arb has come to a conclusion and then tries to grab some evidence to support it, instead of the much more time-consuming route of collecting evidence, sifting through it to select the strongest, and only then forming conclusions.)

The likely result, if this position prevails (it might not!), is that a sociologist who has written glowing accounts, published in reliable source, of how well Wikipedia works, and who clearly has a reasonably abstracted and sober position on content, the kind of editor I'd want on the other side from me, in fact, will not only be desysopped, but also blocked for three months, simply because he used his tools, reasonably, in a situation where his action wasn't controversial and, if anything, was too mild, inadequate, followed up by stronger action by others. Great result, guys! What will he publish next?

There is another finding after this on Piotrus, that cites more list evidence, from February, which ArbComm jwould routinely consider ancient history, I'll address that separately, later. If that modifies my conclusion here, I'll note it. Usually, for desysopping, ArbComm looks for a pattern of abuse, with recent examples, so I'm skeptical at the outside about the February incident!

Disclosure: Having read the list archive to a degree, and realizing that Piotrus was a sociologist, with some understanding of the basic issues of WP structure, I asked him if I could join the list; he asked the list, and I was accepted and welcomed with a mild interest in my situation and some fairly accurate analysis expressed, so now I get to read all kinds of boring stuff about Eastern Europe, like the price of apartments in Warsaw, and I'm not going to attempt to spell that correctly. These are the good guys, folks, generally, they are trying to figure out how to nicely and nondisruptively let ArbComm know that they aren't monsters, eating Russian editors for lunch.

But they do resist POV-pushing, as is appropriate; and what I see on top, from these editors, is general civility, though not without possibly some loss of patience, with what looks like an attempt to seek consensus, whereas on the other side, there is personal accusation and very strong POV pushing (one characteristic of that is accusation of bias in reliable source, which is often a red herring; bias is, indeed, an issue, but one to be approached with caution, because those accusations are easy and avoid facing the real issue: editorial consensus.)

I see open coordination among the Global warming cabal that is far, far worse than anything I've seen privately from the list archive or subsequently on the list, though I'd certainly think they are now being more careful....

This post has been edited by Abd:

[CharlotteWebb]

The citations to the mailing list are supposed to be YYYYMMDD-HHMM, but don't match the list archive I downloaded. I think Coren has used his Outlook display of the mails instead of the time shown in the archive index, and/or has simply erred.

Ah, so if he has imported them into an e-mail client (not sure who still uses one, but...) it may have adjusted the messages to his local time rather than the original UTC...

I understand he is French-Canadian eh so you might need to look for something ~5 (+/− DST?) hours later than he says.

Just a guess.

[A Horse With No Name]

In regard to this proposal:

"Piotrus topic banned
3) Piotrus (talk · contribs) is topic banned from articles about Eastern Europe, their associated talk pages, and any process discussion about same, widely construed, for one year. This ban is consecutive with any editing ban."

If this idiocy is enacted -- and it probably will be, given the vindictive nature of some arbitrators -- then I hope that Piotrus follows my advice and starts writing a book based on his knowledge of Polish history. Really, why is he giving away all of this stuff when he can be published by a professional media company and get paid for it?

[Abd]

I understand he is French-Canadian eh so you might need to look for something ~5 (+/− DST?) hours later than he says.
Just a guess.

Well, the obvious candidate messages, which are, I think, the only possible ones relating to that incident with the same minute numbers, are 12 hours different, one with the wrong date. Weird, eh? But that's a small thing compared to the error in substance, that a relatively harmless action, far less "involved" than stuff I've seen recently and routinely accepted, becomes a cause of desysopping. Arbitrary and erratic enforcement of rules leads to extensive disrespect for them, in real life and I'm sure Wikipedia is no different.

In another situation, with Law, I think that speed limit laws were mentioned. The enforcement of speed limits is highly erratic and unreliable, and heavily subject to officer discretion. Egregious violation will almost always result in enforcement, but there is almost always a rather unpredictable margin by which one may exceed the speed limit without consequence. What's really interesting is that research has shown that people ignore speed limit signs; experiments have been done with modifying speed limits, with no significant effect on actual speeds travelled. People adjust their speed, normally, with their own perceptions of safety, and if you want to actually change speeds, you have to use much more intrusive methods than simply putting a sign on the side of the road, and this is well known to traffic engineers.

In the U.S., national highway standards require that speed limits be set by reference to actual speeds travelled, based on an engineering study. As I recall, the standard is to set the limit at the 85th percentile speed, or the next 5 mph level above that. However, most local speed limit signs, where I live, are set well below that speed. I got a ticket at one point and asked the officer, politely, for my own information, how fast the average car would be travelling at the place where he ticketed me (probably a common place for him to hang out, there was a place where he could observe traffic as it went by, having been concealed). "About fifty mph," he said. That's the speed he ticketed me at. He probably didn't realize it, but he'd handed me a basis for appealing the ticket, which I'd do anyway. As is normal here, he didn't show at the hearing and it was dismissed. The speed limit posted was, as I recall, 35 mph.

ArbComm would have thrown the book at me.... think of the children! (This was open road, no houses, in the country, very good visibility, good road, etc. The average speed proves that the limit was set way too low.)

With another ticket, going 40 in a 25 mph zone in a small town, I got the traffic study. If the limit had been properly set, it would have been 40 or 45, probably. It was a place where, naturally, one would slow down a bit ahead of where I was ticketed, and I watched my behavior later in that section of road. I'd be at 25 just a short distance later, naturally. The town had successfully petitioned for the state to move the position of the 25 mph sign back quite a distance, claiming that it would improve safety. (Remember, signs don't affect actual travelled speed, so the argument was bogus.) In spite of the recommendations of the traffic engineer, the sign was moved back. (There was another complication in that the sign was partially obscured, it was easy to miss .The reason is fairly clear, to anyone who knows that small town.

Revenue from speeding tickets. Speed trap. A tax on non-residents, with no political backlash from local voters. From other conversations, as well, if you lived in the town you did not get ticketed, they'd stop you, perhaps, if they didn't recognize you, but let you go. My response was to stop buying my gas in that town, or anything else. I didn't pay the ticket (I appeared, of course!), and dropped the sales of gas in the town, I used to commute through it, by several thousand dollars over a few years. A small blow to strike for sanity.

One more tidbit for my fans, both the one or two who actually like to read what I write, and for the others who love to complain about it. I did quite a bit of legal research, looking for precedent where a driver had challenged a ticket based on failure to follow the state regulations on setting speed limits (which generally follow the federal manual). In spite of the huge number of speeding tickets issued, and in spite of the smaller but still very significant numbers of people who contest them, I was unable to find one case. My strong suspicion is that the police avoid allowing this to go to an appeals court where it might actually be subject to a ruling, because it could blow a very lucrative business out of the water. I'm suspicious, as well, of my own theory, but I can't imagine another explanation, and something happened that added a little confirmation. I got one more speeding ticket. Different but adjacent town. I went to the initial hearing. "You can go home," I was told before the hearing started. "They lost your ticket." The only time I had to actually appear before a true rehearing, where the police officer would have to appear to testify, I had already explained the basis of my defense to the initial hearing before a magistrate (which is relatively informal). They knew, now, what I'd be claiming....

Not a get-out-of-jail free card, but .... a bit of perspective on "breaking rules." And those are clear, defined, precise rules, on the face. What rule did Piotrus break? There is no precedent established for "involvement through general friendship." Indeed, such a claim was the basis of my case, with admin behavior far more egregious, yet ArbComm dismissed it. In this case, in the Principles, they do try to begin to address it, but with nothing that one could clearly apply.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Malleus]

I find small town America really scary. God knows, the big ones are bad enough.

[Abd]

In regard to this proposal:

"Piotrus topic banned
3) Piotrus (talk · contribs) is topic banned from articles about Eastern Europe, their associated talk pages, and any process discussion about same, widely construed, for one year. This ban is consecutive with any editing ban."

If this idiocy is enacted -- and it probably will be, given the vindictive nature of some arbitrators -- then I hope that Piotrus follows my advice and starts writing a book based on his knowledge of Polish history. Really, why is he giving away all of this stuff when he can be published by a professional media company and get paid for it?

Penalty creep. For really outrageous behavior, one year topic ban. For mild, possibly even positive behavior, one year plus three months. Or did Coren mean "concurrent"? Whatever, this is the first time I've seen a "consecutive" remedy. Has this been done before?

I find small town America really scary. God knows, the big ones are bad enough.

It's just politics. The area is really nice, and that particular small town is pretty much the worst, not quite sure why. It may be fine if you live in it. I lived in a smaller town that was the second next town West on the state highway, maybe another ten or fifteen miles further on, and it was one of the nicest small towns in North America, population 1000. Town Meeting town, like most of them around here, and when we moved there, having come very recently from California, and this is supposedly the closed, uptight East Coast, Massachusetts, we were immediately invited to participate in town government. I'd walk into the little grocery store which was where everyone gathered, and, always, and immediately, there was someone we knew in there. The chief of police might be there, yakking up a storm. The local minister, who had been a professional baseball player, and who was an excellent poet, often worked the cash register. Two U.S. Poet Laureates lived in the town, and I could say more. We moved to a larger town because of the kids, we were adopting another, and we saw that we were always driving to events or schools or shopping, etc. Otherwise, we'd still be there.

[CharlotteWebb]

I understand he is French-Canadian eh so you might need to look for something ~5 (+/− DST?) hours later than he says.
Just a guess.

Well, the obvious candidate messages, which are, I think, the only possible ones relating to that incident with the same minute numbers, are 12 hours different, one with the wrong date. Weird, eh?

[tl;dr the rest]

Hmm... the other possibility I considered is that the mailing list was running on EESTI (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif) time, but off-setting 12 hours from that would locate Coren in Alaska, which can't possibly be right—no true Scotsman, etc.! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ohmy.gif)

I have the archive on my other computer, I'll peruse it more thoroughly if I find time tomorrow.

[Malleus]

I find small town America really scary. God knows, the big ones are bad enough.

It's just politics. The area is really nice, and that particular small town is pretty much the worst, not quite sure why. It may be fine if you live in it. I lived in a smaller town that was the second next town West on the state highway, maybe another ten or fifteen miles further on, and it was one of the nicest small towns in North America, population 1000. Town Meeting town, like most of them around here, and when we moved there, having come very recently from California, and this is supposedly the closed, uptight East Coast, Massachusetts, we were immediately invited to participate in town government. I'd walk into the little grocery store which was where everyone gathered, and, always, and immediately, there was someone we knew in there. The chief of police might be there, yakking up a storm. The local minister, who had been a professional baseball player, and who was an excellent poet, often worked the cash register. Two U.S. Poet Laureates lived in the town, and I could say more. We moved to a larger town because of the kids, we were adopting another, and we saw that we were always driving to events or schools or shopping, etc. Otherwise, we'd still be there.

That's a pretty fair summary of why I found it scary.

This post has been edited by Malleus:

[Eva Destruction]

I find small town America really scary. God knows, the big ones are bad enough.

It's just politics. The area is really nice, and that particular small town is pretty much the worst, not quite sure why. It may be fine if you live in it. I lived in a smaller town that was the second next town West on the state highway, maybe another ten or fifteen miles further on, and it was one of the nicest small towns in North America, population 1000. Town Meeting town, like most of them around here, and when we moved there, having come very recently from California, and this is supposedly the closed, uptight East Coast, Massachusetts, we were immediately invited to participate in town government. I'd walk into the little grocery store which was where everyone gathered, and, always, and immediately, there was someone we knew in there. The chief of police might be there, yakking up a storm. The local minister, who had been a professional baseball player, and who was an excellent poet, often worked the cash register. Two U.S. Poet Laureates lived in the town, and I could say more. We moved to a larger town because of the kids, we were adopting another, and we saw that we were always driving to events or schools or shopping, etc. Otherwise, we'd still be there.

That's a pretty fair summary of why I found it scary.

Endorsed 1000%. I hated small-town America for exactly this reason; there's a certain type of person who enjoys interacting with complete strangers, regardless of whether there's any reason to. I am not one of these people. Dragging the thread back on topic, this is one of Wikipedia's biggest problems; the fact that people who work entirely on articles about 1970s cartoons or cat breeding feel they have some kind of right to throw themselves into discussions on particle physics or religious architecture, regardless of whether they have anything useful to say, just because they happen to be passing through.

This post has been edited by Eva Destruction:

[YellowMonkey]

These gimmick cases of POV disputes clouded by sensational conspiracies of backdoor mobilisation are pretty ridiculous

Nothing different from what goes on in front of 100s of people in the IRC channels in front of some arbs.

As for bullying, well lots of admins raise their voices to cow their opponents.

I doubt it is the intention to use this stuff as a facade for condemning the content positions espoused by Piotrus at all.

Once again the question of correct/appropriate content is overshadowed by gimmicks.

What this does to the POV balance, I don't know, I doubt the arbs will care.

POV pushing doesn't necessarily correlate with mobilisation, nor does NPOV with spontaneous majority or consensus, especially as on WP, consensus/majority tends to be determined by the race that is most represented. There's the odd racially charged article that was pushed through FAC with nono-RS ethnic websites.

[EricBarbour]

Well, so far, it doesn't look good for Coren.

I am compelled to reuse Mr. Flynn.
(IMG:http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss273/metasonix/Gadzooks2.jpg)

[Sarcasticidealist]

Well, so far, it doesn't look good for Coren.

How do you figure? So far (and it's early yet) I see unanimity on every vote.

[A Horse With No Name]

Dragging the thread back on topic, this is one of Wikipedia's biggest problems; the fact that people who work entirely on articles about 1970s cartoons or cat breeding feel they have some kind of right to throw themselves into discussions on particle physics or religious architecture, regardless of whether they have anything useful to say, just because they happen to be passing through.

Well, this is Wikipedia: the encyclopedia that any idiot anyone can edit.

[dogbiscuit]

Perhaps the saddest indictment of the ArbCom process is the support for the principle of "Wikipedia is not a battleground" in the face of the obvious evidence to the contrary.

You'd think that it might have dawned on them by now that what didn't work for Canute won't work for them either (unless they are working towards a Bellman's Rule of Three?).

[Abd]

I hated small-town America for exactly this reason; there's a certain type of person who enjoys interacting with complete strangers, regardless of whether there's any reason to. I am not one of these people.

I am, however, I vastly prefer it in person. Sometimes it goes nowhere, sometimes it goes amazingly deep amazingly fast. I imagine some of the others are quite uncomfortable. Sorry! I do try to notice when the poor victim starts looking for the exit.

Dragging the thread back on topic, this is one of Wikipedia's biggest problems; the fact that people who work entirely on articles about 1970s cartoons or cat breeding feel they have some kind of right to throw themselves into discussions on particle physics or religious architecture, regardless of whether they have anything useful to say, just because they happen to be passing through.

That minister I mentioned was the only person in town who really got it when I talked with him about delegable proxy and the problems of direct democracy. He said that there are too many people who have nothing to say, who will take an hour to say it. He was talking about Town Meeting.

Perhaps the saddest indictment of the ArbCom process is the support for the principle of "Wikipedia is not a battleground" in the face of the obvious evidence to the contrary.

It's right up there with There Is No Cabal. Somehow, they fail to notice that there is a pair of essays, and one of them is There Is A Cabal (WP:TIAC), and if you follow through, and read between the lines a little, it's obvious that some people did, in fact, understand the situation. Lots of them are no longer around.

In the case under discussion here, the people being sanctioned for supposedly treating Wikipedia like a battleground, if Coren has his way, are the ones who were behaving less like that than those attacking them and the articles, but ArbComm is ignoring the context. Sure, the list members were aware of conflict and some level of coordination of the "opposition." "Battle." In the edit war where Piotrus semiprotected the article, cited as abuse of tools, the most blatant edit warrior had just registered, obviously for that purpose; one of the list members, as I think I quoted, identified him as a participant on another web site. In other words, they were coordinating, in this case, easily understood as bringing in a meat puppet. If there was an attempt to attack these editors, in September, I've missed it and it wasn't cited by Coren in re Piotrus.

[Kelly Martin]

Perhaps the saddest indictment of the ArbCom process is the support for the principle of "Wikipedia is not a battleground" in the face of the obvious evidence to the contrary.

Well, you know how wikiality works. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[dogbiscuit]

Perhaps the saddest indictment of the ArbCom process is the support for the principle of "Wikipedia is not a battleground" in the face of the obvious evidence to the contrary.

Well, you know how wikiality works. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Of course.

Fundamentally, in any system where the rules do not reflect the reality of the input the outputs are going to be garbage - the system cannot possibly work.

Wikipedia is hobbled by its pretence that its users are well-meaning co-operative people who just want what is best for the collective effort.

A more pragmatic view on life, which does not require the belief that black is white, and allows for the fact that black is not white to be admitted without this being heresy or the tide of evidence finally becomes so obvious and embarrassing would go a long way to making the place sane.

It shouldn't be a problem to recognise that Wikipedians are human, should it?

[SB_Johnny]

Heh, took a bit to find where the thread on this was. Am I about to be dragged into this nonsense?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SB_...se_of_Wikibooks

[Abd]

Fundamentally, in any system where the rules do not reflect the reality of the input the outputs are going to be garbage - the system cannot possibly work.

That's correct. Inputs will be biased, by nature, so a functional system can compensate or factor for that.

Wikipedia is hobbled by its pretence that its users are well-meaning co-operative people who just want what is best for the collective effort.

That's not exactly how I'd put it. Probably most editors are "well-meaning," and intend to be "co-operative," within limits. Would you expect them to be cooperative with those POV-pushing fanatics in that other group? The problem is a failure to understand the nature of communication breakdown and how to move beyond it, and the tricky part is how to do this efficiently, because it must be efficient or it won't work in a volunteer community, except during the expansion phase of a Ponzi scheme.

A more pragmatic view on life, which does not require the belief that black is white, and allows for the fact that black is not white to be admitted without this being heresy or the tide of evidence finally becomes so obvious and embarrassing would go a long way to making the place sane.

I think something was missing here. However, acknowledging, straight-out, the existing situation, is the beginning of possible reform. There is an unfortunate tendency to blame what are structural defects on individual participants or groups of them. It's true that participants resist change, but that's natural and to be expected; it's a remarkable phenomenon to watch that people who will bitterly complain about the status quo will, at the same time, strongly resist the changes that might improve it. Part of that is this habit of blaming individuals. I mean, how would restructuring ArbComm fix the Jimbo problem, huh? Answer me that! We all know that things can't change unless Jimbo goes!

(Jimbo is largely irrelevant. It's possible he could change things, for better or for worse, but his power is highly limited, in fact, for Wikipedia is heavily dependent on large-scale volunteer labor, and attempting to control that could kill the golden goose. If he could do anything, it would be to lead the community, he might still have the power to do that, or not. The real problem is a lack of functional structure, and that cannot be blamed on any specific individual, and getting rid of individuals, even many individuals, cannot fix the problem, it's irrelevant and only distracts from the solutions. I'm sure Jimbo has made mistakes, even some quite harmful ones, but he is no more to blame for the routine stupidity on Wikipedia than he is laudible for the routine good work done. He, too, is human, big surprise.)

It shouldn't be a problem to recognise that Wikipedians are human, should it?

One would think. However, humans seem to have this difficulty in recognizing this humanity in others, or the opposite problem: they see it in others and not in themselves.

I'm neutral, of course. My opponents are the ones who are biased. It's easy to fix Wikipedia, just get rid of all the biased administrators and editors and a neutral project will be guaranteed, right?

[Abd]

Continuing the analysis of evidence re Piotrus, presented in the Proposed Decision by Coren.

Proposed_decision#List_secrecy

8) Piotrus (talk · contribs) was aware that usage of the list was inappropriate, and made efforts to keep its nature and existence secret from Wikipedia editors.

Support:

1. — Coren (talk) 03:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The most damaging part of this proposed finding is the claim that "Piotrus was aware that usage of the list was inappropriate," and understanding the meaning of this would require evidence. No evidence was provided. I looked to see if Coren had contributed evidence on this, on the Evidence page; sometimes Arbs, when there is a problem with existing evidence, have themselves compiled evidence. It was a bit amusing in RfAr/Abd and JzG, that an arbitrator essentially duplicated my evidence, but, of course, it was fine, how could I object? It was done, I assume, because it was claimed that my compilation was biased, though I'd been very careful about it, and my evidence in that case was never successfully impeached. But, here, the only evidence that might be relevant on this is in a pile of claims from opponents, mixed in with a lot of drek. Is there something that impeaches Piotrus in that way, in that pile? A sane decision will cite the necessary evidence.

In RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, one of the findings that demonstrated ArbComm's irritation at me was that I'd claimed the existence of a cabal, and they "found" that I had presented no evidence of improper collusion. Of course, I hadn't presented such evidence, because I wasn't asserting such collusion. However, suppose I had asserted such. Would that be reprehensible if I did not provide evidence? If so, then it's reprehensible for Coren to make a claim as shown above, without providing evidence, I do not at all see why an arbitrator would be held to a lower standard than an ordinary editor.

As to attempting to keep the list secret, I'd do the same. There is nothing reprehensible about that, in itself, for Piotrus had no obligation to disclose the list. A list is nothing but a collection of emails. Suppose Piotrus had semiprotected an article, having seen a private email pointing out that there was a problem there with revert warring from a total SPA, which registered and continued reverting serially with another long-term SPA? Was he under an obligation to disclose the email and the source of the email? Why? How would the list be different? If ArbComm wants to establish standards for administrators like this, it should do so explicitly, and with warning and announcement, and not adopt them and punish for violations of rules that did not exist.

The good news is that, so far, no arbitrator has signed on to this proposed finding. However, that could shift drastically, and quickly.

Use of administrative tools in dispute

9) Piotrus (talk · contribs) has used his administrative tools in disputes he and other members of the list was involved in in order to affect disputes and in furtherance of their point of view. [20090916-0602][20090915-0610][1]

Support:

1. There was also some bullying using his status. — Coren (talk) 03:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I covered this in a previous post. In short, the evidence cited does not show "furtherance of their point of view"; and the action taken by Piotrus was quite reasonable and effectively confirmed by later, stronger actions. In addition, it's offensive to assert a pattern from a single incident, that has been a characteristic of many abusive decisions I've seen, though I've seen this more often at AN/I than at ArbComm. Is ArbComm descending to the level of AN/I?

Disruption

10) Piotrus (talk · contribs) has participated in edit wars, disruption and bad faith dispute resolution arranged covertly on the mailing list in furtherance of content disputes over numerous articles on Eastern European topics. [20090206-2304][20090206-2304][20090216-0055]

Support:

1. — Coren (talk) 03:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

On the Workshop page, Coren has placed some quotations from the list archive. he has duplicate numbers above. Consider the significance of this: it means that nobody who cares is actually reading the evidence, it's been almost two days. In any case, the two messages are quoted in his set:

Piotrus

* 20090206-2304 Molobo suggested we try to desysop Deacon. I like the idea in principle, but how to go about it in practice? Note: before ArbCom, we could launch an RfC about Deacon - this may be a good way to irritate him and gather info on who else would like to see him taken down a peg...
* 20090216-0055 Even not knowing him previously I've criticized him on ANI. This should be a good start. * in re Jehochman at ANI in response to 15/02/2009 20:39

Well, full disclosure: I'm now fucking outraged. The first mail is actually timestamped 02/06/2009 19.04. And here is the full mail (minus the response quoted from Molobo):

Molobo suggested we try to desysop Deacon. I like the idea in principle,
but how to go about it in practice?

He is not one of the admins open to raecall
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RECALL); it is unlikely somebody
could convince him into signing up.

To de-admin him we would have to get an ArbCom ruling, showing how he
has abused the admin power and how he gained it without due course. I
tried to bring evidence of that during my last ArbCom, showing how he
intervened on AE and unblocked Lokyz, but that was ignored by the
ArbCom. I am not sure what more could be done. Note: before ArbCom, we
could launch an RfC about Deacon - this may be a good way to irritate
him and gather info on who else would like to see him taken down a peg...

Finally, we should consider seriously: how dangerous is Deacon? Is it
worth for us and will it really benefit Wikipedia to try to take him down?

The comment about irritating him is, of course, a problem. But, remember, this is a private list, and it appears that Piotrus felt he was under some level of attack from Deacon. What is reported here isn't something that actually resulted in any action, AFAIK -- if it did, that should have been cited -- and it doesn't show what Coren claimed; further, parts of the mail which show sensible balance and a concern for the welfare of Wikipedia, placing it above personal concerns, were not quoted. This is cherry-picking of evidence for negative effect; and when ArbComm has found cherry-picking on the part of an editor, with articles, they have banned for it.

Piotrus was simply discussing strategy, standard process for an attempt at desysopping, and the only problematic thing there is the comment about irritation, which is then greatly ameliorated by the general attitude shown.

As to the other message, it's cryptic. All that Piotrus has said is that he criticized Jehochman at AN/I, "even not knowing him previously." There is no coordination or improper action shown by this message. It was a short response to another post, and the entire new part is quoted.

This is the sum of evidence presented by Coren. It is completely incompetent to establish the claims he bases on it. If Coren were not an arbitrator, an RfC on Coren would be in order, for decepetive presentation of evidence! (My opinion is that sitting arbs should be immune to RfC, but the Committee could consider expulsion by motion. I'm not convinced that the incompetence demonstrated would be sufficient for that, but, fortunately, it's not my decision!) Fat chance, anyway, and Coren isn't necessarily the worst.

No prohibited behavior has been shown, no abuse of tools, nothing indicating desysopping as a remedy, much less the three-month site ban and year topic ban that Coren has proposed. Baning Piotrus from Eastern Europe articles would be, apparently, banning a true expert. Banning him from using his tools on these articles and involved editors would be a possibility, Piotrus might have considered voluntarily abstaining from such action anyway, my opinion is, in fact, that experts shouldn't ever edit articles in their expertise in a controversial way, but topic-banning them without very serious necessity?

From other comments from Coren, it's clear what his agenda is: slapping down off-wiki communication, he's been explicit that he hopes this case serves as an example to discourage it. Whereas others worried about the chilling effect of disclosure of the list, he wants that effect!

Time for a vegetable riot.

I am soooo glad I don't have to worry about these jokers.

This post has been edited by Abd:

[The Joy]

Why is the ArbCom reluctant to indefinitely ban everyone who is involved in this?

Sometimes I think the ArbCom is too lenient. I'm beginning to wish for FT2 to come back with his Star Chamber proceedings.

[EricBarbour]

Coren started posting his "remedies" back on 19 September,
and since then his "remedies" have attracted zero votes, other than his own.

I dunno, it just seems that the rest of Arbcom is losing interest in Coren's War.

Why is the ArbCom reluctant to indefinitely ban everyone who is involved in this?

Because they suck?
Because they don't feel that the sekrit mailing list was all that bad?
Because they hate Russians, and/or Russavia?
Because they're still, no matter what people say, profoundly noninfluential and without
importance? You know damn well people are saying such things in email right now.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[Sarcasticidealist]

Coren started posting his "remedies" back on 19 September,
and since then his "remedies" have attracted zero votes, other than his own.

Those were proposed temporary injunctions, all of which have attracted multiple votes. The remedies proper were just posted October 12.

[Abd]

Coren started posting his "remedies" back on 19 September,
and since then his "remedies" have attracted zero votes, other than his own.

Those were proposed temporary injunctions, all of which have attracted multiple votes. The remedies proper were just posted October 12.

SI is correct. It may be significant that the findings and remedies have not attracted any votes in more than two days, or not. I don't see how anyone who actually reads the primary source, the mailing list archive, as cited, could support the conclusions Coren proposes.

Above, in two posts, I examined the proposed findings in detail with regard to Piotrus. They are shallow and with astonishingly little basis in cited evidence. ArbComm has sanctioned editors who present strong claims before ArbComm without evidence; what about an arbitrator who does the same? At best, Coren's work is sloppy, and he used some local timestamp rather than the archive index UTC stampi, making it much more difficult to find what he refers to, and, in addition, there is at least one duplicated citation, so he presents what looks like three elements of evidence, when there are only two. And the two that there are, not only don't show what he claims is demonstrated by him, but, in fact, one of them is exculpatory.

Coren placed summaries of the evidence at Workshop. What would we think about an editor who provides the community with cherry-picked evidence, citing a sentence or two out of a source, when the next sentence would create a very different impression? This was a mailing list where editors felt free to express their feelings and to brainstorm solutions to problems. So, then, snippets are taken out to show reprehensibility, and over twenty years of experience with on-line conflict has shown me that most people won't read the actual evidence, it's too much work; instead, they will pick whom to trust and believe whatever they say, and conclude that everyone else is lying or engaging in puffery. It can be brutal.

The two posts here that review the evidence:
#1, #2.

[Abd]

Coren's agenda. , two proposed remedies which show what's behind the proposed decisions. It's a structural position, and one not likely to stand if examined closely. ArbComm routinely disregards it. Any individual email that discusses on-wiki situations would violate it. Specifically, Coren states the core of his error:

No discussion held off-wiki can lead to a valid consensus, the basis of our editorial process.

Obviously, no off-wiki discussion is guaranteed to express a consensus, but, rather, can develop and express a factional consensus, and factional consensus can, contrary to what Coren claims, lead to true on-wiki consensus, it's part of the process. Coren naively claims that "valid consensus" is "the basis of our editorial process." Sounds great. However, we have to understand wikispeak, where words which have perfectly ordinary and accepted meanings are given specialized meanings. "Consensus," outside, has two meanings: complete agreement, or something close to that, broad agreement with such limited exceptions that they can be disregarded.

Discussing a position within a faction is part of consensus-building process, not opposed to it. Off-wiki coordination only has negative effect if the on-wiki process is vulnerable to participation bias, and it's only vulnerable to participation bias if majority or supermajority is the basis of a decision, rather than cogency of argument and, preferably, true consensus. Essentially, the problem isn't off-wiki coordination, but defective on-wiki process. Trying to prevent off-wiki coordination is not only an impossible task, and thus subject to selective enforcement, but it prevents the aggregation of factional opinion that, in a mature system, would facilitate consensus, as relatively few editors can then handle the actual negotiation between factions.

In the present case, the evidence actually shows, if arbs were to read it, off-wiki coordination between the "Russian editors." That a faction -- in this case, what I've called a Majority POV-pushing faction -- would engage in similar, in response, as they did, (to a much lesser degree than the evidence presented by Coren implies), isn't surprising at all. It's a natural defense, and extending this natural defense is part of the solution, not part of the problem. The problem is entirely on-wiki, and Coren's solution will make it worse, not better.

What I saw is that the on-wiki action of Piotrus, alleged as a violation by Coren, was actually a reflection of a very simple discussion that simply called Piotrus's attention to a situation. The actual action was mild and supported by later consensus of uninvolved admins, it's reasonable to conclude. What Coren would have, apparently, would be for all information about this to be on-wiki, which would then lead to, predictably, much useless debate. The action on-wiki would be visible to the opposing faction, and if they opposed it, they were free to use on-wiki process to object, and, as well, to discuss strategy off-wiki, which they do, almost certainly. Coren is seeking sanctions, however, for an action which was clearly, in context, legitimate, but he does not examine the context at all. He simply assumes that any action with regard to a topic on which Piotrus is a recognized expert is improper. This is so far opposite to ArbComm's effective position on the global warming cabal that it's insane.

The only explanation for the extremity of Coren's response is his serious opposition to off-wiki discussion of on-wiki issues, and he's obviously and explicitly attempting to use sanctions as a means of discouraging off-wiki discussion. Punishment as a method of preventing harm from imitators. Very much not the wiki way, but this is where open communities go if steps aren't taken to preserve individual freedom, the trend has been a long time coming, such as what happened to the voluntary organization, Esperanza. Off-wiki structure: not allowed. Wikipedia Review was under such attack for a long time, until Wikipedia was overwhelmed by the actual participation here.

Off-wiki structure is the only hope for Wikipedia reform, and the reasons are obvious. Most important is that it cannot be centrally controlled; wherever you have central control of communication, you have oligarchy with unopposable power. A web site must have central control, but not of the user community, rather of the site itself; the balance of power between the central authorities (ultimately, the WMF) and the user community is essential for the wiki traditions to be fulfilled. Historically, organizations have almost always betrayed egalitarian origins, and it's worth looking at the exceptions. It's possible to keep an egalitarian structure, but it requires hybrids, the formation of a symbiosis between central authority and distributed power; organizations which have pulled this off are extraordinarily resilient and function with levels of consensus far higher than most of us have experienced.

[A Horse With No Name]

Is this case still dragging on? Someone let me know when Napoleon reaches Moscow. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

[Abd]

Coren continued

Off-wiki coordination is likely to lead to echo chambers where there is a false appearance of neutrality and consensus.

The problem is that this happens on-wiki as well. It was the core of my "cabal" claims, that participation bias led to the appearance of consensus, if consensus means "majority," -- and Wikipedia routinely follows "majority rule" on a very small scale, i.e., the 3RR rule is a rough majority rule when applied to individual editors -- or even if it means "supermajority," for, as I 've shown , there was a 2/3 majority to ban me when the cause was that I raised a claim of action-while-involved at RfC/JzG 3, a claim that ArbComm confirmed. The supermajority was caused by participation bias, a large faction can easily do that, without any off-wiki coordination.

The majority at that RfC clearly imagined that they represented the consensus, and the big claim that continued against me was that I "disregarded consensus." I didn't, of course, rather, I sought consensus, which, in the presence of participation bias, requires patient, extended process and lots of discussion, if it's done on-wiki, which I did, in fact, do, I didn't utilize my extensive email contacts to solicit support.

Now, if the members of the EE mailing list didn't know that a consensus among them wasn't, per se, a wiki consensus, wouldn't they be awfully stupid? What, exactly, is the problem with a group of editors finding and recognizing a consensus among themselves? The problem is, of course, that they may express this consensus. But, with a mature process, how would that be different than any individual editor expressing their opinion? Indeed, if only one member expresses that consensus, it is *more* efficient and displays *less* participation bias. And if they all pile in, WP process that doesn't recognize that birds of a feather flock together is, itself, pretty stupid. The Massachusetts bird population is almost entirely sparrows, and I know because I look out my window and can see hundreds of them, and not another bird at all. Right now. Wait a minute, here it is a few minutes later, and I don't see any sparrows. Did "consensus" change? No, consensus never formed!

Coren has, in fact, described the Wikipedia problem, but has projected it on the external, private mailing list, with restricted membership, which, of course, may be an "echo chamber." So? There are problems from off-wiki coordination, for sure, with existing defective structure. But does it really matter if the "coordination" is through a mailing list or is just through a collection of watchlists? The effect is quite the same! And watchlists are private, for the most part, though we can infer them.

ArbComm, in my case, refused to address the problem of group "involvement." I predicted this would then continue to cause problems. Well, here it is, folks..... I did not attack the "cabal," the claims that I did were based on assumptions of intent. I simply described it. I sought no sanctions against any cabal members. I didn't even seek sanctions against WMC, but a ruling that he had acted while involved; what ArbComm chose to do with that was their business.... I did express the opinion that if ArbComm was going to tighten up the rules, it should be forgiving of prior "violations," and should only lift admin bits if it had cause to fear continued violation, such as through continued defiance (as was the case with WMC.)

What's the difference between my case and this one? Well, the cabal in my case was a broad one, with a fair number of administrators involved. In this case, I think it's just one administrator, not many. The topic is of narrower interested, so, in order to counter off-wiki coordination from a blatant POV faction, the so-called "Russian editors," they needed to have something to increase their own efficiency, they didn't have the manpower of the global warming, anti-pseudoscience cabal. However, the actual actions taken on-wiki -- as distinct from the brainstorming that happened off-wiki, reported as if it represented an evil plot -- were mild by comparison to what the GW cabal routinely did, and even did during the RfAr, in full sight, with ArbComm's attention being drawn to it -- if they actually read the case pages, and the evidence, which apparently most didn't.

In fact, ArbComm should delegate cases to a committee of arbitrators who commit to become thoroughly familiar with cases, with, then, the full committee signing off on (or rejecting, occasionally) detailed reports from a subcommittee, and any arbitrator being allowed to enter a dissent before the full vote is taken, to debate the matter before the full committee. With better process, the workload on each individual arbitrator, relative to the overall workload, would decrease. With arbitrators developing their own "staff," it would become even easier for them. All this is well-known and functional in traditional deliberative bodies.

Newyorkbrad expressed regret at the loss of me as an editor, because he considered me an expert on parliamentary procedure. I'm not, though I have served as a parliamentarian in some organizations. My interest is consensus process, and parliamentary procedure is an aspect of that; if consensus process isn't efficient, it becomes unsustainable as the scale increases. NYB was puzzled by my taking a position on cold fusion, but, obviously, never bothered to investigate the basis for that. I was simply someone who, in spite of having a natural skeptical position, happened to read the reliable sources and reversed my position. Thus I considered myself a harbinger of a future consensus that will arise as others likewise become familiar with the evidence, and that was true in many cases in my two years as a highly active editor. After I was banned, already in several cases the community adopted, as consensus, with no apparent sustained opposition, several of the positions I'd advocated, to loud opposition, during my RfAr.

Wikipedia must start to respect minority opinion, far more than it does, and facilitate true dispute resolution process instead of interrupting it by deciding one side or the other is wrong. ArbComm can and should make temporary binding decisions, but these should all be designed to facilitate true consensus, not to crush and decimate one side without addressing the underlying dispute. I'm sure that banning will still sometimes be necessary, but, again and again, I discovered examples of banning where what was really being banned was POV, even expert POV, because the editor asserted the POV.

In this case, the EE "cabal" is a majority POV cabal, generally. Their positions will ordinarily be sustained when the community examines them in depth. There is still danger from majority POV-pushing, and I've written that MPOV is actually more dangerous than fringe POV, to project neutrality, because the latter is obvious and relatively easily recognized -- or imagined! -- and thus FPOV pushing is relatively harmless unless undetected and unnoticed. So how to notice FPOV? Well, coordinate! If everyone watches everything, much less is actually watched with any reliability!

The problem isn't MPOV-pushing, the problem is lack of true consensus process that would, of course, include the "Russian" POV, other minority POVs, as well as, obviously, the majority point of view. (I say obviously even though this wasn't obvious to the Global Warming cabal, for the imagined that "consensus process" meant that mainstream science would be give undue weight. Quite simply, the didn't understand consensus process, and feared it; especially they did not understand that consensus process would not mean that they were all doomed, collectively and individually, to endless debate with fringe advocates. It only takes one editor from a faction to represent a factional position in true consensus process, and that representation is voluntary and doesn't require continual attention. Further, when real consensus process operates, minorities will police themselves, the last thing the sensible among the minority want is a battle with the majority! They'll lose!

One of the most offensive things I've found about Coren's evidence was that he included some speculation from Piotrus about filing an RfC against another editor, but then rejected his own speculation based on the disruption that this would cause without sufficient value to the project. Guess which part of the email was quoted!

Coren is recommending that the list disband. I'm recommending, directly to the list, about the opposite, that they open it up, but manage it to keep possibly disruptive traffic down. Welcome editors of opposing POV, but insist on clear behavioral standards, and enforce these standards on all participants, not just the minority from the other side brave enough to join! If you are in the majority, be brave enough to demonstrate collegiality, you can afford it, or at least demonstrate a sincere attempt, toward the other side. And if you want to discuss stuff privately, do it with other private lists, but the coordination function would work with the list as an open list, thus avoiding the whole secrecy issue, and the list function as a device for negotiating consensus would expand if there was some inclusion from the other side, those on the other side who are capable of civil discussion, and there almost always will be such. Want to deliberate in "caucus"? Do it as such, with security, and do understand that leaks can occur. There is, however, no actual need for what the community might consider "improper coordination" upon wide reflection, except under conditions that don't obtain yet, and which may never obtain. Set up the structures so that you could do it if needed, and you may never need to do it.

Need for massive "revolution"? You'd better be ready! If you have enough editors that, out of their own pockets, they could easily fund a site mirror, and out of their own labor and what would crystallize around them, they could maintain and expand it, maybe you'd be ready. However, a faction prepared to do this would almost certainly be able to obtain the cooperation of the WMF, instead of needing to oppose it, and it would only be sustained incompetent stupidity on the part of the WMF that would make direct alternative action necessary. That level of stupidity is unlikely, and, if it were to arise, a prepared community could handle the problem. It's a classic solution, that's known to work: if you are prepared to manage an existing project, truly, that involves the voluntary participation of a broad community, you are prepared to start an independent one.

The same structures that are necessary to be able to govern a project are the ones that could start a new one if needed, including gathering the capital and labor. The key asset of Wikipedia, aside from the community momentum (who owns that?) isn't owned by anyone, it's an open license.

Is this case still dragging on? Someone let me know when Napoleon reaches Moscow. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

How about when Alexander cuts the Gordian knot? Has anyone pinged him? Where is off-wiki coordination when we need it?

[A Horse With No Name]

In this case, I think it's just one administrator, not many.

At this point, we need to be blunt about what's going on.

Piotrus is an aberration among admins: he actually writes articles. Lots of them, and the quality of the writing is superior to the so-called superstar writers of Wikipedia. As an administrator, however, he very rarely used his tools. In 2009, he issued a single block -- back in January. Compared to some of the OCD cases who never wrote a single article but who live to block so-called vandals, 3RR warriors and various rude boys, Piotrus was a fairly quiet admin.

Was it necessary to desysop him at the start of the case? Of course not -- it was a venal act by a venal Sanhedrin that wanted to immediately finger Piotrus as being guilty before the hearing began. We have several arbitrators here on WR, and I am curious to hear what went into their decision to remove the tools from someone who barely used them.

We also have to acknowledge an ugly fact that Piotrus, who is from Poland, has earned the wrath from WP admins and editors who have identified themselves as being Jewish. Piotrus and many of his fellow Polish writers have published articles on WP that offered a view of Polish Jewish history that many Jews considered to be a whitewashing. I helped with several of these -- odd, since I am neither nor Polish nor Jewish -- and I recognized that there were aspects of Polish history that were not very well known and that contradicted the popular notion of an overwhelmingly anti-Semitic nation.

However, I saw firsthand the hostility that went into the campaigns against these articles. One article, about the rescue of Poland's Jewish population by Christian Poles during World War II, turned into some of a battleground with various Polish writers trying to get one point across while Jewish writers (including the egregious Boodlesthecat) and their supporters trying to erase anything that made the Polish-Christian population look good.

Did anti-Polish sentiment play any role in getting Piotrus desysopped? I have no answer, but I am suspicious.

In fact, ArbComm should delegate cases to a committee of arbitrators who commit to become thoroughly familiar with cases, with, then, the full committee signing off on (or rejecting, occasionally) detailed reports from a subcommittee, and any arbitrator being allowed to enter a dissent before the full vote is taken, to debate the matter before the full committee.

And in the ideal world, men would be the ones who ride side-saddle. I've seen first-hand how one Arbcom subcommittee refused to accept responsibility of their duties, preferring to shuck it off to the big committee. Your proposal makes sense in concept, but it won't work if you create subcommittees of people who refuse to do what they are chartered to do.

Newyorkbrad expressed regret at the loss of me as an editor, because he considered me an expert on parliamentary procedure. I'm not, though I have served as a parliamentarian in some organizations.

All horsing around aside (because I've cracked jokes at his expense), NYB is a very good person and a very smart man. I genuinely think he is wasting his time on WP -- I really wish he would pursue professional writing and not get stuck in these puerile melodramas.

After I was banned, already in several cases the community adopted, as consensus, with no apparent sustained opposition, several of the positions I'd advocated, to loud opposition, during my RfAr.

The only way we can enact serious change on WP is to refuse to recognize the Newspeak that is being used as a substitute for real English. You are not "banned" -- your Abd account was disabled. Unless you have an overwhelming nostalgia for the Abd account, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from creating a new account and resuming your editing. CoolHandLuke/One (an arbitrator) has already acknowledged it here on WR and Risker (another arbitrator) has openly stated that she allows so-called sockpuppets to operate on WP.

And for that matter, let's make an effort to get rid of the word "sockpuppet" -- unless Shari Lewis has her hand up your ass, you are not a "sockpuppet." You are a person and you deserve to be addressed as such.

If anyone claims that violates the rules, remind them to re-read WP:IAR -- Arbcom can't have it both ways. They cannot claim to enforce the rules when the concept of Ignoring All Rules is crucial to the WP philosophy.

One of the most offensive things I've found about Coren's evidence was that he included some speculation from Piotrus about filing an RfC against another editor, but then rejected his own speculation based on the disruption that this would cause without sufficient value to the project. Guess which part of the email was quoted!

I have yet to see any evidence that Coren is qualified to hold a position of administrative/managerial responsibility.

[Milton Roe]

And for that matter, let's make an effort to get rid of the word "sockpuppet" -- unless Shari Lewis has her hand up your ass, you are not a "sockpuppet." You are a person and you deserve to be addressed as such.

(IMG:http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll191/Shrlocc/Lambchoptrek.jpg)
You'd screech, too. The tribbles told me about Klingon fisting.

[YellowMonkey]

The only way we can enact serious change on WP is to refuse to recognize the Newspeak that is being used as a substitute for real English. You are not "banned" -- your Abd account was disabled. Unless you have an overwhelming nostalgia for the Abd account, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from creating a new account and resuming your editing. CoolHandLuke/One (an arbitrator) has already acknowledged it here on WR and Risker (another arbitrator) has openly stated that she allows so-called sockpuppets to operate on WP.

Are you referring to Geogre/UL. Do you have a link to this?

[Abd]

In this case, I think it's just one administrator, not many.

At this point, we need to be blunt about what's going on.

Piotrus is an aberration among admins: he actually writes articles. Lots of them, and the quality of the writing is superior to the so-called superstar writers of Wikipedia. As an administrator, however, he very rarely used his tools. In 2009, he issued a single block -- back in January. Compared to some of the OCD cases who never wrote a single article but who live to block so-called vandals, 3RR warriors and various rude boys, Piotrus was a fairly quiet admin.

And, as I've seen in what Coren presented as evidence against him, and especially when I looked at the original emails, one who was very mild in "pov-pushing" compared to what ArbComm has routinely overlooked.

Was it necessary to desysop him at the start of the case? Of course not -- it was a venal act by a venal Sanhedrin that wanted to immediately finger Piotrus as being guilty before the hearing began. We have several arbitrators here on WR, and I am curious to hear what went into their decision to remove the tools from someone who barely used them.

As I see it, it was a response to the firestorm of outrage over the "cabal." Pandering to the public. There is the added desire on the part of some arbs to sanction and shut down off-wiki communication. Some would love to get rid of WR.

Did anti-Polish sentiment play any role in getting Piotrus desysopped? I have no answer, but I am suspicious.

Well, I wouldn't put it that way. The list was compromised and provided to ArbComm, probably by a pro-Russian editor, though it remains unknown. Contrary to what ArbComm has implied, the list archive was, indeed, sanitized; critical headers were removed that would have allowed identifying the original recipient of the mails. Somebody knew what they were doing.

In fact, ArbComm should delegate cases to a committee of arbitrators who commit to become thoroughly familiar with cases, with, then, the full committee signing off on (or rejecting, occasionally) detailed reports from a subcommittee, and any arbitrator being allowed to enter a dissent before the full vote is taken, to debate the matter before the full committee.

And in the ideal world, men would be the ones who ride side-saddle. I've seen first-hand how one Arbcom subcommittee refused to accept responsibility of their duties, preferring to shuck it off to the big committee. Your proposal makes sense in concept, but it won't work if you create subcommittees of people who refuse to do what they are chartered to do.

Of course not. However, the narrower the responsibility, the more likely it is to be fulfilled. Committee/subcommittee structure is what makes all large deliberative bodies functional. Further, there is staff. ArbComm has "clerks." How about "investigators"? How about "analysts?"

It's up to ArbComm, structuring their own process is part of their responsibility, and that they fail to do this, that they mostly remain passive, is simply one more sign of incompetence. Yet this is a defect that any arbitrator, acting unilaterally, could largely fix, and I've seen that kind of thing happen in organizations. Believing that it's impossible is extrapolation from negative experience to positive impossibility, a basic error.

Newyorkbrad expressed regret at the loss of me as an editor, because he considered me an expert on parliamentary procedure. I'm not, though I have served as a parliamentarian in some organizations.

All horsing around aside (because I've cracked jokes at his expense), NYB is a very good person and a very smart man. I genuinely think he is wasting his time on WP -- I really wish he would pursue professional writing and not get stuck in these puerile melodramas.

Very nice, perhaps, and I have evidence for that, but, in person, I'd say, nearly dead emotionally. No presence as a human being. I know the difference. To be fair, this is the case with many active Wikipedians. Stuck in their heads, at best. At worst, stuck somewhere lower.

After I was banned, already in several cases the community adopted, as consensus, with no apparent sustained opposition, several of the positions I'd advocated, to loud opposition, during my RfAr.

The only way we can enact serious change on WP is to refuse to recognize the Newspeak that is being used as a substitute for real English. You are not "banned" -- your Abd account was disabled.

Ah, phooey! My account is not disabled, for one, only general editing is disabled, my watchlist works, I can edit my Talk page, and email works, so I can email any editor who has email enabled. "Banned" was short for "site-banned," which is typically implemented with a general editing block. That's a mistake, by the way, with cooperative editors, a "site ban" should be the same as a page ban, voluntary, with all the usual exceptions, and the editor should be allowed to edit their own user space. It's another example of routine failure to seek consensus by only restricting minimally, as necessary.

Unless you have an overwhelming nostalgia for the Abd account, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from creating a new account and resuming your editing. CoolHandLuke/One (an arbitrator) has already acknowledged it here on WR and Risker (another arbitrator) has openly stated that she allows so-called sockpuppets to operate on WP.

I'm fully aware of that and technically competent to avoid checkuser. However, that's not my approach, and why should I resume my editing? I don't need to edit the project to do what I want to do, as a primary goal, and, indeed, editing would distract me from that goal, and can consume endless hours; I had a noncontroversial project going that was stopped by first by all the flap and then by the ban, and, remember, I was banned from the beginning of June, for the most part, with very little exception I honored WMC's illegitimate ban. Fat lot of good it did me!

Which is needed more, a few hundred more helpful external links and maybe a few hundred articles on minor poets, or consensus process? Being banned is convenient for me, and it makes me relatively invulnerable. What can they do now? If I have an on-wiki project, I can be hurt, to a degree. As it is, I notice damage being done, and sometimes I comment on it here, and sometimes not. Nobody seems to care. Part of the structural problem. Only a few care about any given topic, which is to be expected, but how to, then, handle controversies among the few who care? Those who don't care frequently don't have the knowledge to actually mediate.... it's doable, but it won't happen spontaneously, not enough.

And for that matter, let's make an effort to get rid of the word "sockpuppet" -- unless Shari Lewis has her hand up your ass, you are not a "sockpuppet."

Maybe I'll reconsider. Shari Lewis, you say?

You are a person and you deserve to be addressed as such.

I don't think I've been called a sock puppet lately. However, yes, this is wikispeak. Alternate accounts, not used to amplify votes or expressed opinion, aren't "socks" in the traditional sense. They are "block-evading" accounts, used in the sense considered. Block evasion is a harm, of a kind, but only to the extent that it's enforced! Often, I've seen, enforcing blocks can do more damage than allowing the editor to edit. And this does point toward possible solutions, if anyone were paying attention!

If anyone claims that violates the rules, remind them to re-read WP:IAR -- Arbcom can't have it both ways. They cannot claim to enforce the rules when the concept of Ignoring All Rules is crucial to the WP philosophy.

Ah, but then they can ignore rules as well. IAR is, in fact, the common-law principle of Public policy, which is applied by judges acting under common-law. It's frequently superseded, in effect, by statutory law, but remains, and high courts do rely on it. The benefits of Rule of Law are so great that the exceptions are kept to a minimum.

What's truly offensive is to sanction someone who believed that they were acting according to guidelines, and, when they defend themselves, to accuse them of "wikilawyering." What this does is to allow crowd mentality to condemn, based on "unwritten rules," easily overwhelming any sober assessment of the situation.

One of the most offensive things I've found about Coren's evidence was that he included some speculation from Piotrus about filing an RfC against another editor, but then rejected his own speculation based on the disruption that this would cause without sufficient value to the project. Guess which part of the email was quoted!

I have yet to see any evidence that Coren is qualified to hold a position of administrative/managerial responsibility.

I had not seen evidence in that direction, this blatant, before. It's one thing if an arb signs on to a stupid decision where the evidence actually contradicts the conclusions, but it's another to actually write it. Coren, in this case, has displayed a level of contempt for the freedom of the community and such a lack of understanding of what it means to seek consensus, that I was actually shocked. It's worse than I thought. Is Coren beyond redemption? I never believe that. Coren could turn around in a flash, it's really a very small attitude change that's needed. However, such shifts are not the norm, when the environment encourages and rewards the error. Social animals, we are, and we imagine much more power for our intellect than actually exists in ordinary practice.

[Milton Roe]

We also have to acknowledge an ugly fact that Piotrus, who is from Poland, has earned the wrath from WP admins and editors who have identified themselves as being Jewish. Piotrus and many of his fellow Polish writers have published articles on WP that offered a view of Polish Jewish history that many Jews considered to be a whitewashing. I helped with several of these -- odd, since I am neither nor Polish nor Jewish -- and I recognized that there were aspects of Polish history that were not very well known and that contradicted the popular notion of an overwhelmingly anti-Semitic nation.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif) That is just shocking if true. We've never seen anything remotely like it on Wikipedia. The mind reels at the sheer novelty. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif)

[A Horse With No Name]

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif) That is just shocking if true. We've never seen anything remotely like it on Wikipedia. The mind reels at the sheer novelty. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif)

You are a naughty man. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif) I would spank you, but that would create more problems than solutions. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

All horsing around aside (because I've cracked jokes at his expense), NYB is a very good person and a very smart man. I genuinely think he is wasting his time on WP -- I really wish he would pursue professional writing and not get stuck in these puerile melodramas.

Very nice, perhaps, and I have evidence for that, but, in person, I'd say, nearly dead emotionally.

Are you sure? Maybe he'll respond if you try tickling him? A little kichie-kichie-koo can usually get a rise out of the stoic. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

This post has been edited by A Horse With No Name:

[Deacon]

The list "cabal" is a majority-POV-pushing one, at worst. This shallow evidence, note, is being used to justify desysopping Piotrus.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif)
Ever considered a career in comedy?

But they do resist POV-pushing, as is appropriate; and what I see on top, from these editors, is general civility, though not without possibly some loss of patience, with what looks like an attempt to seek consensus, whereas on the other side, there is personal accusation and very strong POV pushing (one characteristic of that is accusation of bias in reliable source, which is often a red herring; bias is, indeed, an issue, but one to be approached with caution, because those accusations are easy and avoid facing the real issue: editorial consensus.)

The list members are all highly nationalistic, and have been able to justify everything to themselves on this basis. So, sockpuppetry might normally be wrong to them, but they believe it is ok when it serves their goal (forwarding their own POV and undermining a rival nationalism).

The comment about irritating him is, of course, a problem. But, remember, this is a private list, and it appears that Piotrus felt he was under some level of attack from Deacon. What is reported here isn't something that actually resulted in any action, AFAIK -- if it did, that should have been cited -- and it doesn't show what Coren claimed; further, parts of the mail which show sensible balance and a concern for the welfare of Wikipedia, placing it above personal concerns, were not quoted. This is cherry-picking of evidence for negative effect; and when ArbComm has found cherry-picking on the part of an editor, with articles, they have banned for it.

The only thing I was doing to Piotrus was trying to reduce the power of that cabal in ArbEnforcement threads and such like, where they were bullying other users.

This post has been edited by Deacon:

[Abd]

The list members are all highly nationalistic, and have been able to justify everything to themselves on this basis. So, sockpuppetry might normally be wrong to them, but they believe it is ok when it serves their goal (forwarding their own POV and undermining a rival nationalism).

So, now I see what might have irritated Piotrus. Gross generalization about the positions, thinking, motives, and actions of an entire group of people.

I'm subscribed to the list now, and, suffice it to say, the above is a vast ABF oversimplification of what these editors do. I have not examined the entire history, and did not look into the history of the "Deacon incident," and I was only commenting on what was in the evidence Coren presented. From what I've seen of Piotrus in action, both in the archive, particularly the more recent posts in the archive, and on the list currently, and especially in the evidence presented in the Findings of Fact by Coren, Piotrus isn't guilty of what he's accused of. Some of the list members are more "nationalist," but Deacon has, here, shown me more of what they were faced with. Thanks, Deacon.

And what might happen, based on what I've seen before, is that other claims get asserted later, even after other arbs have started voting, and rapid reactions to that evidence can swing things wildly from how they might have looked at first. My major point is that Coren has an agenda, he's out to punish off-wiki communication about project activity period, I'm quite sure he'd go after anyone who acts on a report at Wikipedia Review if he thought he could get away with it.

[Abd]

All horsing around aside (because I've cracked jokes at his expense), NYB is a very good person and a very smart man. I genuinely think he is wasting his time on WP -- I really wish he would pursue professional writing and not get stuck in these puerile melodramas.

Very nice, perhaps, and I have evidence for that, but, in person, I'd say, nearly dead emotionally.

Are you sure? Maybe he'll respond if you try tickling him? A little kichie-kichie-koo can usually get a rise out of the stoic. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

I admit it, I didn't try. Maybe he was having a bad day. Maybe it was because I had an open ArbComm case and he felt awkward. Don't know. I wasn't terribly impressed by the Wikipedia community there. The impression I got from functionaries: burned out, jaded. One functionary, though, well-known, was alive. Actually made a human comment to me, a nice compliment, after my talk.

Jimbo also appeared alive, I'd call him interesting, he has people skills, that's probably why he ended up in his position.

As they say, if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made. The thing is, the difference between fake sincerity and real sincerity is not as great as one might think. There is a slogan, Fake It Till You Make It. It works.

[Deacon]

The list members are all highly nationalistic, and have been able to justify everything to themselves on this basis. So, sockpuppetry might normally be wrong to them, but they believe it is ok when it serves their goal (forwarding their own POV and undermining a rival nationalism).

So, now I see what might have irritated Piotrus. Gross generalization about the positions, thinking, motives, and actions of an entire group of people.

I'm subscribed to the list now, and, suffice it to say, the above is a vast ABF oversimplification of what these editors do. I have not examined the entire history, and did not look into the history of the "Deacon incident," and I was only commenting on what was in the evidence Coren presented. From what I've seen of Piotrus in action, both in the archive, particularly the more recent posts in the archive, and on the list currently, and especially in the evidence presented in the Findings of Fact by Coren, Piotrus isn't guilty of what he's accused of. Some of the list members are more "nationalist," but Deacon has, here, shown me more of what they were faced with. Thanks, Deacon.

I've been dealing with this stuff for years, have read the archive, know the people, and so on. You're talking to me as if you are some kind of font of wisdom. You actually just sound like a raving (and suckered) idiot, pissed off about other things and thus diving into this head first without a clue. Gimme a break! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/yecch.gif)

This post has been edited by Deacon:

[Abd]

I've been dealing with this stuff for years, have read the archive, know the people, and so on. You're talking to me as if you are some kind of font of wisdom.

Actually, I wasn't talking to you, except for the "Thanks" part. Now, however, I am. You are a visible, recognizable asshole, making blatantly partisan statements, gross and vicious generalizations, on the face. I don't have to know the history of it to know that shit stinks, and, in fact, I don't care to know.

[Deacon]

Actually, I wasn't talking to you, except for the "Thanks" part. Now, however, I am. You are a visible, recognizable asshole, making blatantly partisan statements, gross and vicious generalizations, on the face. I don't have to know the history of it to know that shit stinks, and, in fact, I don't care to know.

Sadly, while you may think you sound like Clint Eastwood or something, taking such pride in your own ignorance will probably mean "shit stinks" is going to be the height of your insight here. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/thumbsdown.gif)

[EricBarbour]

Sadly, while you may think you sound like Clint Eastwood or something, taking such pride in your own ignorance will probably mean "shit stinks" is going to be the height of your insight here. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/thumbsdown.gif)

We love him......because he's so economical with his thoughts!.....

[A Horse With No Name]

Sadly, while you may think you sound like Clint Eastwood or something...

You mean he sounds like this?

[Achromatic]

I'm subscribed to the list now, and, suffice it to say, the above is a vast ABF oversimplification of what these editors do.

You don't think it's at all possible that since the list is effectively "public" now (for it certainly wasn't openly advertised before), that behavior on-list might be a little "different" to how it was?

[Abd]

Sadly, while you may think you sound like Clint Eastwood or something...

You mean he sounds like this?
Eastwood singing "I Talk to the Trees."

Horse, for that you win a free LR-115 radiation detector. PM me your address, or the address of anyone who could get it to you, and it's on its way.

So much for stereotypes. No problem with the trees and stars, they were indeed listening to him, as they listen to all of us, the problem was the rest of us, and, of course, that he and we can't hear the answers until one of us does get it and starts translating.

I operate through intuition, and often don't understand why I did a thing until later. WMC was desysopped because, with notice, I violated his ban during the RfAr, and my action was contrary to my own principles and understanding of how WP should work (if we keep the distributed decision-making admin process). But, in context, it was absolutely the most efficient thing I could have done, far more efficient than any verbal statement about how he routinely ignored recusal rules.

Until then, ArbComm wasn't listening, it sits back and distractedly watches the show, then votes on winners. To get people to do more than that, reliably, takes either paying them or providing equivalent performance payoff, and providing them with structure that leads them by the nose, that makes it very easy, Deliberation for the Compleat Idiot. And who creates that structure?

Now, there is an idea. The WMF hires dispute resolution consultants. Easily as valuable as the systems consultants and programmers that they already hire. It could even set up a fund for donations for that purpose. There are people who know how to do what I've been writing about, I'm an amateur by comparison, though I've developed the field in certain ways. Finding consensus is mission-critical, if neutrality is a core policy; all the software in the world cannot create neutrality.

Not yet, anyway.

Why do I comment about intuition? Well, I was quite rude to Deacon. Why? Probably because he appeared and took on the persona of the blind negativity that afflicts Wikipedia, that blames disruption on the partisan factions that develop naturally, and that expresses a fixed view of them, a view that itself disrupts resolution of disputes by inflaming them. Deacon has an axe to grind, however he came by it, and I merely noted that he was waving it here, a simple and clear observation. (Hence "shit stinks.") A neutral observer would not have written as he did, and especially not a neutral observer who was seeking to facilitate consensus instead of judging the contestants, here with collective blame that treats them as cogs in a single machine. When that's done with larger groups, it's called "racism," of the Nazi variety, and that kind of racism finds its echoes on the other side as well, or maybe it even originated there. In the end, for the innocents who suffer under it, it doesn't matter who started it. It has to stop.

Now, if some injustice has been done to Deacon, and he'd like me to investigate that and report on it, I would do it, setting aside any prejudice from his behavior here; sometimes behavior like his results from old damage that hasn't been transcended. Perhaps some EE list members dumped on him? No dispute is beyond resolution, if the parties seek resolution. If they seek victory through revenge, though burying the other side, it can go on for centuries. The only victory of that kind is effectively genocide, and it tends to backfire in the end, at least in modern times.

[Abd]

I'm subscribed to the list now, and, suffice it to say, the above is a vast ABF oversimplification of what these editors do.

You don't think it's at all possible that since the list is effectively "public" now (for it certainly wasn't openly advertised before), that behavior on-list might be a little "different" to how it was?

If course it's possible. But I can also read the archive, and have read a fair amount of it. I can also read between the lines, possibly better than most, I have well over twenty years of experience with observing (and sometimes participating in) on-line conflict.

What has been done with the list is cherry-picking a great deal of traffic, abstracting and quoting from it the most negative snippets which could be found, ripped from context. On a private list -- and sometimes in an open forum like WR -- people will dump their feelings, express their frustrations, imagine extreme solutions. There are members of the list who have strong feelings and who have a battlefield mentality, indeed, but there are others who are more balanced. List members are not all the same, and they should not be collectively judged based on the actions or expressed feelings or intentions of others.

Remarkably, in the proposed decision by Coren, one of the more factionally-contentious editors, one who clearly violated policy, and in an actually damaging way, by disclosing his account password on-list, isn't being banned. That's a clue!

There is one reasonably legitimate usage of the list, which is to confirm what would already appear from on-wiki edit history. It was laid out in the discussions at the beginning of the RfAr, that legitimate usage, I'll describe it below. But what has happened is that, once it was accepted that the list could be examined, a different agenda got attached and implemented, an agenda to discourage, though strict punishment of list members, further off-wiki communication and the resulting coordination. Coordination isn't harmful, in itself, it is, in fact, a necessity for Wikipedia to become more efficient, which is a necessity for it to survive. Coordination in violating policy is harmful, but that is always a matter of action, not intention. I.e., discussing coordination but never implementing it in a policy-violating way should not be a sanctionable offense.

The legitimate usage: to confirm and validate the treatment of a set of editors as if they were a single editor. Such sets can be identified on-wiki, and, indeed, if no pattern of on-wiki behavior were identifiable, the off-wiki communication would be completely irrelevant. I've explained it before, but, again:

On-wiki behavior: A is revert warring at an article. B, who has never edited that article before, perhaps, intervenes, supporting A's position. A and B together, if considered as a single editor, would have crossed the 3RR line. Is this a sanctionable offense?

No, not by itself. If, however, B is warned that cooperating with another editor in revert warring, as distinct from cooperating in seeking consensus, could result in a block, even if B does not cross 3RR, and B continues, then B could be sanctioned.

If there is on-wiki evidence of regular intervention like this, the judgment that B is revert warring, even with only a single revert, gets easier, or it should. In fact, this was an issue I raised at RfAr, and ArbComm punted. It was the core of the cabal issue, and the evidence I presented was all of sufficient on-wiki cooperation, pursuing a single POV, to establish "involvement," but I would not have dreamed of asking that cabal editors be sanctioned for "membership." ArbComm reacted in a knee-jerk manner to the cabal claim, considering it a personal attack, which it wasn't. The cooperation, in itself, was legitimate; what was a problem was failure to consider it when making decisions about consensus.

Evidence of off-wiki communication could make retrospective analysis of such cooperation easier, but the basic principle of not sanctioning without violation after warning should apply to such retrospective consideration. There is an attempt being made here to harshly sanction behavior that, if it happened openly, might have resulted in no sanction at all. The reason would be that it's difficult to discover such coordination; and there is a principle in criminal law that difficult-to-discover behavior gets punished more severely, so that the expected cost of the behavior rises to sufficient significance to discourage it. However, that punitive model is not legitimate for the wiki, and it won't work with volunteer communities.

The legitimate usage of the list evidence, then, would be in issuing warnings to the members of the list that they may be considered as a single editor for 3RR purposes, certain !votes, etc. And the fact is that such cabals could be identified from on-wiki behavior, the list isn't actually crucial for that, and to rely upon the list is to rely upon accidental information which will normally only afflict one side of a dispute. From what I've seen, I have no doubt but that there is similar or worse coordination coming from the other major side of this dispute.

There is no harm to the project if a collection of editors is considered a single editor, provided that they have been warned. Their own activity could, indeed, become more efficient, since there would be no need to pile in to an AfD, as an example, if closers actually paid attention to this information. One cogent vote is enough, but it's also harmless if others add "me-too" votes, doubly harmless if they note that they are under a "collective editing" "restriction."

The determination by ArbComm, or an ArbComm subcommittee, that a collection of editors are an "editing unit," could reduce tag-team reversion and other related problems without actually hampering the ability of a "cabal" to effectively watch and maintain articles; it would merely force such a cabal, more readily, into dispute resolution, instead of what currently happens, that they rely upon collective "firepower" through bald, non-negotiating reversion and are only sanctioned if evidence of conscious coordination comes to light.

Is conscious coordination worse than the natural coordination of factional agreement without specific coordinating communication? Actually, my view is that it's less harmful, and whatever harm results is lessened to the degree that the conscious coordination is openly visible. But, currently, Wikipedia sanctions open coordination, calling it "canvassing." That's the error, in a nutshell. What is called canvassing is a part of natural dispute resolution process. If wiki-theory were being applied, vote counts would not matter. Discussion still might be overwhelmed by pile-in, but that is actually easily addressable, and if it were routinely addressed and dealt with specifically, by moving to more structured process when discussions become too large, there would be no motive for redundant pile-in, rather the focus would become making sure that the most cogent arguments and evidence are available on all sides. And that will improve the process, not damage it. Better decisions will be made.

I think it's been about two years I've been saying this one....

Any process which can be disrupted by canvassing or sock puppetry is defective and should be fixed. Preventing canvassing, in particular, is preventing communication, and communication is essential to the formation of true consensus, consensus isn't a matter of simply polling. That's not consensus, unless the poll discovers unanimity, in which case, who even proposes the poll? Efficient systems, if there is no opposition, implement, they only discuss where there is opposition; and, generally, in larger-scale assemblies, it takes two to cause a discussion to be required, more than a brief process to prove a consensus of all-but-one.

Consensus on a large scale requires communication within factions, so that factional positions can be negotiated efficiently. The danger of intrafactional communication only appears when it's important to know if an editor is neutral or not, and that, indeed, is practically impossible. Neutral is as neutral does, and when "neutral" comes down on one side of a dispute, it is no longer neutral. It may have been neutral originally, or not. Most of us have various prejudices, we may not even be conscious of them. Knee-jerk reactions are generally far from neutral!

[A Horse With No Name]

Horse, for that you win a free LR-115 radiation detector. PM me your address, or the address of anyone who could get it to you, and it's on its way.

Can I trade that in for an iPhone? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

[Milton Roe]

Sadly, while you may think you sound like Clint Eastwood or something...

You mean he sounds like this?

Even Lee Marvin sounded better. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)

But they're supposedly miners and farmers, for goodness sake. It works because nobody expects them to sound good. In some ways I think it actually improves what is one of my favorite film versions of a musical. It's not supposed to be opera. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

[Abd]

Horse, for that you win a free LR-115 radiation detector. PM me your address, or the address of anyone who could get it to you, and it's on its way.

Can I trade that in for an iPhone? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

I wish. I'd be rich, I tell you, RICH. It will cost me more to mail the detector to you than the detector costs.

[A Horse With No Name]

For those who got distracted by Mr. Miller and his sock buddies, it seems that this case has completely atrophied. No arbitrator has bothered to weigh in since Randy took time away from his Boy Scout troop on October 18 (ten days ago, as of this writing): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...oposed_remedies

For the editors who have seen their reputations ruined, particularly Piotrus (who should never have been desysopped), the refusal to provide due process is disgusting. But, then again, Arbcom has repeatedly shown that it only moves very fast when it comes to running away from responsibility. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

[A Horse With No Name]

Overlooked in recent days is another BLP AfD, this time about Richard Tylman, who is the editor Poeticbent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Art...2nd_nomination)

The AfD is a bad faith turd created by Russavia, the alleged victim of the EE mailing list, with the always emetic Jehochman riding in to smack the Polish editors.

Read it and moan. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[A Horse With No Name]

Giving credit where it is due: thanks to Backward Forward (or whatever his name is) for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Art...2nd_nomination)

[The Joy]

Giving credit where it is due: thanks to Backward Forward (or whatever his name is) for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Art...2nd_nomination)

Not so fast, Horsey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DRV#Richard_Tylman

[A Horse With No Name]

Not so fast, Horsey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DRV#Richard_Tylman

Ugh! Talk about beating a dead...uh, hmmm...you know, there has to be a better expression! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[The Joy]

Not so fast, Horsey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DRV#Richard_Tylman

Ugh! Talk about beating a dead...uh, hmmm...you know, there has to be a better expression! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

Slay the slain?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beating_a_dea...ay_the_slain.22

[Cedric]

Not so fast, Horsey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DRV#Richard_Tylman

Ugh! Talk about beating a dead...uh, hmmm...you know, there has to be a better expression! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

I believe the technical term is "posthumous execution".

[A Horse With No Name]

Meanwhile, in Oceania: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=325262411

I like how Manning rewrites history: "For the record, ArbCom did not officially desysop him. He admin bit was temporarily removed for the duration of the case (a standard procedure whever an admin is a central subject of a case)."

For the record, that is not standard procedure - Piotrus was actually involved in a similar situation last year and his adminship was not removed, a point that he cited early in this debacle. There have been countless cases of admins in the center of controversies whose tools were not immediately yanked away at the start of an investigation - the most recent being the Law/TU case where three Arbcom members (Casliber, John V and Luke) were cited as having advance knowledge of the Law/TU charade, but none of them lost their tools while the investigation was underway.

Nor was the bit "temporarily removed for the duration" - he was immediately listed on the page of desysopped admins, which never cited his lack of tools was "temporary."

It should also be pointed out that adminship was removed from Piotrus (1) without due process or any advance consultation with him regarding these charges, (2) without any evidence that he abused adminship, and (3) in the first edit of this case, which gave the immediate - and blatantly incorrect - impression that he was guilty of something.



PS This case is still dragging on! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/yecch.gif)

[Abd]

I I like how Manning rewrites history: "For the record, ArbCom did not officially desysop him. He admin bit was temporarily removed for the duration of the case (a standard procedure whever an admin is a central subject of a case)."

For the record, that is not standard procedure - Piotrus was actually involved in a similar situation last year and his adminship was not removed, a point that he cited early in this debacle. There have been countless cases of admins in the center of controversies whose tools were not immediately yanked away at the start of an investigation - the most recent being the Law/TU case where three Arbcom members (Casliber, John V and Luke) were cited as having advance knowledge of the Law/TU charade, but none of them lost their tools while the investigation was underway.

Yeah, definitely not standard. My two little cases, JzG was using tools while blatantly involved, didn't lose tools pending nor did he lose them at all. WMC was edit warring during the case, on the case pages, and threatening to use his tools. When I called his bluff, he did block me, and he didn't lose his tools then. Had he said "Sorry," he wouldn't have lost them even later.

I think Piotrus resigned because he wasn't using the tools much and he hoped that it would help quiet the controversy. Fat chance. But he tried.

It should also be pointed out that adminship was removed from Piotrus (1) without due process or any advance consultation with him regarding these charges, (2) without any evidence that he abused adminship, and (3) in the first edit of this case, which gave the immediate - and blatantly incorrect - impression that he was guilty of something.

Okay, this is what happened. The posts on the mailing list looked bad. It's as if a bunch of Wikipedia editors met in a bar and talked up a storm, commiserated about meat puppetry and sock puppets and other battleground stuff. And someone recorded it and a transcript was put up. It could sound awful. But did the editor, in this case Piotrus, actually do anything sanctionable?

In all the stuff I looked at, and including Coren's "evidence" -- which was pathetic, and if an editor cited sources like Coren cited the mailing list, precedent would be a topic ban for the editor or maybe a site ban -- the worst thing Piotrus did was to semiprotect an article that was under revert warring by a newly registered editor later identified as a meat puppet, literally recruited from a Russian web site. At least that's what the EEML editors think. The edit warring continued with a confirmed editor, whom the meat puppet had been supporting, and that editor was then blocked by a neutral admin, but the admin then reversed that decision and full protected the article.

Technically, Piotrus shouldn't have touched the article because of possible conflict of interest, except that these kinds of conflicts happen all the time. Admins do each other, and their friends, favors. In my case I argued that there was a problem from "mutual involvement" of editors and administrators, but I wouldn't have dreamed of asking that an admin be desysopped for making a reasonable decision to help a friend, unless it was repeated after clear warning by ArbComm or the community. ArbComm rejected my argument about involvement, that was the core of my "cabal" issue, and a big reason I was banned was that I claimed there was a cabal. Like, duh!

Of course, here ArbComm landed what it thought was a real cabal, with PROOF! Maybe it was a real cabal, though it seems to have been quite tame. My view is that there is nothing wrong with cabals. But they should be disclosed, that's all, or, if not, identified from behavior. Not from spying on private communications. There would be ways to encourage disclosure of cabals, which I call "caucuses."

What's really going on is that Coren is seeking to "make an example" of the mailing list. That's why harsh penalties were proposed for minor offenses. The biggest offense was one member putting his wp password on the mailing list. Apparently list members privately chastised him for that, and there is no sign that anyone actually used the account. But it's the thought that counts.

Off-wiki communication is what could dethrone the oligarchy, they are not about to allow anyone but them engage in it. They can't stop it, but they can try.

Some of the members of the list, indeed, had a pretty strong us vs. them POV, battleground mentality. But WP *is* a battleground, and looking at what's been happening with these editors, they were right, in that there are editors out to get them banned. It's not a friendly place.

[Guesswork Orange]

I think Piotrus resigned because he wasn't using the tools much and he hoped that it would help quiet the controversy. Fat chance. But he tried.

He's not even trying to be friendly and apologetic in the arbitration. He resigned because he didn't have any chance to keep the admin tools. Resigning also allowed him to pretend that it was a voluntary act done in good faith.

1 He has engaged in what cannot be acceptable for an admin. He advocates sock-puppetry and helps proxying when a members gets blocked for a longer period of time, advises repeatedly to coordinate reverts with instant messengers, recruits members into the cabal, advocates and executes off-wiki canvassing of people in general, planned to get CU for the group in the years to come, recommends spamming threads to manipulate admins into not taking actions and is crazy about trying to "take down" his opponents. He knows the system, thinks he is smarter and tries to exploit it for his interests. As one of the leaders behind the tag team, there is no way he could keep the tools.

2 Piotrus has helped his team by behaving as if he was an uninvolved administrator, deciding even outcomes.

For buddy Radeksz against a potentially block causing 3RR, against Piotrus's opponent M.K http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=268517532

Against the EEML opponent Offliner, for his buddy Biophys http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=283414307

For EEML buddy Biophys to end a backfiring thread http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=286558877

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=286693352

Against Skäpperöd and M.K, for his buddy Molobo http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=290098187

For Molobo http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=293351136

For his companion Jacurek, against Kurfürst http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=294163865

Against Offliner, for Digwuren http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=297402461

For Poeticbent against a potentially block causing 3RR http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=305229113

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=305327127

For Loosmark against a restriction http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=299589244

For Radeksz against a 1RR restriction: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=300170616

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=300173090

For Martintg to reverse a block: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=304377698

For Digwuren against a topic ban http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=297750237

For Biophys against Offliner http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=297392077

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=297757969

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=297751864

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=297496779

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=297853200

Abused his admin tool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...rman_Soviet.jpg

Reflects on misusing his tools: 20090731-1648

Offers tool misuse: 20090817-1951

Considers admin status a body armor: 20090622-2140

Abused his admin tools again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...ers_in_edit_war

Was going to unblock buddy Biophys http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=314212899

3 He was already officially " cautioned to avoid using his administrator powers or status in situations in which his involvement in an editing dispute is apparent " and the EEML arbitration is the third arbitration about him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...otrus_cautioned

4 As you already said somewhere, he didn't use the admin mop often. He blocked one IP in a whole year. It's not a big loss for the project if he loses them. Better than if the press picks up the story and finds an admin in it.

5 He was temporarily desysopped during the time of the proceedings and the arbitrators were all voting that he should be desysopped in general. After even Newyorkbrad voted in support as the third, Piotrus resigned.

6 He preferred to resign over getting fired. Now he's got moved into the list where there are also admins who freely retired rather than were desysopped by the ArbCom http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=295361433 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=327951792

7 The ArbCom is still biased enough to give him the benefit of being able to ask the Committee to get the tools back. In a year or two or three he will have them back and he will just continue to orchestrate his national battles.

[radek]

All you've done there is just list everytime that Piotrus expressed an opinion on some board, including wrt to people who weren't on the list at the time (me) or ever (Loosmark). Then you threw in words like "buddy" to make it sound bad.

In all but one (I think) of those threads Piotrus didn't say anything about being "uinvolved". In the one or two he did - he was "uninvolved" as that was defined by ArbCom (a pretty silly definition IMO). Since then he's basically said that he should've realized his level of involvedness, which personally I think is conceding too much - anyone can have an opinion, even an admin.

"Abused his admin tool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...rman_Soviet.jpg"

Nope. No abuse. Just a disagreement. BTW, this issue was extensively talked about on Wiki.

"Considers admin status a body armor: 20090622-2140"

Well, it is body armor. Otherwise certain admin(s) who have posted here on WR before would have been blocked long ago.

"Abused his admin tools again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...ers_in_edit_war"

Right. By protecting an article with an active edit war to the "other guy's" version! Really serious abuse, eh?
I mean, if he was gonna abuse his admin tools, he could've at least protected it to Hillock's (list member) version. That's some really sloppy lame ass admin tool abuse there.

"Was going to unblock buddy Biophys"

But didn't, so who cares? I was going to be President of the United States.


(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/yecch.gif)

[MBisanz]

According to new, now oversighted evidence that I saw before it was oversighted, it appears the EEML never stopped colluding even after the case had started and has maintained an active mailing list through today working on, you guessed it, Eastern European Wiki articles.

[radek]

According to new, now oversighted evidence that I saw before it was oversighted, it appears the EEML never stopped colluding even after the case had started and has maintained an active mailing list through today working on, you guessed it, Eastern European Wiki articles.

If you would've looked at the oversighted evidence carefully you would've seen me requesting to be unsubscribed from the list awhile back. And the fact that the list was/is still around, mostly talking about articles in newspapers, watching the case, and posting little "so and so just voted" messages wasn't a secret since Wikipedia Review's very own Abd is on the list now (I don't know if he still is) and said as much recently.

How the hell you get the things you said on the case page about "going after" people I have no idea. And that from an email title. Seriously, WTF?

[MBisanz]

According to new, now oversighted evidence that I saw before it was oversighted, it appears the EEML never stopped colluding even after the case had started and has maintained an active mailing list through today working on, you guessed it, Eastern European Wiki articles.

If you would've looked at the oversighted evidence carefully you would've seen me requesting to be unsubscribed from the list awhile back. And the fact that the list was/is still around, mostly talking about articles in newspapers, watching the case, and posting little "so and so just voted" messages wasn't a secret since Wikipedia Review's very own Abd is on the list now (I don't know if he still is) and said as much recently.

How the hell you get the things you said on the case page about "going after" people I have no idea. And that from an email title. Seriously, WTF?

Do you give me permission to quote one of the subject lines you sent?

[radek]

According to new, now oversighted evidence that I saw before it was oversighted, it appears the EEML never stopped colluding even after the case had started and has maintained an active mailing list through today working on, you guessed it, Eastern European Wiki articles.

If you would've looked at the oversighted evidence carefully you would've seen me requesting to be unsubscribed from the list awhile back. And the fact that the list was/is still around, mostly talking about articles in newspapers, watching the case, and posting little "so and so just voted" messages wasn't a secret since Wikipedia Review's very own Abd is on the list now (I don't know if he still is) and said as much recently.

How the hell you get the things you said on the case page about "going after" people I have no idea. And that from an email title. Seriously, WTF?

Do you give me permission to quote one of the subject lines you sent?

Sure. Do you mean "Flo shows her true colors"?

[radek]

According to new, now oversighted evidence that I saw before it was oversighted, it appears the EEML never stopped colluding even after the case had started and has maintained an active mailing list through today working on, you guessed it, Eastern European Wiki articles.

If you would've looked at the oversighted evidence carefully you would've seen me requesting to be unsubscribed from the list awhile back. And the fact that the list was/is still around, mostly talking about articles in newspapers, watching the case, and posting little "so and so just voted" messages wasn't a secret since Wikipedia Review's very own Abd is on the list now (I don't know if he still is) and said as much recently.

How the hell you get the things you said on the case page about "going after" people I have no idea. And that from an email title. Seriously, WTF?

Do you give me permission to quote one of the subject lines you sent?

Sure. Do you mean "Flo shows her true colors"?

Uhhh ... of course in the above I'm making the assumption that you know the difference between relevant stuff and personal info (which you don't have my permission to quote)

[MBisanz]

According to new, now oversighted evidence that I saw before it was oversighted, it appears the EEML never stopped colluding even after the case had started and has maintained an active mailing list through today working on, you guessed it, Eastern European Wiki articles.

If you would've looked at the oversighted evidence carefully you would've seen me requesting to be unsubscribed from the list awhile back. And the fact that the list was/is still around, mostly talking about articles in newspapers, watching the case, and posting little "so and so just voted" messages wasn't a secret since Wikipedia Review's very own Abd is on the list now (I don't know if he still is) and said as much recently.

How the hell you get the things you said on the case page about "going after" people I have no idea. And that from an email title. Seriously, WTF?

Do you give me permission to quote one of the subject lines you sent?

Sure. Do you mean "Flo shows her true colors"?

Uhhh ... of course in the above I'm making the assumption that you know the difference between relevant stuff and personal info (which you don't have my permission to quote)

I would be interested in a translation of: ArbCom election‎ - Niektorych nie znam, ale z tymi ktorych znam to sie zgadzam z Twoja opinia.. oprocz Jehomann. Cos …

[RDH(Ghost In The Machine)]

According to new, now oversighted evidence that I saw before it was oversighted, it appears the EEML never stopped colluding even after the case had started and has maintained an active mailing list through today working on, you guessed it, Eastern European Wiki articles.

If you would've looked at the oversighted evidence carefully you would've seen me requesting to be unsubscribed from the list awhile back. And the fact that the list was/is still around, mostly talking about articles in newspapers, watching the case, and posting little "so and so just voted" messages wasn't a secret since Wikipedia Review's very own Abd is on the list now (I don't know if he still is) and said as much recently.

How the hell you get the things you said on the case page about "going after" people I have no idea. And that from an email title. Seriously, WTF?

Do you give me permission to quote one of the subject lines you sent?

Sure. Do you mean "Flo shows her true colors"?

So do you believe that Aunt Flo is corrupt?
Or at least guilty of the excessive cronyism that taints Wikipedia's upper echelons?

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

I would be interested in a translation of: ArbCom election‎ - Niektorych nie znam, ale z tymi ktorych znam to sie zgadzam z Twoja opinia.. oprocz Jehomann. Cos …

I was meaning to start posting here anyway, why not know? I will be more than happy to translate that for you. Behold the words of evil and hate, and tremble:

"ArbCom election‎ - Niektorych nie znam, ale z tymi ktorych znam to sie zgadzam z Twoja opinia.. oprocz Jehomann. Cos …"

translated gives

"ArbCom election‎ - I don't know all of those, but regarding those I know I agree with your opinion, except [that on] Jehomann. Something..."

Is there anything else you'd like to have translated from our private evil correspondence?

In return, can you tell me: do you agree or disagree that people have the right to discuss things like arbitration elections in emails?

This post has been edited by Deputy Cabal Ringleader:

[Somey]

Behold the words of evil and hate, and tremble:

"ArbCom election‎ - Niektorych nie znam, ale z tymi ktorych znam to sie zgadzam z Twoja opinia.. oprocz Jehomann. Cos …"
translated gives
"ArbCom election‎ - I don't know all of those, but regarding those I know I agree with your opinion, except [that on] Jehomann. Something..."

Ahh, but assuming the person quoted is referring here to WP administrator Jehochman (T-C-L-K-R-D) , this only proves you're trying to deceive us! Everyone knows there couldn't possibly be any disagreement about that guy: He looks a bit dweeby.

[everyking]

I find the ArbCom's own mailing list to be a matter of greater concern than some informally organized group's mailing list. After all, it was on the ArbCom mailing list that plots were developed to ban me from various article topics, ban me from communicating with administrators, ban me from the entire website for two weeks, and remove my adminship without even so much as a public hearing. Now, I'll be the first to say that I think East European historical articles are often seriously marred by aggressively nationalist editing--for the most part I stopped editing them years ago because I have zero interest in battling nationalists of any type. But it's hard to imagine that those guys have hatched any plots that can compare to those produced by the ArbCom mailing list.

I think the ArbCom should set an example for ordinary editors by conducting its deliberations in public.

This post has been edited by everyking:

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

Behold the words of evil and hate, and tremble:

"ArbCom election‎ - Niektorych nie znam, ale z tymi ktorych znam to sie zgadzam z Twoja opinia.. oprocz Jehomann. Cos …"
translated gives
"ArbCom election‎ - I don't know all of those, but regarding those I know I agree with your opinion, except [that on] Jehomann. Something..."

Ahh, but assuming the person quoted is referring here to WP administrator Jehochman (T-C-L-K-R-D) , this only proves you're trying to deceive us! Everyone knows there couldn't possibly be any disagreement about that guy: He looks a bit dweeby.

Not sure about dweeby; reminds me of this guy (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) Anyway, there is a disagreement about his suitability for an arbitrator among editors I've chatted about it. Personally, I am leaning towards a weak support. Now, I wonder: will such a (weak) endorsement from me help or hinder him? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) PS. Based on my recent experiences, I fully expect that this exchange will make it into ArbCom case as finding that we are manipulating the election and harassing Jehochman (alt versions: Jehochman is our sock/meatpuppet, or we are canvassing for him, or all at once) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) Hmmm, I wonder if all editors who posted in this thread will be added as parties? Or maybe all members of this site... prepare for the worst (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by Deputy Cabal Ringleader:

[radek]

Behold the words of evil and hate, and tremble:

"ArbCom election‎ - Niektorych nie znam, ale z tymi ktorych znam to sie zgadzam z Twoja opinia.. oprocz Jehomann. Cos …"
translated gives
"ArbCom election‎ - I don't know all of those, but regarding those I know I agree with your opinion, except [that on] Jehomann. Something..."

Ahh, but assuming the person quoted is referring here to WP administrator Jehochman (T-C-L-K-R-D) , this only proves you're trying to deceive us! Everyone knows there couldn't possibly be any disagreement about that guy: He looks a bit dweeby.

Not sure about dweeby; reminds me of this guy (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) Anyway, there is a disagreement about his suitability for an arbitrator among editors I've chatted about it. Personally, I am leaning towards a weak support. Now, I wonder: will such a (weak) endorsement from me help or hinder him? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) PS. Based on my recent experiences, I fully expect that this exchange will make it into ArbCom case as finding that we are manipulating the election and harassing Jehochman (alt versions: Jehochman is our sock/meatpuppet, or we are canvassing for him, or all at once) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) Hmmm, I wonder if all editors who posted in this thread will be added as parties? Or maybe all members of this site... prepare for the worst (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Hell, I may as well make my sympathies known and expose my fellow cabal members in the process. I like ... Wehwalt, simply because he's a content creator. I also like Cla and I was sloppy about mentioning previously that I like a few other folks for the same reason.

Jehomann is a toughy though. Piotrus likes him, I'm neutral, Jacurek (Jacek, I hope it's ok to post tihs) doesn't. Which means we basically cancel each other out. We're a super ultra dooper efficient cabal you see.

Freakin' insane that we talk about this isn't it? Accordin to Coren however (for whom I voted a very big "oppose") this constitutes "ongoing disruption".

A quick question: can we have our own thread/space here on Wikipedia Review where we carry on our evil shenangians since aapparantly saying stuff like this is OK here, but if you do it in a private email it's like the worst thing ever.

For what it's worth I think Flo's votes were all messed up too.

[Sarcasticidealist]

Welcome to WR, Piotrus.

[radek]

And here is my "official" statement I sent to Arb Com. If anyone wants details on any of the "dirt" I'll be happy to oblige at least with my portions of what I said.

----

Sometime in late November I began working on my Schieder commission article.



I had emailed a version of the article to a couple people to ask for any comments and proofread it, Molobo emailed me back with some suggestions and additional sources. I emailed it back to him, he emailed it back to me, etc.



I started the article on Dec 1st. On Dec 3rd Molobo emailed me with some additional sources which he though I could add to the article. I checked them on Google Books, they were useful so I began adding them in. I copied the sources along with some text and pasted them into the article, made some changes and clicked preview. Then my computer locked up – when it unfroze I saw that my gmail front page got pasted in along with some text from the email and posted as an edit. I’m guessing that because of the computer hiccup I pressed some buttons which I didn’t mean to press and so copy pasted whole bunch of personal stuff.



Since the gmail front page had a whole lot of personal information I immediately emailed several oversighters asking for the edit to be deleted. I emailed Yellow Monkey, Mailer Diablo, Luna Santin, and Fred Bauer (there may be somebody else on that list who I forgot – I was panicking at the time given the personal info that was there) who were basically like random names I clicked on the oversighters list – there was no reason or logic to these choices I was just choosing people on the oversighters list. Fred Bauer was first to respond and he removed the edit, which for some reason was still accessible after being oversighted. Fred Bauer was in no way aware that this was somehow related to the ArbCom case – honestly, I didn’t think at the time it would be either, though I probably should’ve anticipated that it would be twisted and misued as has happened.



I then noticed that Skapperod had posted about the edit on the case evidence page (suspiciously quickly, especially given the time zone difference), implying that somehow Durova was involved in the mailing list. This made me freak out even more since I thought that Durova was being accused of something - what can I say, I realize that at the moment any kind of association with my self is problematic so my thought was "fuck, they're gonna go after Durova just because her name got posted there and she's got nothing to do with this". I felt horrible that someone completely innocent could get blamed. Since Durova shows up in my gmail sidebar because I had once or twice emailed her (in June of this year) – this is how she wound up in the copy/paste edit – and because I noticed she was online I immediately contacted her to inform her of the situation. The log of that conversation should’ve been forwarded to the committee by Durova. The rest is obvious.



The stuff that was accidentally posted involved people’s email addresses that had written me recently, a few subject headings and some first lines of emails.



I’d be perfectly happy to answer any questions about Wikipedia relevant emails I have sent, or at least my portions of them (others can be asked for permission). None of them constituted “Ongoing disruption”. They were mostly:

1. Molobo emailing me sources and suggestions for the article and me emailing him back
2. People from the mailing list sending each other “so-and-so voted on the ArbCom case” notifications
3. People from the mailing list sending each other links to newspaper and magazine articles
4. A few comments and opinions on how the ArbCom case was developing
5. People from the mailing list responding to my announcement that as soon as the case is done I was leaving Wikipedia
6. People on the mailing list commenting on some of the candidates in the ArbCom election. It also had the subject header for my email in which I expressed an opinion on some of the candidates, including Jehomann. Jehomann was mentioned a bit more than others basically because people disagree on him. Piotrus supports him, I’m neutral, Jacurek opposes him.



It also included my “unsubscribe” email from the mailing list, which somehow nobody bothered to mention and some of the “People from the mailing list” emails mentioned above were forwards or people responding directly to me.



I have not engaged in any “disruptive” activity since the case began. I’ve avoided AfDs, RMs, etc. I wrote a few articles and made some edits.



There is no “ongoing disruption”, nothing in the oversighted edit shows that there was, and like I said, I’ll happily forward my portion of the entire emails to the ArbCom (or the whole thing if others agree).


With few redactions I'm gonna post this on Wikipedia Review since there's some misunderstandings as to this going on as well.

I also want to add that Fred B oversighting the edit was completely random and he's got nothing to do with this.

[MBisanz]

And here is my "official" statement I sent to Arb Com. If anyone wants details on any of the "dirt" I'll be happy to oblige at least with my portions of what I said.

----

Sometime in late November I began working on my Schieder commission article.



I had emailed a version of the article to a couple people to ask for any comments and proofread it, Molobo emailed me back with some suggestions and additional sources. I emailed it back to him, he emailed it back to me, etc.



I started the article on Dec 1st. On Dec 3rd Molobo emailed me with some additional sources which he though I could add to the article. I checked them on Google Books, they were useful so I began adding them in. I copied the sources along with some text and pasted them into the article, made some changes and clicked preview. Then my computer locked up – when it unfroze I saw that my gmail front page got pasted in along with some text from the email and posted as an edit. I’m guessing that because of the computer hiccup I pressed some buttons which I didn’t mean to press and so copy pasted whole bunch of personal stuff.



Since the gmail front page had a whole lot of personal information I immediately emailed several oversighters asking for the edit to be deleted. I emailed Yellow Monkey, Mailer Diablo, Luna Santin, and Fred Bauer (there may be somebody else on that list who I forgot – I was panicking at the time given the personal info that was there) who were basically like random names I clicked on the oversighters list – there was no reason or logic to these choices I was just choosing people on the oversighters list. Fred Bauer was first to respond and he removed the edit, which for some reason was still accessible after being oversighted. Fred Bauer was in no way aware that this was somehow related to the ArbCom case – honestly, I didn’t think at the time it would be either, though I probably should’ve anticipated that it would be twisted and misued as has happened.



I then noticed that Skapperod had posted about the edit on the case evidence page (suspiciously quickly, especially given the time zone difference), implying that somehow Durova was involved in the mailing list. This made me freak out even more since I thought that Durova was being accused of something - what can I say, I realize that at the moment any kind of association with my self is problematic so my thought was "fuck, they're gonna go after Durova just because her name got posted there and she's got nothing to do with this". I felt horrible that someone completely innocent could get blamed. Since Durova shows up in my gmail sidebar because I had once or twice emailed her (in June of this year) – this is how she wound up in the copy/paste edit – and because I noticed she was online I immediately contacted her to inform her of the situation. The log of that conversation should’ve been forwarded to the committee by Durova. The rest is obvious.



The stuff that was accidentally posted involved people’s email addresses that had written me recently, a few subject headings and some first lines of emails.



I’d be perfectly happy to answer any questions about Wikipedia relevant emails I have sent, or at least my portions of them (others can be asked for permission). None of them constituted “Ongoing disruption”. They were mostly:

1. Molobo emailing me sources and suggestions for the article and me emailing him back
2. People from the mailing list sending each other “so-and-so voted on the ArbCom case” notifications
3. People from the mailing list sending each other links to newspaper and magazine articles
4. A few comments and opinions on how the ArbCom case was developing
5. People from the mailing list responding to my announcement that as soon as the case is done I was leaving Wikipedia
6. People on the mailing list commenting on some of the candidates in the ArbCom election. It also had the subject header for my email in which I expressed an opinion on some of the candidates, including Jehomann. Jehomann was mentioned a bit more than others basically because people disagree on him. Piotrus supports him, I’m neutral, Jacurek opposes him.



It also included my “unsubscribe” email from the mailing list, which somehow nobody bothered to mention and some of the “People from the mailing list” emails mentioned above were forwards or people responding directly to me.



I have not engaged in any “disruptive” activity since the case began. I’ve avoided AfDs, RMs, etc. I wrote a few articles and made some edits.



There is no “ongoing disruption”, nothing in the oversighted edit shows that there was, and like I said, I’ll happily forward my portion of the entire emails to the ArbCom (or the whole thing if others agree).


With few redactions I'm gonna post this on Wikipedia Review since there's some misunderstandings as to this going on as well.

I also want to add that Fred B oversighting the edit was completely random and he's got nothing to do with this.

If you ever have the issue again, sending it via Oversight-L will send it to all oversighters at once.

[radek]

[/quote]
I would be interested in a translation of: ArbCom election‎ - Niektorych nie znam, ale z tymi ktorych znam to sie zgadzam z Twoja opinia.. oprocz Jehomann. Cos …
[/quote]

""I would be interested in a translation..." of a phrase in a language I don't understand" is a super-backing off of "they're going after candidates" that you very irresponsibly posted on the ArbCom case pages.

Seriously. Maybe asking for a translation FIRST before ... um ... "going after" me as you did on ArbCom case page would've been a good idea. Clue??? I got a few spare ones laying around (though obviously I've been using them up lately myself)

Anyway, the translation is "Most of them I don't know, but wrt to the ones I'm familiar with I agree with your opinion ... except for Jehomann".

Basic breakdown here is that Piotrus supports J, I'm neutral and Jacurek opposes. As indicated above.

I mean freakin' A, if that was the part that bothered you, and you don't speak freakin' Polish and don't really understand what it says, then why did you post crap about how I am "going after" people??? For what it's worth I've also emailed my opinon (i.e. "neutral") to the J man himself who was helluva more understanding about it (now I'm "neutral, leaning towards +...").

And if you'd really like I could bring in the stuff you said in June about my appeal of Thatcher's sanction.

[MBisanz]

I would be interested in a translation of: ArbCom election‎ - Niektorych nie znam, ale z tymi ktorych znam to sie zgadzam z Twoja opinia.. oprocz Jehomann. Cos …

""I would be interested in a translation..." of a phrase in a language I don't understand" is a super-backing off of "they're going after candidates" that you very irresponsibly posted on the ArbCom case pages.

Seriously. Maybe asking for a translation FIRST before ... um ... "going after" me as you did on ArbCom case page would've been a good idea. Clue??? I got a few spare ones laying around (though obviously I've been using them up lately myself)

Anyway, the translation is "Most of them I don't know, but wrt to the ones I'm familiar with I agree with your opinion ... except for Jehomann".

Basic breakdown here is that Piotrus supports J, I'm neutral and Jacurek opposes. As indicated above.

I mean freakin' A, if that was the part that bothered you, and you don't speak freakin' Polish and don't really understand what it says, then why did you post crap about how I am "going after" people??? For what it's worth I've also emailed my opinon (i.e. "neutral") to the J man himself who was helluva more understanding about it (now I'm "neutral, leaning towards +...").

And if you'd really like I could bring in the stuff you said in June about my appeal of Thatcher's sanction.

I wasn't asking you to translate to confirm what I said on-wiki, I can read the subjects from 22 Nov, 21 Nov, 19 Nov, 18 Nov (2x), and 17 Nov since they are in English and that is what I based my statement off of. I just wanted to know what some of the ones I couldn't read and that Google translate indicated might be interesting.

Also, if we are going back to June, the arbs have had that email in their possession since July.

This post has been edited by MBisanz:

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

I wasn't asking you to translate to confirm what I said on-wiki, I can read the subjects from 22 Nov, 21 Nov, 19 Nov, 18 Nov (2x), and 17 Nov since they are in English and that is what I based my statement off of. I just wanted to know what some of the ones I couldn't read and that Google translate indicated might be interesting.

Also, if we are going back to June, the arbs have had that email in their possession since July.

Since I cannot read those subjects, I wonder if Radek can post them here, for the amusement of us all. And even before that happens, MBisanz, can you please elaborate on how evil we really are, based on the evidence you have? What do you think we were (are) plotting? Do tell.

Just so it's not all "take", here's my "give". One of my major plots for next year included taking part in the WikiCup. Even if I am topic banned from my primary area of expertise, I thought I can give most editors (including the few participating arbitrators) a run for their money. But you know, after today, even if I am not banned, I am having second thoughts: after all, I am receiving so much love from Wikipedia, I feel, how to put it... too overwhelmed to contribute. What do you think?

EDIT: I just found what made Radek so angry. I am not surprised (at Radek's tone; I am much more surprised at yours - I had expected much better of you). Do tell, how are we targeting those arbs? With rotten tomatoes?

This post has been edited by Deputy Cabal Ringleader:

[radek]

[/quote]
I wasn't asking you to translate to confirm what I said on-wiki, I can read the subjects from 22 Nov, 21 Nov, 19 Nov, 18 Nov (2x), and 17 Nov since they are in English and that is what I based my statement off of. I just wanted to know what some of the ones I couldn't read and that Google translate indicated might be interesting.

Also, if we are going back to June, the arbs have had that email in their possession since July.
[/quote]

Go ahead and post my portion of any "22 Nov, 21 Nov, 19 Nov, 18 Nov (2x), and 17 Nov" subjects that you feel are relevant that you "base your statements off". Or are you just trying to sound scary? There ain't crap in there and you know it.

And what I'm talking about is your statement in June that you agreed with my appeal against Thatcher but you wouldn't say anything on Wiki because you were "running for AfB soon" and doing so might hurt your Wiki career. Nice to know you got your priorities straight.

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

There ain't crap in there and you know it.

Well, if you take *that* word, and *that* word, translate *that* *this* way, sprinke some ABF and add the word cabal *right here*, it looks to me like we were planning to blow up WMF headquaters, assassinate Jimbo and frame Ghandi... you say we didn't? Prove it. You cannot? Guilty until proven innocent, verdict confirmed beyond doubt. Muhahaha.

This post has been edited by Deputy Cabal Ringleader:

[radek]

[quote name='A Horse With No Name' date='Wed 14th October 2009, 4:20pm' post='199655']
[quote name='Abd' post='199621' date='Wed 14th October 2009, 2:41pm']

We also have to acknowledge an ugly fact that Piotrus, who is from Poland, has earned the wrath from WP admins and editors who have identified themselves as being Jewish. Piotrus and many of his fellow Polish writers have published articles on WP that offered a view of Polish Jewish history that many Jews considered to be a whitewashing. I helped with several of these -- odd, since I am neither nor Polish nor Jewish -- and I recognized that there were aspects of Polish history that were not very well known and that contradicted the popular notion of an overwhelmingly anti-Semitic nation.

However, I saw firsthand the hostility that went into the campaigns against these articles. One article, about the rescue of Poland's Jewish population by Christian Poles during World War II, turned into some of a battleground with various Polish writers trying to get one point across while Jewish writers (including the egregious Boodlesthecat) and their supporters trying to erase anything that made the Polish-Christian population look good.

Did anti-Polish sentiment play any role in getting Piotrus desysopped? I have no answer, but I am suspicious.

[quote name='Abd' post='199621' date='Wed 14th October 2009, 2:41pm']

While I'm here I also wanted to respond to this because as much as I appreciate Horsey's insight he's totally wrong on it. Basically his interaction with Polish editors just happened to be when there was some bad blood going on between Polish and Jewish editors.

But amazingly enough - how often does this actually happen on Wikipedia? - a lot of those fights have been worked out and since then there have been at least cordial and professional, if not totally friendly relationships between Polish and Jewish editors (and Polish-Jewish and Jewish-Polish and Polish-Jewish-Jewish-Polish vs. Jewish-Polish-Jewish-Polish editors).

Basically if there are enough trully good faithed people (as opposed to people who throw "you should AGF" in your face and then turn around and report you for the slightest infraction at AN/I) on the two sides of the barricade then yes, disagreements can be solved. Which says something about the actual amount of AGF in most disputes on Wikipedia. Same thing actually goes for Polish-Ukrainian disagreements (there's a good number of very good Ukrainian editors on en wiki as anyone who indulged in the pleasure of our emails knows).

The ArbCom case has nothing to do with Polish-Jewish relations. In fact it ain't got diddly to do with nationalism either. "Nationalism is a problem on wikipedia" has become such a meme (and true, it often is) that most folks don't even know how to fit the EEML case except into that straight jacket. CoolHandLuke (who I otherwise respect) included.

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

Radek, learn how to quote properly (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) Hint: you need to both open and close quote tags, like html. Or, you know, wiki syntax (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

And as long as we are changing topics, here's a proof for what Radek is saying (good relations between Polish and Jewish editors, now that a certain hatemonger is banned): Radek's participation in the Bund Task Force (he can give you diffs if needed, I am sure); and from me: proof1; proof2 (read his comments on EEML case - and remember that one year ago we were on the opposite fences of another arbcom). A mark of a great editor is the ability to bury the hatchet and work with "the other side". Few people come out looking good from the current trainwreck; IMHO Malik is one of them.

This post has been edited by Deputy Cabal Ringleader:

[TungstenCarbide]

EDIT: I just found what made Radek so angry. I am not surprised (at Radek's tone; I am much more surprised at yours - I had expected much better of you). Do tell, how are we targeting those arbs? With rotten tomatoes?

holy shit, Durova really gets around

[A Horse With No Name]

While I'm here I also wanted to respond to this because as much as I appreciate Horsey's insight he's totally wrong on it.

Well, nobody's perfect. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif)

[carbuncle]

Just so it's not all "take", here's my "give". One of my major plots for next year included taking part in the WikiCup. Even if I am topic banned from my primary area of expertise, I thought I can give most editors (including the few participating arbitrators) a run for their money. But you know, after today, even if I am not banned, I am having second thoughts: after all, I am receiving so much love from Wikipedia, I feel, how to put it... too overwhelmed to contribute. What do you think?

You're hinting that you might not participate in something on WP because WP doesn't love you enough? You know where you're posting, right?

[Guesswork Orange]

Even so this thread is strategically spammed by the EEML members (Piotrus, Radek, Abd, ...), I hope someone neutral might still read this.

In an elementary school, a teacher catches a student using a cheat slip in a test.

The CAMERA boy:
"Yes, yes, this cheat slip came out of my pocket, but it was not necessarily
written by me."

The teacher let's the student fail the test and the student would never cheat again.


The EEML boy:
"Yes, and this cheat slip is my intellectual property! It's copyrighted by me
and it's illegal for you to read it! Please assume good faith and be constructive.
I don't write cheat slips 99% of my time, I donated a bottle of
lemonade at the summer fair and often put up the chairs after classes.
There was no disruption and no damage done.
Do you agree or disagree that students have the right to write educational information
on a sheet of paper?

I am Polish, by the way, why do you have a problem with Polish students?
Also it takes two to tango. Besides you cannot punish me for thought crimes.
What I had copied from the sheet, I would have written anyway without it.
Sanctions have to be preventative, not punitive.
The fact that my previous tests were still also well-graded,
surely proves that this cheat sheet made no difference at all.
I only cheated because everyone had suspected me of cheating before,
a victim of a self-fulfilling prophesy. Are you running for principle next year? I could have something to say to that.

I recognized my mistakes and now we are only beating a dead horse.
I can promise you that I will not create any more cheat sheets to create
battlegrounds. Now please let me continue, or do you have a problem with students writing
good grades in your test? This is my biggest worry."

The teacher is so confused, he just goes away.
Later the teacher again comes around and finds the same student, but this time with an entire school book open on his lap.
"If you had looked at the evidence carefully you would've seen me throwing the cheat sheet away.
So stop stalking me. I would really like to put up the chairs after class again."

[A Horse With No Name]

I recognized my mistakes and now we are only beating a dead horse.

Dead??? Hell, I am not even sick! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

Interesting...

[Abd]

Just so it's not all "take", here's my "give". One of my major plots for next year included taking part in the WikiCup. Even if I am topic banned from my primary area of expertise, I thought I can give most editors (including the few participating arbitrators) a run for their money. But you know, after today, even if I am not banned, I am having second thoughts: after all, I am receiving so much love from Wikipedia, I feel, how to put it... too overwhelmed to contribute. What do you think?

You're hinting that you might not participate in something on WP because WP doesn't love you enough? You know where you're posting, right?

I'm sure he does, Carbuncle. And I fully understand how he feels. I poured about two years of intensive work into Wikipedia, and, in the end, the committee that was supposed to be the last stop on dispute resolution did not resolve the dispute at all, it simply banned me, even though, if they bothered to read the actual evidence and independently consider it, they'd have seen that I was very careful to follow dispute resolution process, and, indeed, part of the "problem" was that I was effective at it, i.e., real consensus was found in the end. Which those who were promoting what's been called Majority POV didn't like.

Because the EE editors were kind enough to admit me to their private mailing list, I've seen what they discuss. Not every message is "nice." Some show problems. Surprise. A group of editors sharing an interest in EE issues includes some who don't really get the collaborative process. But Piotrus clearly did, and believed in it. I did as well, and from a few decisions, expected support from ArbComm in spite of a crowd of mutually-aligned editors (I called it a Cabal -- horrors! -- and I was very careful to state that being a member of a "Cabal" was not a charge of misbehavior, and that caution was completely disregarded, one of the "findings" against me was that I'd made charges without substantiating them. But what I'd actually charged was "involvement," not "reprehensible collaboration," and the point was that the tidal wave of "ban him" comments were not coming from neutral editors, as shown by prior participation, and I did, indeed, present that evidence.)

The first arb to comment and make proposals in my case was Bainer, and, while his comments weren't perfect, he did quite a good job compared to what came later, and I accepted *everything* he suggested and proposed. I had no problem with mentorship. But then less cautious arbitrators piled in and Bainer was overwhelmed. Carcharoth waited and asked questions, good ones. But Carcharoth was likewise overwhelmed by the tide of knee-jerk arbitrator responses that boiled down to "I don't like him, he's the cause of us having to consider this mess, and he isn't contrite, might complain again if he's abused again...."

ArbComm is badly broken, and the process and system are badly broken, and it's burning out and spitting out editors right and left.

Disputes are not resolved by banning parties. They are resolved by finding consensus. Consensus process was underway, and it was working, albeit slowly, and ArbComm interfered with it by banning the only truly active and knowledgeable editor remaining on one side, having banned the other before -- for no good reason in that case as well, it was based on off-wiki comments that supposedly demonstrated an "agenda." What was the agenda? Well, to ensure that the article reflected Wikipedia policy on reliable source, which. because this was a science article (cold fusion), would lead to a different article balance than reliance on popular media sources. But that was successfully framed by Pcarbonn's accuser (JzG!) as the classic "media is biased" view, which it wasn't. Rather it was a position resulting from a disconnect between what is in popular media or tertiary sources and what is in peer-reviewed secondary source, the supposed gold standard for science articles, which for a long time has favored cold fusion as a reality.

Now, I come off my three-month site ban in a few days, probably in time to vote in the ArbComm election. Will I even bother to vote? Why? Do I care who wins?

Wikipedia, personified by ArbComm, did not care about me, why should I care about it?

But I might vote for Jehochman. He is an example, by the way of how I was able, following the intention and literal prescriptions of dispute resolution process, to convert apparent opponents into friends, he had originally wanted me banned for "disruption." And I have to give credit to Jehochman for being sufficiently open to that. ArbComm tossed all that in the trash. My real crime? Probably that I have opinions about how to reform Wikipedia process to make it more efficient, more effective, and more fair. Otherwise I cannot explain the ban against participation in disputes where I was not an originating party. Essentially, I'd seen some disputes and had actually resolved them; but in one case the dispute went to ArbComm, which supported my position in its decision. But I was an outsider challenging administrative abuse. (If you challenge administrative abuse, by a popular administrator, you are an outsider no matter how long you have been editing and no matter how correct you are according to policy and guidelines). That was not to be allowed. Finding of fact underneath the ruling? Not necessary, apparently, and the same massive dysfunction exists with the pending EE mailing list decision.

On-wiki misbehavior is assumed from off-hand private comments, which have been cherry-picked from a massive archive, as if someone had placed a mike in a bar and caught a conversation between Wikipedia editors blowing off steam. ArbComm should never have allowed the list contents to be mentioned on-wiki, and there may have been violations of law involved; when the smoke clears, we may be able to see better. When they have banned an editor, the editor no longer has a motivation to abstain from legal action.

You never improve the project by banning an editor, compared to other possible options, banning should be a method of absolute last resort, and it often creates far more mess than other options, consider Scibaby. Massive damage. Cause? Administrative abuse, unaddressed, at the beginning, a ban by an involved admin, supported then by other involved administrators, initially. And then, of course, if the banned editor refuses to just go away quietly, it's then "block violation," and enforcement widens some. The blocked editor is supposed to appeal to ArbComm, and, from what I've seen, snowballs have a better chance in hell than a naive blocked editor does of seeing a fair hearing there. And sometimes even a very knowledgeable, experienced editor, when the mob is screaming, doesn't get a fair hearing. And that would be Piotrus, for sure.

I have occasion frequently to talk with experts in various fields. The opinion is almost universal that Wikipedia is utterly unreliable and that trying to fix it, for an expert, is impossibly tedious and difficult. And ArbComm is making it worse, not better.

I see only one path to a solution. Off-wiki organization. "Cabals." Lots of them! Ultimately, they would be disclosed on-wiki, that could easily be incentivized; if Wikipedia were actually following wikitheory as exemplified in the guidelines and policies, "cavassing" and other forms of coordination would be only helpful, not harmful.

Isn't it odd that Wikipedia finds it reprehensible to inform and consult with others who are knowledgeable on a topic regarding a dispute? Isn't that what should be done? When I had questions on cold fusion (I was almost completely naive on the topic in January of 2009, even though I had a science background and had been quite aware in 1989-1990 of the issue, but I'd concluded like nearly everyone else that the original findings were mistakes), I asked experts. That was later called "meat puppeting" for one of these experts. Who was improperly and abusively banned by JzG, that action was part of what was covered by that ArbComm case. But, of course, that didn't lift the ban.....

And we've seen the same kind of charges in the EE case. The mailing list is a group of people interested in and knowledgeable on EE issues. They are not all "Polish," though certainly some are. They are open to participation by people not "politically" aligned with them. I've seen no improper coordination, even under the silly standards that have been set up.

(If we don't make decisions by vote, please explain to me again why canvassing is a problem? Okay, I'll answer the question. Because lazy administrators sometimes make decisions by vote count. And *that* is the problem, not canvassing. That covers RfA as well, of course, and RfA is a place where votes definitely are counted. And badly. I know editors who rigorously avoid involvement in any conflict because they know that it can result in negative RfA votes, which means that even if they know clearly what's going on, they won't express their opinion, because they'd like to pass that high bar of 70% or more. And then, of course, what happens is that once elected, admins show their true colors, which we didn't know before, and the system makes removal of the privilege extremely difficult, which it shouldn't be -- actually "suspension" should be much more common, whenever there is a serious charge accepted by ArbComm for review. I would argue that any faction that musters a significant percentage of the community to support a candidate for admin should be allowed to elect one. One-third? And the *arguments* should be acceptable to the closing bureaucrat that the admin would not abuse the tools.

Piotrus did not abuse his tools, as far as I've seen, and no evidence of tool abuse was given in a finding of fact.

[Somey]

Interesting...

Definitely interesting, but nothing I personally didn't predict almost 4 years ago. (Btw, if there's an English translation of that, it would be nice to add it to the Uncyclopedia article as a "source"... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) )

Not that anyone should especially respect my opinion, but organizing a voting bloc on a semi-private mailing list (or wherever) can't really be seen as unethical, at least not in any sort of real-world context. However, I can see why WP'ers would want to discourage it, and perhaps even sanction people who are caught doing it - like so many things on WP, it actually has little to do with the ethics of the organizers or even WP's image with the public. It has everything to do with maintaining the illusion of administrative integrity for casual/occasional editors (i.e., rubes).

They're fighting a losing battle, but if they don't at least try, they're finished - people will abandon WP in even greater numbers, and the Lockdown Phase™ will come much sooner than any of us predicted (and I'm already advancing my own predicted timetable to 2-3 years from now, from any original 5-6 years).

[Milton Roe]

(If we don't make decisions by vote, please explain to me again why canvassing is a problem? Okay, I'll answer the question. Because lazy administrators sometimes make decisions by vote count. And *that* is the problem, not canvassing. That covers RfA as well, of course, and RfA is a place where votes definitely are counted.

Yes, WP is NOT a democracy. Except in places where it is. The official idea is that the wiggle room that closing deciders get in the gray area of 60-70% acceptance, is somehow enough to name it as some other process which is NOT democracy. Which of course, is stupid. Any system that votes is democratic to the extent that it votes. Perhaps we should just say that Wikipedia is a corrupt democracy.

The problem is much worse than laziness! The problem is that without being able to identify voters, there really is no way to run a democracy at all, even a semi-corrupt one. Wikipedia NOW actually DOES identify voters by their reputatons, and by keeping votes in each decision small and unadvertised, this gives all voters a chance to see and "identify by rep" all the people who vote in a given RfA (for example).

A controlled "single issue" coordinated bloc of 100 "political action group" voters would be enough to totally torpedo any RfA, which is why such a thing is illegal. As it is, the cabal has its own little group which serves in this function, and runs by IRC and old-boy cronyism, and they want no competition for this. Laziness, my ass. This is about keeping the power you have already, and have gotten by means which stink badly.

A large coordinated "PAC" block of nameusers (numbers approaching 1000) would be enough to sway totally anonymous elections, like ArbCom. WP has no defence against such things being organized spontaneously, off-line. Except the fact that somebody will always infiltrate and geek. And it's hard to organize except on-wiki, and they've made that illegal.

I suppose it could be formally organized off-wiki at someplace like WR. Heh heh heh heh. That might be anough to torque them into another BADSITES frenzy. WR does some of this already, but we don't actually have a dedicated subforum, or even editorial page "site endorsement" for politicos, like some print media do.

[radek]

Interesting...

Definitely interesting, but nothing I personally didn't predict almost 4 years ago. (Btw, if there's an English translation of that, it would be nice to add it to the Uncyclopedia article as a "source"... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) )

Not that anyone should especially respect my opinion, but organizing a voting bloc on a semi-private mailing list (or wherever) can't really be seen as unethical, at least not in any sort of real-world context.

Yes and this was a "voting bloc" that regularly voted against itself. Jehochmann's candidacy for ArbCom being a case in point where my, Piotrus' and Jacurek's votes effectively cancel each other out. Basically it wasn't a "voting bloc" it was just people discussing their votes.

(I apologize for being too angry, tired and frustrated to bother with proper quoting last night)

[Milton Roe]

Yes and this was a "voting bloc" that regularly voted against itself. Jehochmann's candidacy for ArbCom being a case in point where my, Piotrus' and Jacurek's votes effectively cancel each other out. Basically it wasn't a "voting bloc" it was just people discussing their votes.

Well, that's what all voting blocs are.

What's the difference between running a "campaign" and running a discussion group ala town hall meeting? There really is no bright line between the things WP prohibits (or thinks it does) and what it doesn't. As usual, the "legal" lines on WP are not between WHAT you can get away with and WHAT not; but rather WHO can get away with it, and WHO not.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/mad.gif)

[Abd]

(If we don't make decisions by vote, please explain to me again why canvassing is a problem? Okay, I'll answer the question. Because lazy administrators sometimes make decisions by vote count. And *that* is the problem, not canvassing. That covers RfA as well, of course, and RfA is a place where votes definitely are counted.

Yes, WP is NOT a democracy. Except in places where it is.

WP:NOT may win the prize for oft-repeated silliness. WP is all the NOTed things, to some degree, and the unclarity is part of what preserves the power of the oligarchy, which has no rules to restrain it.

The rule of Ignore All Rules is simply the standard common law rule of Public Policy, which basically provides that decisions are to be made with the public welfare in mind, which takes precedence over strict formal following of rules. But there is a reason why Public Policy decisions are unusual when law is settled: it harms the public if rules aren't clear.

All the time, WP editors are punished for breaking rules that weren't explicit. IAR is only for the oligarchy, not for ordinary editors. Rule of Law came to be as a protection against this kind of abuse.

So ... Wikipedia has ended up with a set of "policies and guidelines" which are often excellent, and which are roundly ignored by the oligarchy when it suits them. Naive editors read the policies and guidelines, recognize the excellent, and devote months or even years to Wikipedia, thinking that they will be protected if push comes to shove. And then the reality comes down, and all that work counts for very little.

I'd say that I was given better access to resources and protection against unfair blocking than a vandal, perhaps due to 13,000 edits or so. But not much better. I do find it odd, personally, that I had a pretty clean block record if it's examined closely (i.e., I was blocked for supposedly attacking Fritzpoll. But then look at who gave me rollback later, and who offered to mentor me. Fritzpoll. And Iridescent, who blocked me, later wrote that she had more doubt about that block than anything else she'd done. And I gave her no grief at all over it, I even used her block as an example of how to do it right.) There wasn't anything that could really be shown to be disruptive, as distinct from confronting -- using dispute resolution process properly -- abuse, or discussing possible changes to an article when some editors want the topic to go away. Yet ArbComm ordered me blocked, site-banned. Without actually justifying it.

In any case, I was, in a sense, testing Wikipedia. I thought it was better than it was, and I was proving it. Sometimes when you set out to prove a thing, you find out that it isn't true. Wikipedia was much worse than I thought. I knew that certain areas were really dysfunctional, such as AN/I, which is routinely insane. If an administrative action must be debated, it's probably inappropriate, AN/I should be like 911. You call 911, and there are no arguments, simply collection of facts and assignment of resources. You would never use 911 as a place to argue for someone to be convicted of a crime. You simply report what is happening, that there is an immediate danger, and the police -- for a possible criminal matter -- handle it, using standard police discretion, and they make no enduring decisions, that involves a much more cautious process.

But I had seen some good ArbComm decisions, and was misled by that. I'd also seen some bad ones, but nobody's perfect. And there had been new arbitrators elected, some very good ones. Now, they are gone, going, and still there but surprisingly ineffective.

I do know how to fix it, but who is asking me? So ... I get to have more fun elsewhere, and I am. Much more fun.

The official idea is that the wiggle room that closing deciders get in the gray area of 60-70% acceptance, is somehow enough to name it as some other process which is NOT democracy. Which of course, is stupid. Any system that votes is democratic to the extent that it votes. Perhaps we should just say that Wikipedia is a corrupt democracy.

It's a hybrid system. The basic theory is adhocracy, decisions are made by the first admin who come across a situation and considers it ripe for decision. Given decent review process, this is actually quite efficient, it's part of what I'd keep. However, structure might be created that facilitates it functioning more neutrally and more efficiently.

The system depends, as conceived, not on votes, but on administrative responsibility. I've seen massive voting one way with a close in the other direction, and this was correct. Proof that it was correct? Nobody took it to Deletion Review. In other words, people argued and voted for an outcome, but it wasn't really worth debating further. ("Correct" here merely means "reasonable." I was, in the example I'm thinking of, on the "losing side," in another example I can pull up, I was on the "winning side." Doesn't matter.)

What I found, though, was that plenty of admins didn't understand administrative responsibility. They thought that what they were doing in a close was implementing "the will of the community." So they would look at the votes and if it looked like 60-70% or more, they would decide that way, without really checking out the evidence. The proof of this, besides what they actually said: if you asked them to reconsider based on new evidence, they would say, "It wasn't my decision, it was the community's decision." That is, with the wikistructure that I imagined Wikipedia had -- an excellent structure, a serious error. The whole point of adhocracy is individual responsibility, with the community providing advice. That's why the closing admin is supposed to weigh the arguments, not the votes. And then it is quick and efficient to get a decision reconsidered, otherwise it is way, way too much trouble, too often. And with admins who understood this, it worked. I got AfD's reversed simply by showing evidence to an admin who had closed with Delete. I.e., had that evidence been present in the AfD originally, they would have decided differently, because they did, in fact, consider the evidence.

The problem is much worse than laziness!

Well, I'd say that there are other problems besides laziness, and "laziness" is too pejorative. The fact is that admins don't have time to do what really needs to be done, not on their own, and too often. This problem extends up to ArbComm, arbitrators vary in how much they will put in, but all of them are presented with situations that, for good decisions, would require quite a bit of investigation, and they are presented with mountains of contrary evidence by highly interested parties. The fix is so obvious that I won't even say it. So there!

The problem is that without being able to identify voters, there really is no way to run a democracy at all, even a semi-corrupt one. Wikipedia NOW actually DOES identify voters by their reputatons, and by keeping votes in each decision small and unadvertised, this gives all voters a chance to see and "identify by rep" all the people who vote in a given RfA (for example).

It's impossible to do that, even in a small RfA, not reliably, and it's moot. The decision is made by the closing bureaucrat, who really does have discretion. Or should, were the system sane. It's never been carefully thought out.

Voters on Wikipedia, though, are generally identified. There are problems with socks, but they are relatively small, and if decisions were made by arguments, as is supposedly normally done, sock puppetry would be quite ineffective. Does it really matter of two people are making an argument instead of one? To me, it's a bit irritating that an argument is repeated! It certainly does not become stronger. Except that to some, it does. To me, though, that an editor, in a relatively healthy system, would try to go around the "single-person argument bias" by commenting through a sock, is harmless.

The real problem is lack of careful deliberative process. You get a mass of arguments with no sub-resolutions. It's known how to run real consensus process, and Wikipedia resembles it very, very little. I was actually doing it, and it was working. That's what ArbComm tossed out the door, because of a screaming mob. A few members of ArbComm, indeed, were part of the mob. And so were a series of administrators who routinely violated recusal policy, and who saw the danger I presented to their habits. Hence the ruling that I was not to involve myself in disputes where I wasn't an originating party. That's a beaut, really! If I'm neutral, I'm not to get involved!

A controlled "single issue" coordinated bloc of 100 "political action group" voters would be enough to totally torpedo any RfA, which is why such a thing is illegal.

Except that such an effort, in a sane system, would be quite visible. Someday I'll explain how and why. The whole concept of RfA is wacky, it made some sense originally, and so it continues as it did even when the process has become harmful and quite biased. Often the best are excluded and persons who should never have been trusted with the tools make it through. It should be much easier to gain the tools (originally everyone had them, I understand) and much easier for them to be suspended. And recusal rules should be made very, very clear. That's actually happened, but ... there are still plenty of admins who argue strenuously against the clear policy. A sensible ArbComm would actually suspend the privileges for administrators who argue against recusal policy, as many did in my case and in prior cases, and who show by their actions that they don't agree with it, and if they argue against it, and they are using the tools, that usage should be looked at carefully. "Suspend." Not remove, all that would be needed would be for the admin to show understanding of the policy.

As it is, the cabal has its own little group which serves in this function, and runs by IRC and old-boy cronyism, and they want no competition for this. Laziness, my ass. This is about keeping the power you have already, and have gotten by means which stink badly.

It's both. I'm still not as negative as you, Milton, I ascribe the problems to defective structure, not to the editors who play the game within that structure. Some are pretty scuzzy, but the real problem is a system that gives them excess power and does not restrain it. Who is responsible for the system? Who provides the labor that runs Wikipedia? Same answer. Blaming the parasites is the wrong approach, they merely took advantage of opportunities that we offered by being incoherent and not caring enough to organize ourselves. We are "lazy," really, if I'm going to use that word. Wikipedia will continue as it is (short of what is here called the "lockdown," Somey?) which, I agree, could come as labor support collapses, which is one of the possibilities.)

A large coordinated "PAC" block of nameusers (numbers approaching 1000) would be enough to sway totally anonymous elections, like ArbCom. WP has no defence against such things being organized spontaneously, off-line. Except the fact that somebody will always infiltrate and geek. And it's hard to organize except on-wiki, and they've made that illegal.

Again, I know how to do it safely. I'll help anyone who wants to do it, because the medium is the message. The structure that would create coherent voluntary activity on the part of 1000 editors? Quite enough to reform the place totally. If it is large and not neutral, it would inspire the creation of other such "cabals," to balance it. And guess what? When you have coherent interest groups like this, they can negotiate with each other. And they will, because they can get much more done cooperatively than by duking it out, trying to exercise raw power unilaterally. Fighting with each other, ultimately, is hugely inefficient.

Because Wikipedia cannot defend against such groupings, it is trying to suppress them, that was clearly the motivation behind the topic bans in the EEML case, to discourage such off-wiki cooperation. But that's essentially stupid, because all that has happened is that the more open and cooperative set of editors is being punished, while another set, also cooperating off-wiki but not proven to be doing so, so clearly, is getting exactly what it wanted: the exclusion of these editors. In my examination of the activities of the EEML editors, I saw little serious push for massive blocking or banning of the "Russian editors," and there were also clear signs of cooperation with the more cooperative editors from that block. ArbComm failed to examine the evidence neutrally, so eager were certain members (Coren, most notably, he was explicit) to sanction "off-wiki collaboration."

There is a far more effective approach, that would harness the power of off-wiki collaboration and use it to achieve the shared goals of the project. A much more intelligent approach is to recognize the value of increased communication and cooperation among editors, and encourage it, not sanction it. Really, it ought to be obvious that there is something way off about sanctioning people simply for communicating with each other. If two people cooperate in a "bad action," then they are both responsible for that action and would be sanctioned for the action, not for collaboration. The one who acts is responsible, and that is supposedly part of wikitheory.

Sanctioning people for voluntary communication is rightfully called oppression and suppression of free speech. On-wiki, there are standards for speech, but off-wiki, it's none of ArbComm's business, if they had any sense. Unfortunately, too many of them don't; the smartest have resigned.

I suppose it could be formally organized off-wiki at someplace like WR. Heh heh heh heh. That might be anough to torque them into another BADSITES frenzy. WR does some of this already, but we don't actually have a dedicated subforum, or even editorial page "site endorsement" for politicos, like some print media do.

WR is too diffuse, it doesn't have decision-making structures, methods for negotiating group consensus. I'd use mailing lists, in fact, but the design would be cellular. Compromise of a single list at most could affect only a relatively small portion of the overall structure. Delegable proxy lends itself to this, it's largely a bulletproof structure, very difficult to corrupt even from within. I know some of what's needed to create such structures, and I doubt that I could control them myself. The design distributes power by distributing communication load, and the "nodes," the synapses of this effective social nervous system, are mutually voluntary assignments of trust.

In delegable proxy discussions, we speak of proxies and clients, and the theory indicates that proxies should be accepted to be valid, further nomination and acceptance implies consent to directly communicate, and I can say that I would not accept a proxy from anyone who wouldn't identify to me who they were. Sure, I could make a mistake. But my personal mailing list to all my clients would not include more than maybe twenty, of the most-trusted of those who wanted to be clients of mine. Probably not going to betray the list, and the list won't have a huge number of subscribers. Rather, if there were more people who wanted to express trust in my through a structure like that, I'd refer them to clients of mine. Who would have their own lists. And I, in turn, would be a part of someone else's client list. Through forwarding of emails -- and under difficult circumstances, they'd be anonymized, simply relevant parts would be quoted -- messages would propagate rapidly through the structure; I haven't described all the features. But if I forward a mail, either "up" or "down" the structure (and because of loops, up and down aren't all that different), I'm taking personal responsibility for it, my name would be on it in the list to which it was sent.

For speed, there would be bypasses so that missing individuals would not stop general communication flow. And this may seem complex, but to each individual it would look very simple and easy, traffic would be relatively low, even if the virtual organization were quite large. In fact, the organization could become the population of the earth, and the traffic would remain about the same, it's limited by the number of clients that a given proxy is willing to accept; a cycle of propagation up and down would simply take longer. Would you want a thousand people who believed that you would respond personally to their emails? I can say that I wouldn't!

[Mathsci]

Does Abd's ban stop in time for him to vote? Voting stops on the 14th and his 3 month block started on September 14th.

This issue could be critical for the whole future of ArbCom.

And what's the news about his exploding jamjars? It would be a novel idea for a stocking filler.

[Abd]

Does Abd's ban stop in time for him to vote? Voting stops on the 14th and his 3 month block started on September 14th. This issue could be critical for the whole future of ArbCom.

I would imagine that the block is set to automatically expire at the same time it was set, on the same day of the month. If it were more fair, "one month" blocks would be 30 days exactly. Why should the length of the block depend on the month and day in which it's set? But surely nobody, including me, gives a hoot about a detail like this. The whole thing was utterly arbitrary in the first place. What, exactly, was the purpose of the block? I'll say it:

It was to appease the cabal. Didn't work, by the way. The cabal still complained bitterly about WMC losing his admin bit. He's running for ArbComm. Now, that will be interesting. Maybe I should vote for him, on the theory that the worse it gets, the sooner it will fall.

And what's the news about his exploding jamjars? It would be a novel idea for a stocking filler.

I'll use this recommendation in the advertising.

"Mathsci, noted Wikipedia editor, mathematician and expert on the inside of his bum: 'Novel idea for a stocking filler.'"

Okay, not worded quite like that...

Unfortunately, not this Christmas. Starting with nothing in my hands except a dual power supply, everything is now together to start assembly of cells, except the drill press I bought was missing a part, and they are s l o w to replace it. I have all the materials, including a kilogram of deuterium oxide, that was the hardest to get. U.S. company didn't want to sell to an individual, but the Canadians had no problem, so it cost me a couple of extra dollars for shipping, big deal. A kilogram is enough for forty deuterium cells, obviously I don't need it for light water controls.

Palladium chloride, gold wire, and platinum wire are expensive, to be sure, but what's a few thousand dollars if you're in love? Besides, even if, in the quite unlikely event that this project is a flop, they hold their value. I can make a profit just selling them on eBay. So my inventory is money in the bank.

I'll describe the experiment as the first prototype will be run, in the page here on the WR article, cold fusion. Perhaps Mathsci would care to predict the results? I'm betting on what is found in multiple peer-review-published reports and similar secondary sources: I'll find clear evidence of neutron emission from a gold cathode wire on which palladium and deuterium have been co-deposited through electrolysis. I may see other stuff, too, since my instrumentation approach is quite different, apparently, from what has been done (but the actual electrolysis is an exact replication, only scaled down by a factor of four to keep costs low and to simplify analysis of the spatial distribution of the radiation). Today I'm starting the first control exposures of polycarbonate sheets to alpha radiation, from an Am-241 alpha source. Most households have a smoke detector with a handy one in it. My apartment now has one less smoke detector. Reminds me to buy one, it would be courteous to the landlord (even though the one I hacked apart was broken already.) $6.

This is much more fun than editing Wikipedia. And while I've had to invest a few thousand dollars in order to buy quantities such that I can sell the stuff at market for the small quantities in a kit, my customers will be able to run one of these experiments for as little as $95, if they have a power supply. Cutting edge science, $95? Local science-toy store owner, knows the industry well, was quite excited, says he'll connect me with a major manufacturer. I don't know if the market is large enough for that. I'm sure it's large enough for my tiny production. There is interest from a professor, a nuclear physicist, expert in the LENR field, who has grad students he'll assign the project, wants to buy a number of kits, and also wants to set up a distributor in India.

And most of my costs have been covered already, by the way, by volunteered donations and loans. Seems there are some people who trust what I'm doing enough to put their money where their mouth is.

However, for Mathsci, I could put together a special sealed cell in a Mason jar. With sealed cells and recombination in the cell, you can more directly measure excess heat, something I'm hardly even looking for in the initial kits (I'll log temperature, but that's about it). There is a tiny problem with sealed cells, even though that's what Morrison complained that Fleischmann should have been doing. If the recombiner temporarily stops working, an explosive mixture of deuterium gas and oxygen builds up in the cell, and if something sets it off, like the recombiner suddenly starts working again, well, the only fatality in the field was from that, and McKubre still has cell fragments in his body from it. I'll let Mathsci work with exploding jam jars if he likes. It's not my plan.

There is a fuel cell kit in the toy store that does the electrolysis, then reverses it. The box notes that explosive gases are released. But the amounts are so small and ignition so unlikely that apparently the lawyers let the company sell this to kids.

On the other hand, if you read in the news that a few blocks of Northampton, Massachusetts were mysteriously vaporized, you could guess that I discovered something new. Given that what I'm doing, in terms of the electrochemistry, has been done by quite a few researchers, with nothing remotely like an explosion, I rather doubt I'll become that famous. It's impossible, anyway, right, Mathsci?

The fact is that I may actually see (with a nifty microscope I bought for amazingly little that can make VGA videos at 800x) tiny thermonuclear explosions, likely less than a micron across, but they will melt about a 10 micron region of palladium where they occur, based on prior SEM photos of palladium deuteride cathodes. Nobody has ever looked live at the cathode on that scale, an odd lacuna. I'll simultaneously be monitoring sound in the cell with a very high frequency response piezoelectric transducer, and looking for voltage anomalies that temporally coincide with them, with a digital storage oscilloscope that I also bought. I'm amazed at what sophisticated instrumentation can be bought now for peanuts. The 'scope is new, far better than equipment I used when I was working as an electronic designer, I'd have given my eye teeth for one of these, and it was only $400 including shipment from China. Dual-channel, color display, 50 MHz, 2G samples/sec, long memory, etc.

I'll describe the neutron instrumentation in the CF article page. It's a heads-up for Wikipedia editors, because it's highly likely that this stuff will end up in reliable source. The grad student research would be done for publication under peer-review, for starters, plus I'll be writing about it, and I'll be collecting reports from customers. The kits are designed to be a standard cell, so that single variables can be studied by a wide range of researchers (including amateurs, but there are professionals interested). Nobody has ever done this before, even though the lack of such exact replications has been a major obstacle in overcoming the serious skepticism that was established twenty years ago.

This is about science, not about "free energy," and I have no idea whether or not it will ever be practical to harness this for practical use. The specific approach I'm using may be intrinsically impractical, useful only for demonstrating the effects, not for scaling them up. There are other approaches, developed in Japan, that may prove to be more practical: gas-loading of nanoparticle palladium alloy, recently replicated independently.

By the way, Wikipedia sucks. Nothing I'm doing is actually fringe or not established in peer-reviewed secondary source, at least in round outline, yet you will find no indication in the article of the solidity of this, and text based on reliable sources was roundly suppressed through revert warring, with one argument after another, invented as needed, and my very moderate response to the revert warring was what led to my ban, which ban interrupted a mediation which was being successful.

(That a gold substrate optimizes for neutron emission is based on two published experiments by a single group, so that's not truly confirmed yet, but that there is radiation from these cells is amply and widely known; that low levels of neutrons are emitted has often been claimed, by many groups, but until recently the levels were tricky to distinguish from cosmic ray background. The U.S. Navy researchers whose work I'm replicating managed to move beyond that obstacle using solid state nuclear track detectors placed in the cell itself, confirming work that began in China in 1990, which is my approach, but I'm adding a sophistication that nobody has tried yet, as far as I know. Multiple detectors sandwiched.)

[Guesswork Orange]

The new information leak (Radek wanted to copy'n'paste an email of the banned user Molobo to Wikipedia, but had copied too much) showed not only Radeksz's recent off-wiki continuation but revealed a part of his GTalk buddylist.

Obviously Radek has at least Biophys, Dc76, Digwuren, Durova, Martintg and Molobo in his GTalk contact list, unsurprisingly all of them involved in the EEML arbitration case. Those who thought that the mailing list was the only channel apparently have forgotten that it is about a network of collusion regardless of the form of secret communication. Instant messenger is the favorite channel of the EEML because it allows much faster response times for coordination, especially during revert wars to trap their opponents in the 24-hour period.

This post has been edited by Guesswork Orange:

[Somey]

The new information leak (Radek wanted to copy'n'paste an email of the banned user Molobo to Wikipedia, but had copied too much) showed not only Radeksz's recent off-wiki continuation but revealed a part of his GTalk buddylist.

It was reported by Offliner (T-C-L-K-R-D) here, but it's now oversighted.

The Schieder commission (T-H-L-K-D) article currently has tons of punctuation errors in it... but it's a new article, so it's probably just a matter of time before the edit-warring starts. Oops, there we go! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

[Somey]

As it is, the cabal has its own little group which serves in this function, and runs by IRC and old-boy cronyism, and they want no competition for this. Laziness, my ass. This is about keeping the power you have already, and have gotten by means which stink badly.

It's both. I'm still not as negative as you, Milton, I ascribe the problems to defective structure, not to the editors who play the game within that structure. Some are pretty scuzzy, but the real problem is a system that gives them excess power and does not restrain it. Who is responsible for the system? Who provides the labor that runs Wikipedia? Same answer. Blaming the parasites is the wrong approach, they merely took advantage of opportunities that we offered by being incoherent and not caring enough to organize ourselves. We are "lazy," really, if I'm going to use that word. Wikipedia will continue as it is (short of what is here called the "lockdown," Somey?) which, I agree, could come as labor support collapses, which is one of the possibilities.)

Well, since you invoked my pseudonym... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)

IMO, ascribing the problems to "defective structure" is actually more negative, since it implies that there's no realistic way of fixing said problems. There's also a distinction to be made in that the system doesn't give them excess power, but rather it fails to prevent them from taking excess power. The point is that you have to have both - any organizational structure, no matter how well-designed, can be made weak or corrupt by the inclusion of bad people.

When you ask, "Who is responsible for the system?", you're asking the wrong question; the question is "who takes responsibility for the operation of the system?", and the answer to that is "nobody." The labor that runs Wikipedia isn't necessarily the same as the labor that writes and researches Wikipedia, either. The "system," such as it is, is brilliantly designed for one purpose only: attracting a wide range of opinionated, bitter, disaffected, and/or arrogant narcissistic types (plus a few altruistic types here and there, just for variety), and getting them all to interact with each other in various ways ranging from collegiality to hate-filled confrontationalism. As a by-product, these people also add "free" content (of varying degrees of quality) to web pages. A relatively small number of individuals have quite naturally formed a core-group within this system to "run" it, but this core group is still way too large to be manageable, and it has been since 2006. In any oversized group of people lacking effective leadership and a coherent purpose, you will get factionalism, and factionalism is a weakness that can be taken advantage of.

Ultimately I still agree with much of what you're saying, though...

As for the "lockdown" thing, it isn't just lack of labor support that will bring this about (assuming you're referring to reduction in number-of-active-editors overall). Other factors may include external societal pressure, greater proficiency and aggressiveness of malefactors, or even just lack of funding. But ultimately it will happen because the core group either dissolves or no longer shows up to do the job, or because they demand it as the price of their continuing to do it. The core group does the heavy lifting, and once they're gone (or just stop trying), there will really be no other choice.

Regardless, I see this as much more likely than would be suggested by the phrase "one of the possibilities" - this has been part of the life-cycle of web-based communities since the first ones began to appear in the mid-1990's. Wikipedia isn't doing anything to change their trajectory along that life-cycle, and I doubt they could if they wanted to.

[Kelly Martin]

The "system," such as it is, is brilliantly designed for one purpose only: attracting a wide range of opinionated, bitter, disaffected, and/or arrogant narcissistic types (plus a few altruistic types here and there, just for variety), and getting them all to interact with each other in various ways ranging from collegiality to hate-filled confrontationalism. As a by-product, these people also add "free" content (of varying degrees of quality) to web pages.

Best description of Wikipedia I've read yet. Thank you, Somey.

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

The new information leak (Radek wanted to copy'n'paste an email of the banned user Molobo to Wikipedia, but had copied too much) showed not only Radeksz's recent off-wiki continuation but revealed a part of his GTalk buddylist.

It was reported by Offliner (T-C-L-K-R-D) here, but it's now oversighted.

The Schieder commission (T-H-L-K-D) article currently has tons of punctuation errors in it... but it's a new article, so it's probably just a matter of time before the edit-warring starts. Oops, there we go! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

I highly recommend the exchange on article's talk and here. This is the first time I saw such a blatant admission that an article is getting tagged simply because IDONTLIKETHEEDITORSWHOWROTETHISARTICLE (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

The article itself is an interesting read; I leave it up to you to decide who would be so interested in taking down content critical of some Nazis...

This post has been edited by Deputy Cabal Ringleader:

[Guesswork Orange]

The new information leak (Radek wanted to copy'n'paste an email of the banned user Molobo to Wikipedia, but had copied too much) showed not only Radeksz's recent off-wiki continuation but revealed a part of his GTalk buddylist.

It was reported by Offliner (T-C-L-K-R-D) here, but it's now oversighted.

The Schieder commission (T-H-L-K-D) article currently has tons of punctuation errors in it... but it's a new article, so it's probably just a matter of time before the edit-warring starts. Oops, there we go! :P

I highly recommend the exchange on article's talk and here. This is the first time I saw such a blatant admission that an article is getting tagged simply because IDONTLIKETHEEDITORSWHOWROTETHISARTICLE :)

The article itself is an interesting read; I leave it up to you to decide who would be so interested in taking down content critical of some Nazis...

That's some clever phrasing over here. Deputy Cabal Ringleader is only revealing a small portion of the context in such a way as to make someone just look like a defender of Nazis.

The Schieder commission is a coatrack article from the expulsion of Germans from Poland. The expulsion is where the political delicacy and interest of creation comes from. "The German and Polish governments are once again engaged in a high-profile dispute over plans for a permanent exhibition on the fate of the Germans who were expelled from their homes." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/world/eu...74703.html?_r=1

How the Schieder commission comes in is that it has to do with the dispute of how many Germans died during the expulsion. The commission wrote that the number of deaths of Germans expelled from Poland was 2.1 million. The death toll is a number that the authors want to see estimated of course at as low as possible and everything higher to be associated and disregarded as Nazi stuff.

[radek]

The new information leak (Radek wanted to copy'n'paste an email of the banned user Molobo to Wikipedia, but had copied too much) showed not only Radeksz's recent off-wiki continuation but revealed a part of his GTalk buddylist.

It was reported by Offliner (T-C-L-K-R-D) here, but it's now oversighted.

The Schieder commission (T-H-L-K-D) article currently has tons of punctuation errors in it... but it's a new article, so it's probably just a matter of time before the edit-warring starts. Oops, there we go! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

I highly recommend the exchange on article's talk and here. This is the first time I saw such a blatant admission that an article is getting tagged simply because IDONTLIKETHEEDITORSWHOWROTETHISARTICLE (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

The article itself is an interesting read; I leave it up to you to decide who would be so interested in taking down content critical of some Nazis...

That's some clever phrasing over here. Deputy Cabal Ringleader is only revealing a small portion of the context in such a way as to make someone just look like a defender of Nazis.

The Schieder commission is a coatrack article from the expulsion of Germans from Poland. The expulsion is where the political delicacy and interest of creation comes from. "The German and Polish governments are once again engaged in a high-profile dispute over plans for a permanent exhibition on the fate of the Germans who were expelled from their homes." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/world/eu...74703.html?_r=1

How the Schieder commission comes in is that it has to do with the dispute of how many Germans died during the expulsion. The commission wrote that the number of deaths of Germans expelled from Poland was 2.1 million. The death toll is a number that the authors want to see estimated of course at as low as possible and everything higher to be associated and disregarded as Nazi stuff.

Calling something a "coatrack" is basically a standard tactic when one has trouble making actual criticisms of the text and can't remove the sources because they're reliable.

Let's see, the article is about 1) composition of the commission, 2) the goals of the commission and 3) the methodology of the commission.

Obviously the commission itself is notable enough to have an article.

Hmmm, and the fact that this portion of the estimates is "Nazi stuff" is pretty much in the sources.

[radek]

The new information leak (Radek wanted to copy'n'paste an email of the banned user Molobo to Wikipedia, but had copied too much) showed not only Radeksz's recent off-wiki continuation but revealed a part of his GTalk buddylist.

Obviously Radek has at least Biophys, Dc76, Digwuren, Durova, Martintg and Molobo in his GTalk contact list, unsurprisingly all of them involved in the EEML arbitration case. Those who thought that the mailing list was the only channel apparently have forgotten that it is about a network of collusion regardless of the form of secret communication. Instant messenger is the favorite channel of the EEML because it allows much faster response times for coordination, especially during revert wars to trap their opponents in the 24-hour period.

My GTalk sidebar automatically adds people that I've emailed in the past to it. Durova is not "involved" in EEML case. I havent heard from Biophys in a very long time (basically since the case started). I had some limited communications with the others mostly sending each other notifications like "so-and-so just voted". Molobo's different but there's nothing wrong there either

Anyway - I posted all the email headers at the case page, after removing the personal info. Here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Relevant_portions_of_the_oversighted_edit]. So everyone can see the reasons for why Coren apparently's proposing 1 year blocks.

Since all that is now in the open I'm still waiting for MBizans to step up and back up his slander - or admit that his bluff was called or at very least back off and admit to the fact that he misunderstood a language he doesn't speak and just jumped to conclusions.

Also Guesswork, you'll forgive me if from now on I'll ignore your trolling. There's enough of that at the ArbCom page which despite some very honest and good work by the clerks is pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet for the trolls.

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

Radek, why are you bothering with a SPA who doesn't even have the courage to admit his Wikipedia username?

[Somey]

My GTalk sidebar automatically adds people that I've emailed in the past to it. Durova is not "involved" in EEML case.

Well now, there you go again. Durova is involved in everything. If it exists on Wikipedia at all, you can bet Durova is in it up to her neck. She couldn't keep away if she wanted to.

Also Guesswork, you'll forgive me if from now on I'll ignore your trolling. There's enough of that at the ArbCom page which despite some very honest and good work by the clerks is pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet for the trolls.

Please, we don't like to see the "t-word" here. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

Mr. Orange has a perfectly valid reason to believe that Eastern European WP'ers are cooperating, collaborating, and/or "colluding" if you prefer the pejorative term, on various articles - actually, I don't believe that's in dispute, is it? But once everyone accepts that there's nothing unethical about their doing this, the only question seems to be whether or not his opposition is based on principle, or rather just a kind of "sour grapes" that he can't get enough of a team together on his side to sufficiently counteract the effect.

The real test in this case, IMO, is whether or not these "EEML" folks allow the "Schieder commission" article to include material that might suggest that the number of victims was, indeed, higher than the commission's estimate. Assuming that such material is "properly sourced," yada yada yada. Do you disagree?

[MBisanz]

The new information leak (Radek wanted to copy'n'paste an email of the banned user Molobo to Wikipedia, but had copied too much) showed not only Radeksz's recent off-wiki continuation but revealed a part of his GTalk buddylist.

Obviously Radek has at least Biophys, Dc76, Digwuren, Durova, Martintg and Molobo in his GTalk contact list, unsurprisingly all of them involved in the EEML arbitration case. Those who thought that the mailing list was the only channel apparently have forgotten that it is about a network of collusion regardless of the form of secret communication. Instant messenger is the favorite channel of the EEML because it allows much faster response times for coordination, especially during revert wars to trap their opponents in the 24-hour period.

My GTalk sidebar automatically adds people that I've emailed in the past to it. Durova is not "involved" in EEML case. I havent heard from Biophys in a very long time (basically since the case started). I had some limited communications with the others mostly sending each other notifications like "so-and-so just voted". Molobo's different but there's nothing wrong there either

Anyway - I posted all the email headers at the case page, after removing the personal info. Here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Relevant_portions_of_the_oversighted_edit]. So everyone can see the reasons for why Coren apparently's proposing 1 year blocks.

Since all that is now in the open I'm still waiting for MBizans to step up and back up his slander - or admit that his bluff was called or at very least back off and admit to the fact that he misunderstood a language he doesn't speak and just jumped to conclusions.

Also Guesswork, you'll forgive me if from now on I'll ignore your trolling. There's enough of that at the ArbCom page which despite some very honest and good work by the clerks is pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet for the trolls.

Well I was going to be nice and hope this thread would die so you would only have to fight the issue out on WP where there is a greater assumption of good faith required, but, here are the subject lines I took to indicate as targeting against the arbs and arb candidates per your post #182 permission:

*[WPM] The Committee can be nice‎ - [name removed] wrote: > NYBrada. Wyslalem mejla do kazdego z supporta poza FloNight. Ciekawe, czy …
*[Fwd: [WPM] Manning vanishing?]‎ - Original Message Subject: [WPM] Manning vanishing? Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:31:08 EST …
*What to watch‎ - Well, I thought about it - and I think most main articles will be safe because there's non …
*[WPM] The perils of enthusiasm‎ - According to FloNight, enthusiasm is punishable: <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title …
*[WPM] Lessons from the WikiCup saga‎ - On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 22:41, [name removed] <[email address removed> wrote: Anyway, check the …
*[WPM] ArbCom case‎ - On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 16:50, [name removed] <[email removed]> wrote: Imagine …
*[WPM] Thinking I might ask Jehochman a question‎ - [username removed] already asked him similar question: * support reading the private emails (he hasn't …
*Re: [WPM] ArbCom case‎ - Anyway, it works only for [three usernames removed]. So, these 3 people should decide for …
*[WPM] FloNight shows her true colors‎ - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...Requests%2FCase …
*[WPM] Coren running again for the arbitrator seat‎ - Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...s_December_2009 …
*Vassayna‎ - [name removed] wrote: > He just voted. Against me, but for [two usernames removed] and split it on …
*[Fwd: Re: Wikipedia: question about possible CoI and recusal]‎ - Well I dont think you can do anything about it now. The thing of course is that new proposals may …
*[WPM] What next?‎ - [name removed] wrote: > Quick question - if an arb is recused from this case, would they also be …
*[WPM] A potentially interesting form of legal threat‎ - At 04:43 PM 11/12/2009, [name removed] wrote: >Anyway, legal wise, we have one strong …
*[WPM] Jehochman's campaign‎ - In a message dated 11/14/2009 6:28:42 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [email removed] writes: By …

[JohnA]

Somey:

The "system," such as it is, is brilliantly designed for one purpose only: attracting a wide range of opinionated, bitter, disaffected, and/or arrogant narcissistic types (plus a few altruistic types here and there, just for variety), and getting them all to interact with each other in various ways ranging from collegiality to hate-filled confrontationalism. As a by-product, these people also add "free" content (of varying degrees of quality) to web pages.

I'll struggle to find a better synopsis of what Wikipedia is, ever.

[Random832]

The "system," such as it is, is brilliantly designed for one purpose only: attracting a wide range of opinionated, bitter, disaffected, and/or arrogant narcissistic types (plus a few altruistic types here and there, just for variety), and getting them all to interact with each other in various ways ranging from collegiality to hate-filled confrontationalism. As a by-product, these people also add "free" content (of varying degrees of quality) to web pages.

Best description of Wikipedia I've read yet. Thank you, Somey.

Better than this one? Or is it merely the distinction between a literal description and an analogy?

[Wiki Witch of the West]

My GTalk sidebar automatically adds people that I've emailed in the past to it. Durova is not "involved" in EEML case.

Well now, there you go again. Durova is involved in everything. If it exists on Wikipedia at all, you can bet Durova is in it up to her neck. She couldn't keep away if she wanted to.

Somey, that little "theory" was put to rest by none other than Russavia--who has nothing to gain politically by not playing it.

The facts are simple: Radeskz had contacted me last June. We traded a couple of emails for two days (my entire side of that conversation was four sentences) and never communicated offsite again, until the other day when he apologized for the accidental cut and paste.

He and I happen to both use gmail. He must've sent me an invitation to gchat last summer. And that was sitting on the left column of his screen when he cut 'n pasted.

Of course I contacted ArbCom as soon as that SNAFU happened because some people are just too eager to make mountains out of molehills. There's enough real problems going on at WP; no need to invent fictitious new ones.

[radek]

My GTalk sidebar automatically adds people that I've emailed in the past to it. Durova is not "involved" in EEML case.

Well now, there you go again. Durova is involved in everything. If it exists on Wikipedia at all, you can bet Durova is in it up to her neck. She couldn't keep away if she wanted to.

Also Guesswork, you'll forgive me if from now on I'll ignore your trolling. There's enough of that at the ArbCom page which despite some very honest and good work by the clerks is pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet for the trolls.

Please, we don't like to see the "t-word" here. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

Mr. Orange has a perfectly valid reason to believe that Eastern European WP'ers are cooperating, collaborating, and/or "colluding" if you prefer the pejorative term, on various articles - actually, I don't believe that's in dispute, is it? But once everyone accepts that there's nothing unethical about their doing this, the only question seems to be whether or not his opposition is based on principle, or rather just a kind of "sour grapes" that he can't get enough of a team together on his side to sufficiently counteract the effect.

The real test in this case, IMO, is whether or not these "EEML" folks allow the "Schieder commission" article to include material that might suggest that the number of victims was, indeed, higher than the commission's estimate. Assuming that such material is "properly sourced," yada yada yada. Do you disagree?

Alright wrt to Guesswork.

Any properly sourced material's fine in the article. Hiding the Nazi past of the commission members as some editors have been trying to do for quite some time (going as far as calling them "respected historians") is not. Come on, you know the POV pushers are more sophisticated these days - it's not some 15 year old kid putting obvious junk into the article. The tactics are more developed.

BTW, the commission's numbers are basically an upper bound. As far as I'm aware there's no higher ones out there.

Thanks to whoever did the grammar and punctuation fixes.

Well I was going to be nice and hope this thread would die so you would only have to fight the issue out on WP where there is a greater assumption of good faith required, but, here are the subject lines I took to indicate as targeting against the arbs and arb candidates per your post #182 permission:

Umm, making hit and run accusations is not "being nice". Can you please explain how any of these lines or emails "target" arbs or anybody else for that matter?

Like this one for example:

[Fwd: [WPM] Manning vanishing?]‎ - Original Message Subject: [WPM] Manning vanishing?

...????????????

Or this one:

[The Committee can be nice‎ - [name removed] wrote: > NYBrada. Wyslalem mejla do kazdego z supporta poza FloNight. Ciekawe, czy …]

(Apparently now you can speak Polish again)

This doesn't just take bad faith; it takes an inability to read combined with outright malice

[MBisanz]

My GTalk sidebar automatically adds people that I've emailed in the past to it. Durova is not "involved" in EEML case.

Well now, there you go again. Durova is involved in everything. If it exists on Wikipedia at all, you can bet Durova is in it up to her neck. She couldn't keep away if she wanted to.

Also Guesswork, you'll forgive me if from now on I'll ignore your trolling. There's enough of that at the ArbCom page which despite some very honest and good work by the clerks is pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet for the trolls.

Please, we don't like to see the "t-word" here. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)

Mr. Orange has a perfectly valid reason to believe that Eastern European WP'ers are cooperating, collaborating, and/or "colluding" if you prefer the pejorative term, on various articles - actually, I don't believe that's in dispute, is it? But once everyone accepts that there's nothing unethical about their doing this, the only question seems to be whether or not his opposition is based on principle, or rather just a kind of "sour grapes" that he can't get enough of a team together on his side to sufficiently counteract the effect.

The real test in this case, IMO, is whether or not these "EEML" folks allow the "Schieder commission" article to include material that might suggest that the number of victims was, indeed, higher than the commission's estimate. Assuming that such material is "properly sourced," yada yada yada. Do you disagree?

Alright wrt to Guesswork.

Any properly sourced material's fine in the article. Hiding the Nazi past of the commission members as some editors have been trying to do for quite some time (going as far as calling them "respected historians") is not. Come on, you know the POV pushers are more sophisticated these days - it's not some 15 year old kid putting obvious junk into the article. The tactics are more developed.

BTW, the commission's numbers are basically an upper bound. As far as I'm aware there's no higher ones out there.

Thanks to whoever did the grammar and punctuation fixes.

Well I was going to be nice and hope this thread would die so you would only have to fight the issue out on WP where there is a greater assumption of good faith required, but, here are the subject lines I took to indicate as targeting against the arbs and arb candidates per your post #182 permission:

Umm, making hit and run accusations is not "being nice". Can you please explain how any of these lines or emails "target" arbs or anybody else for that matter?

Like this one for example:

[Fwd: [WPM] Manning vanishing?]‎ - Original Message Subject: [WPM] Manning vanishing?

...????????????

Or this one:

[The Committee can be nice‎ - [name removed] wrote: > NYBrada. Wyslalem mejla do kazdego z supporta poza FloNight. Ciekawe, czy …]

(Apparently now you can speak Polish again)

This doesn't just take bad faith; it takes an inability to read combined with outright malice

Google translate works clearly enough for some situations.

[radek]

Google translate works clearly enough for some situations.

Alllllllrrrriiiighhhhht lemme ask this one more time since this is like the 6th time you're avoiding the question and instead make sleazy insinuations:

"Can you please explain how any of these lines or emails "target" arbs or anybody else for that matter?"

And you don't need Google translate here - I 'm perfectly happy to do it for you. If you don't trust me then post your Google translations right here which you think are so problematic. (And before you were claiming the English ones were enough - now apparently it's back to the Polish ones, which you don't understand but used Google translate for. Make up your mind)

Honestly, are you capable of giving an honest, direct answer here?

And btw, I hate invoking "Wikilawyering" as an argument but statements like this are picture-perfect example for why that guideline was written in the first place - if Russavia could have posted the article himself, why did Alex have to do it for him?

[Kelly Martin]

The "system," such as it is, is brilliantly designed for one purpose only: attracting a wide range of opinionated, bitter, disaffected, and/or arrogant narcissistic types (plus a few altruistic types here and there, just for variety), and getting them all to interact with each other in various ways ranging from collegiality to hate-filled confrontationalism. As a by-product, these people also add "free" content (of varying degrees of quality) to web pages.

Best description of Wikipedia I've read yet. Thank you, Somey.

Better than this one? Or is it merely the distinction between a literal description and an analogy?

Somey's is factually better than mine, although I admit his lacks the poetic reference to cat turds that makes mine so much more endearing.

[MBisanz]

Google translate works clearly enough for some situations.

Alllllllrrrriiiighhhhht lemme ask this one more time since this is like the 6th time you're avoiding the question and instead make sleazy insinuations:

"Can you please explain how any of these lines or emails "target" arbs or anybody else for that matter?"

The various discussion topics such as "these 3 people should decide" and "question about possible CoI and recusal' indicate the participants are trying to figure out how to take action onwiki about the case without it being clear onwiki who caused the action to occur. Topics such as "Coren running again for the arbitrator seat" and "Lessons from the WikiCup saga" indicate discussion on future plans related to the Abrcom contemporaneous to criticisms from the related arbs to the participants onwiki.

Honestly, are you capable of giving an honest, direct answer here?

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) I already said WR did not have WP's requirement of AGF.

[radek]

The various discussion topics such as "these 3 people should decide" and "question about possible CoI and recusal' indicate the participants are trying to figure out how to take action onwiki about the case without it being clear onwiki who caused the action to occur. Topics such as "Coren running again for the arbitrator seat" and "Lessons from the WikiCup saga" indicate discussion on future plans related to the Abrcom contemporaneous to criticisms from the related arbs to the participants onwiki.

See what I posted at the arb com Evidence page. "these 3 people should decide" was somebody saying that the 3 people for whom topic bans were proposed should decide if they care enough to continue to argue against these bans or give up and just leave Wikipedia. "question about possible CoI and recusal" was Piotrus asking me "am I crazy to think there's CoI here"? "Coren running again..." is just a link to Coren's candidate statement. "Lessons from WikiCup saga" is somebody expressing amazement at FloNight's response to Piotrus' inquiry about possible CoI (which was an inquiry - not a demand or anything of the sort as she tried to pretend in her statement)

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) I already said WR did not have WP's requirement of AGF.

I'm not asking for AGF, I am asking for an honest answer. It's a different thing. But yes, it takes a tremendous amount of bad faith - and some other things - to think that any of this is in any way problematic.

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

Radek, give it a rest. I already told you that it is pointless to prove to some editors that we are not evil, since everything we say is faked/false/twisted/etc., because we are an evil cabal, and arguments to the contrary are faked/false/twisted/etc. because we are an evil cabal (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif) As MBisanz himself admits, whatever you say will be seen by some via ABF lens. If they believe we were carrying out dastardly plots, this belief will not be shaken by anything you say; if you had a letter of support signed by Jimbo, the assumption would be it is faked or Jimbo was blackmailed into writing it and so on. The very fact that we discussed ArbCom, after ABF is applied, means that we were discussing how to disrupt/sabotage them - and that's enough. What I don't understand is why we are not yet accused by some of plotting assassinations, blackmail and so on on ArbCom members - the evidence, after all, is good enough for that as well (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) "these 3 people should decide" may be about division of the world after we take it over and divide it between three cabal leaders; "Coren running again..." may be about how we are mind-controlling Coren; "Lessons from WikiCup saga" may be about infiltrating WikiCup scoring system - and you cannot prove otherwise.

PS. Regarding Schieder commission article, as Radek said, everybody is welcome to edit it and improve it. Unfortunately, the only "dissenting" edits so far include tagging the article in an attempt to make it ineligible for DYKing (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif) Not that I am surprised; anybody who takes a little time to research who is who in this case will notice that content creators are heavily concentrated on one side only...

This post has been edited by Deputy Cabal Ringleader:

[Sarcasticidealist]

I confess that, based solely on what's been presented here, I am having a great deal of difficulty seeing a smoking gun.

[radek]

The "system," such as it is, is brilliantly designed for one purpose only: attracting a wide range of opinionated, bitter, disaffected, and/or arrogant narcissistic types (plus a few altruistic types here and there, just for variety), and getting them all to interact with each other in various ways ranging from collegiality to hate-filled confrontationalism. As a by-product, these people also add "free" content (of varying degrees of quality) to web pages.

Best description of Wikipedia I've read yet. Thank you, Somey.

Better than this one? Or is it merely the distinction between a literal description and an analogy?

Somey's is factually better than mine, although I admit his lacks the poetic reference to cat turds that makes mine so much more endearing.

I vote for the one with cat turds in it.

[Mathsci]

Does Abd's ban stop in time for him to vote? Voting stops on the 14th and his 3 month block started on September 14th. This issue could be critical for the whole future of ArbCom.

I would imagine that the block is set to automatically expire at the same time it was set, on the same day of the month. If it were more fair, "one month" blocks would be 30 days exactly. Why should the length of the block depend on the month and day in which it's set? But surely nobody, including me, gives a hoot about a detail like this. The whole thing was utterly arbitrary in the first place. What, exactly, was the purpose of the block? I'll say it:

It was to appease the cabal. Didn't work, by the way. The cabal still complained bitterly about WMC losing his admin bit. He's running for ArbComm. Now, that will be interesting. Maybe I should vote for him, on the theory that the worse it gets, the sooner it will fall.

And what's the news about his exploding jamjars? It would be a novel idea for a stocking filler.

I'll use this recommendation in the advertising.

Abd has apparently joined the EEML.

[Guesswork Orange]

Anyway - I posted all the email headers at the case page, after removing the personal info. Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tal...versighted_edit.

No, you didn't. You have tampered with them and added some clever commentary to it.

A note to those few that have seen the now deleted diff link where Radeksz leaked the subjects of his most recent emails and his GTalk chat contact list, or the stored version of the diff link on Dramatica.

Take a look at the three biggest email threads (the number in brackets) and see how Radeksz presented them on-wiki.
You will discover that Radeksz managed to conceal more than a hundred emails merely by deleting the numbers of emails of a few threads.

For example, the biggest email thread contains 46 messages. Radeksz deletes the number and summarizes:
"Me asking whether anyone has any clue what the spat between Shell Kinney and Jechomann was about. Piotrus says “no idea” "

It takes 46 messages for asking a simple question and for getting only two words as a response?

Another, the whole Loosmark reply thread from 28 Nov with as many as 24 emails, vanished completely.

Nice try! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

This post has been edited by Guesswork Orange:

[radek]

Anyway - I posted all the email headers at the case page, after removing the personal info. Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tal...versighted_edit.

For example, the biggest email thread contains 46 messages. Radeksz deletes the number and summarizes:
"Me asking whether anyone has any clue what the spat between Shell Kinney and Jechomann was about. Piotrus says “no idea” "

It takes 46 messages for asking a simple question and for getting only two words as a response?

Nice try! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

Yes, the thread also contains somebody linking to this article and some people trying to convince me not to give up on Wikipedia.

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

Abd has apparently joined the EEML.

As I believe he said here several times (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) We are not a closed group, applications are welcome (but are screened for trolls and idiots...). But before you you apply, please read Abd descriptions of what goes in here; I believe Horsie joined for a while, too.

[Abd]

For example, the biggest email thread contains 46 messages. Radeksz deletes the number and summarizes:
"Me asking whether anyone has any clue what the spat between Shell Kinney and Jechomann was about. Piotrus says “no idea” "

It takes 46 messages for asking a simple question and for getting only two words as a response?

Another, the whole Loosmark reply thread from 28 Nov with as many as 24 emails, vanished completely

Based on the comments I've seen about this accidental posting, what was posted was a personal email inbox or other mailbox, not an archive of the list. None of the references I've checked out match anything in my archive of the list since I joined at the beginning of October.

So any attempt to assume, from the headers in this mailbox, what the "cabal" is doing, aside from what one or two editors might be doing, is quite foolish.

The list is quite chatty, a subject header and the response related to it could indeed be that long and be that simple in summary, and that would probably be true of some individual email exchanges between editors. I know it's true of much of my own private email. Or should Radeksz have described the content of each mail, the various chatty and irrelevant comments that people make? It's a social mailing list or social set of mails! People are friendly with each other and chat about topics of interest, and, when they think of something loosely related -- or maybe a complete aside -- they don't necessarily change the subject header.

We are seeing here the pure ABF that is easy when taking out-of-context and sketchy reports of private conversations. ArbComm should never have allowed that list content to be any kind of evidence. The most that should have been done with off-wiki evidence would have been to allow it to inspire an examination of on-wiki behavior, and any sanctions would have been limited to rational response to on-wiki behavior. Off-wiki expressions of frustration and annoyance and perhaps fantasies of "revenge" should be completely irrelevant. Unless matched by on-wiki behavior, in which case the on-wiki behavior would be the evidence.

Evidence of "intention" is actually irrelevant, if the principles were being followed. Someone can have good intentions and do damage, and that requires protective response -- this was actually a ruling in my case, and that part of the ruling was correct. And if someone has a bad intention, expressed at some time, but doesn't carry it out, well, they showed proper restraint, and it could be that expressing their darkest thoughts was part of the process of letting the frustration go.

If I write in an email to someone, privately, that I think a certain editor should be taken out back and shot, what would this mean? Let me give you a hint: it's a private communication, to be understood within the context of that private relationship. The most likely meaning is "I'm frustrated." And people deal with frustration by expressing it. And by expressing it in that kind of context, they are far less likely to actually implement it!

I can see, in the howling of the mob about the EEML, quite what some members of that list were frustrated with. There was, indeed, some level of conspiracy against them, and it is plain. Quite likely, from what evidence I've seen, it was every bit as organized as the EEML, and, actually, quite likely more organized and less ethical. Piotrus was quite restrained in his on-wiki actions, and off-wiki, he consistently encouraged editors to work out disputes properly.

But he was also sympathetic. Is there something wrong with that? Why? Wikipedia needs more of that, those who understand the value of consensus but who can also be sympathetic *at the same time* with one side or the other.

I wrote a long response to MBisanz, which disappeared in a Firefox crash. Too bad. MBisanz, at one time, might have trusted what I wrote. I don't think I did anything to earn a change in that attitude. So if he wants to know, he could ask.

Summary, though: his approach here is showing part of the problem, not part of the solution.

SarcasticIdealist, I've looked closely at some of this. I've seen no "smoking gun," neither in the original list archive, and even less have I seen signs of reprehensibility in the latest "revelations," nor have I seen anything worrisome in the active mailing list, nothing that would be worth telling ArbComm about if I were to be moved to "inform." I.e., I have no conflict of interest involved in keeping mum about actual content of the list, no need to restrain myself simply because of the principle of keeping private communications private.

As to the original archive, sure, some of the contents of that archive, cherry-picked and presented in a completely new context, look bad. But, strangely enough, the badness is only in that appearance, evidence hasn't shown serious on-wiki behavior to match.

ArbComm is quite clearly punishing off-wiki behavior, based on assumptions about what this means about on-wiki behavior. I've seen it make that mistake before, but I'd hoped that the new panel would be better. It has been quite a disappointment to me, with some of the best arbitrators leaving -- or obviously being disregarded and at least one thinking of resigning -- and some of the least inclined to careful reflection being quite bold and active, with nobody restraining them. ArbComm, far from setting an example for Wikipedians to follow, is simply exemplifying the worst aspects of Wikipedia, the scapegoating, the search for someone to blame for problems that are really more deeply rooted than individual behavior would explain, the belief that disputes are resolved by banning parties to them.

Instead of demonstrating how to resolve disputes, ArbComm blames parties for apparently failing to do what ArbComm itself does not know how to do. Facilitate consensus.

You do not find consensus by excluding participation from the most knowledgeable on one side, or even if you do it on both sides....

[Abd]

Abd has apparently joined the EEML.

As I believe he said here several times (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) We are not a closed group, applications are welcome (but are screened for trolls and idiots...). But before you you apply, please read Abd descriptions of what goes in here; I believe Horsie joined for a while, too.

Once upon a time, Piotrus would not have written "idiots," his shift, born of frustration with the community and ArbComm, is part of the damage done by how ArbComm has handled this case. If you read what he -- a sociologist who is published on Wikipedia under peer-review -- has written, he was quite naive about the seamy underbelly of what happens. I don't blame him. It's quite easy to escape it and discount it, until it happens to you.

In most of the disputes that arise, it's possible to see error on both sides, and unless you actually become intimately knowledgeable about the details of a case, to make assumptions that ArbComm is acting within reason. Most people assume, about conflict, that both parties are wrong and that both should be sanctioned, it's a kind of default position I've seen for years. It's an assumption that is the most dangerous because it's usually right!

Horsie joined, but saw the traffic -- mostly boring if you aren't interested in EE news and comments -- and left immediately, before being able to see much of it. I've stayed on, but only read a little of the traffic. My interest, frankly, was Piotrus, as a sociologist, and I discovered as well that the founder of the list, Digwuren, is a quite insightful commentator on Wikipedia, unfortunately -- as are many such, we can see this on WR -- he's pretty cynical. Nevertheless, Wikipedia is losing, too often, its brightest and best.

I recommended that the list be quite open, and there was positive response to that. That doesn't mean that it should tolerate disruption and tendentious argument on the list.

Contrary to the "idiocy" of certain arbitrator comments on the list and how "cabal lists" function -- I too have lost my naive opinion about arbitrator qualifications -- the idea that list participants would assume a Wikipedia consensus from a list consensus is just plain silly. They aren't stupid! There is no harm in sympathetic editors discussing Wikipedia, and the speculative harm from "canvassing" is mostly illusory. If decisions are being made from a modest number of votes from participants learning about a discussion on a mailing list, that's the problem, not the fact that people discuss stuff.

And the fact is that editors discuss stuff off-wiki all the time. Many times a discussion here has resulted in on-wiki action by an admin, or in participation in some other process. If that was a wrong decision, it will presumably be noticed and reviewed. Even the appearance of canvassing can backfire, it is often used as a reason to reconsider a decision, and it may even bias a decision in the opposite direction.

However, if closing admins do their job and review the evidence instead of the numbers of votes, all that canvassing can do is to collect better evidence, at most. Repeated !votes with the same defective arguments can even irritate an admin into making an opposite decision. In my view, better WP process would involve more of what we call canvassing rather than less. I.e., why not get the opinions of those who might be involved in a topic and therefore who are more likely to be informed?

Unfortunately, this is probably the reason for rules against canvassing: it reduces the power of what Jimbo called the "administrative cabal," and replaces that with a distributed power that is open to any editors who choose to cooperate with each other. I think that the idea of the great unwashed starting to talk to each other and cooperate scares the **** out of some of those who imagine they can control the beast, because they know how difficult it would be for the limited resources of the cabal to stand against it. Or at least that is what they fear.

It is actually the ancient fear of democracy. And the assumption is that this distributed power would be stupid and unintelligent and mindlessly selfish. Maybe. If there is no guidance, no voice of real consensus. That's part of why good consensus process is so important. Consensus is powerful, and that power remains no matter what the scale, as long as the consensus is real and not fake, an illusion produced by exiling one side of a dispute.

[wjhonson]

Can people whose names start with A please stop posting entire book chapters in response to one sentence questions?

But on another note!
I have no problem with the existence of a mailing list whose participants are helping create or even delete articles. I do however have a problem with a mailing list on which the participants are coordinating their efforts to try to drive other editors off the project, or at least get those others worked up enough so that they get themselves blocked or banned.

Two quite different things.

Now ArbCom has decided that *in some cases* private correspondence, even if possibly obtained without consent, can be used as evidence in cases. Perhaps they'll actually have the balls to apply this to a certain past episode in which privately an admin pandered to her ability to block or ban anyone at the behest of a editor who has been a community problem now for several years. I won't hold my breath that ArbCom will do the right thing however. It's easier to sweep it under the carpet.

This post has been edited by wjhonson:

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

I have no problem with the existence of a mailing list whose participants are helping create or even delete articles. I do however have a problem with a mailing list on which the participants are coordinating their efforts to try to drive other editors off the project, or at least get those others worked up enough so that they get themselves blocked or banned.

Two quite different things.

Certainly, and I can assure you that there was no discussion on how to drive any editors away - although there was some discussion on how to deal, on wiki, via regular dispute resolution procedures, with some disruptive editors. Common discussions focused on pattern analysis, whether somebody is a sock, shares an account, and on how CIV-related policies are impossible to enforce, so whether we should bother with CIV-related evidence (as it is common for some editors to try to create poisonous atmosphere with CIV violations; and how complains about that are ignored; I have some mini-essays on that - see my sig). In almost all case such discussion didn't result in anything anyway, since most of us hate wikipolitics; I prefer to write articles rather than an AE/ANI post... finally, you will note than in the proposed FoF, there is not a single diff on on wiki action related to harassment or anything similar.

I can, however, show you multiple examples of editors who left of limited their activity after becoming the target of harassment of editors "from the other side". Actually, so I am not accused of grandstanding without evidence, here's my favorite case study (while it represents a common trends, it is also the only one where the editor who left explained most of his reasons in multiple insightful public comments. I refer to Halibutt, once a very active editor of WikiProject Poland; he was active even before I joined it 5 years ago, and has written several FAs, and multiple lesser content. He left 3 years ago, and his contributions since then are much lower than they once were (graph; note that despite not editing for 3 years he is still ranked as the 848th most active editor). So what happened?

Well, being more active before my times, creating significant amount of content and policing it for NPOV, he became the target of certain editors way before myself.

Here's the story Halibutt, in his own words:
* he retires (read both sides of the diff)
* he discusses the problems of Wikipedia (I find his culinary comparison of Wikipedia a true masterpiece)
* he more comments on why he left
* ending with that editor leaving a single comment in the EEML case

Needless to say, most of the editors who chased Halibutt off the project are still here, creating little content, but active in edit warring, POV pushing, and throwing accusations. They succeeded in chasing many others, albeit till now, without any luck in any formal DR. The fact that this time they managed to subvert DR to their purposes, is the sign that over the years, they have grown much more experienced and organized. So, wjhonson, I think you are very right to worry about cabals out there who specialize in harassment and outing. But let me give you a final hint on which cabal you should be worried about: go to Encyclopedia Dramatica and see who is the target of real harassment, outing, and so on... (I am not going to link to that hate site, but just type EEML in their search engine).

[Guesswork Orange]

I have no problem with the existence of a mailing list whose participants are helping create or even delete articles. I do however have a problem with a mailing list on which the participants are coordinating their efforts to try to drive other editors off the project, or at least get those others worked up enough so that they get themselves blocked or banned.

Two quite different things.

Certainly, and I can assure you that there was no discussion on how to drive any editors away - although there was some discussion on how to deal, on wiki, via regular dispute resolution procedures, with some disruptive editors. Common discussions focused on pattern analysis, whether somebody is a sock, shares an account, and on how CIV-related policies are impossible to enforce, so whether we should bother with CIV-related evidence (as it is common for some editors to try to create poisonous atmosphere with CIV violations; and how complains about that are ignored; I have some mini-essays on that - see my sig). In almost all case such discussion didn't result in anything anyway, since most of us hate wikipolitics; I prefer to write articles rather than an AE/ANI post... finally, you will note than in the proposed FoF, there is not a single diff on on wiki action related to harassment or anything similar.


...

If you'd like to see a case of someone driven away by that gang, take a look at Irpen.
He left immediately after the Eastern European disputes arbitration and never made a single edit ever again.

Or in Radeksz' words:
"Most of our opponents are inexperienced in relative terms to us,
older folks like Ghirla and Irpen having been driven out." <20090621-1853>

Irpen had specifically criticized Piotrus' collusive off-wiki behavior in that arbitration, but his complaints ended up completely ignored.



This post has been edited by Guesswork Orange:

[radek]

I have no problem with the existence of a mailing list whose participants are helping create or even delete articles. I do however have a problem with a mailing list on which the participants are coordinating their efforts to try to drive other editors off the project, or at least get those others worked up enough so that they get themselves blocked or banned.

Two quite different things.

...

If you'd like to see a case of someone driven away by that gang, take a look at Irpen.
He left immediately after the Eastern European disputes arbitration and never made a single edit ever again.

Or in Radeksz' words:
"Most of our opponents are inexperienced in relative terms to us,
older folks like Ghirla and Irpen having been driven out." <20090621-1853>

Irpen had specifically criticized Piotrus' collusive off-wiki behavior in that arbitration, but his complaints ended up completely ignored.

Actually both Ghirla and Irpen were before my time and I never had any kind of interaction with them whatsoever - I don't think I've even edited the same articles that they used to edit There was no way that I could've driven them out.

BTW, this is actually one of the messages in the leaked archive that I believe was tampered with. I do remember noting that those two have left but not in those words. Even if not this was at worst an unfortunate choice of words - there's nothing I did here - which just underlies the stupidity of taking things out of context and the fact that you've really got no business reading people's private emails. There's various four letters words for the kind of people that do that you know.

While we're on the subject, I think the one bad thing I did while on the list was trying to purposefully irritate Deacon. I actually feel pretty bad about that one and I apologized to him.

[Abd]

Can people whose names start with A please stop posting entire book chapters in response to one sentence questions?

Where is an "entire book chapter" in "response" to a "one sentence question"? Certainly not the post directly before this. Wasn't a question, for starters. Even shorter answer: No.

But on another note! I have no problem with the existence of a mailing list whose participants are helping create or even delete articles. I do however have a problem with a mailing list on which the participants are coordinating their efforts to try to drive other editors off the project, or at least get those others worked up enough so that they get themselves blocked or banned.

Two quite different things.

Indeed. But ... did that happen? In the evidence there is an offhand comment or two that could be seen that way. Nothing that translated into any extensive action to justify the use of language implying some continuing project. The present tense is used by W. I've been subscribed since the beginning of October. I've seen nothing at all like that.

If there had been reprehensible behavior back in January on-wiki, people would be saying it's old and Wikipedia doesn't punish, right? Unfortunately, wrong. Wikipedia punishes, it applies sanctions, blocks and bans, purely as discouragement, a message to the affected editor and others not to repeat the behavior, even when there is no likelihood of it repeating. That's punishment, known to be damaging to voluntary communities. Once again, the theory of Wikipedia is excellent, the actual practice sucks.

Now ArbCom has decided that *in some cases* private correspondence, even if possibly obtained without consent, can be used as evidence in cases. Perhaps they'll actually have the balls to apply this to a certain past episode in which privately an admin pandered to her ability to block or ban anyone at the behest of a editor who has been a community problem now for several years. I won't hold my breath that ArbCom will do the right thing however. It's easier to sweep it under the carpet.

They aren't making decisions that set precedent. That's part of the problem. They don't set precedent. They aren't coherent, they are not working on a body of case law, they are erratic and the only thing they take from old cases is language, sometimes. And, in fact, even with that they often apply old language out of habit and ease, not out of actual appropriateness.

Because no body of precedent is established, they have to reinvent the wheel, over and over. The only way to predict ArbComm behavior is to understand the individual arbitrators and their preferences or prejudices, plus the hidden mechanisms and politics, impossible for ordinary mortals, and unpredictability in dispute resolution leads to increased need for dispute resolution. And doesn't actually settle disputes, merely determines certain outcomes.

Real dispute resolution would ... resolve disputes. The majority view here on WR seems to be that actually resolving disputes is impossible and that WP is a role-playing game and that winning and losing are essential parts of it. I find that excessively cynical, but that is more or less the status quo. Changing that was part of what I was attempting; I wanted to know if Wikipedia was ready to move on to actually fulfilling its ostensible purpose: a neutral and complete summary of human knowledge.

Did I win or did I lose the game? Depends on what my goal was, doesn't it? Since my goal was to find out what would result from the attempt, I wasn't playing a game that I could lose unless I simply walked away. I did find that the status quo on Wikipedia is untenable, it will not realize the stated purpose unless there is a major shift.

(Wikipedia does work in certain areas, rather obviously. It's where there is controversy that it breaks down the most. And I could indeed write chapters and books on this, as could some others here.)

The problem isn't the individuals involved, the view that it is about the individuals is part of the problem, because this, then, leads to the conclusion that fixing Wikipedia involves getting rid of the bad guys. That won't work, and it will simply create new bad guys ... or the bad guys play the same game and sometimes they win. In the EEML case, Piotrus is definitely not a bad guy, and he had no agenda to "drive other editors off the project." His agenda was to cooperate with other editors, to the extent possible, but "bad guy" mentality must identify the bad guys and will pour over evidence looking for proof of badness. Look hard enough, you will find evidence, it's an old problem. Always, if truth is a matter of concern, rather than dredging up reasonable-sounding polemic, it's the balance that is needed, the preponderance of the evidence. And it takes a lot of work to obtain that balance, a lot of communication, and there are far too many who don't have the patience for it. Much easier to point fingers at supposed bad guys.

Don't get me wrong. There are bad guys. But they are not the problem, the problem is us. All of us, including the "bad guys." Even people whose names begin with W.

[Abd]

While we're on the subject, I think the one bad thing I did while on the list was trying to purposefully irritate Deacon. I actually feel pretty bad about that one and I apologized to him.

Yes. Take a group of more or less congenial editors, let them converse with each other privately and , as they engage in the work of Wikipedia. Some of them will do Bad Things. Now, is the entire group to be held responsible for the actions of each individual?

If so, we are all responsible for every Bad Thing that happens there, until and unless we resign from Wikipedia entirely, or are blocked, since the entire community does what I just described.

In fact, we don't pay attention to everything. And even when we do, and take action, our actions aren't necessarily visible. Tymek offered to let others use his account to avoid 3RR violations, probably the most egregious offense uncovered by the revelation of the list archive. But ... nobody actually did it, apparently. It appears that Tymek was privately admonished for this. Yet that evidence was used to create an impression of general "cabal" misbehavior.

A true cabal wouldn't even think of doing this, because an operating cabal would not need to do it, and it would risk checkuser identification as a sock puppet, pretty stupid. Tymek's account was apparently used to reveal the list material, but wasn't the source of the leak, as far as can be seen. It remains unknown, except to the perpetrator, who actually did it. Personally, I'd suspect Tymek himself, and would suspect the offer as trolling for someone to take the bait, and end up blocked, but the listfolks don't think so, knowing him.

In a sane wiki, 3RR would be a mere procedural device. Revert thrice, go to jail for 24 hours while the smoke clears, with no presumption of blame. But the real problem is revert warring, and it matters not if it is two editors, one on each "side," or two to one, or five to one. It's the lack of seeking of consensus, resulting in content see-sawing, that's the difficulty. And it matters not if the cabal on one side is secretly colluding or not. It's the same problem if it is mere watchlist oversight of an article.

The global warming cabal doesn't need to secretly collude, because it can work its serious wiki-mischief without it. I saw it again and again. And, by the way, my POV on global warming is generally aligned with theirs, the problem is that they unfairly repress reliably sourced material on the other side, using tag-team revert warring and highly selective blocks of editors on one side. And the evidence provided in my case showed that, actually. ArbComm simply disregarded it, there was no response at all to the claim on the part of ArbComm, even though this is a problem that has been documented in major media.

WMC was desysopped for behavior that was completely predictable from past behavior, that was actually well-known. He did great damage to the wiki with this behavior. Scibaby was created by WMC, and the response to Scibaby, largely by Raul654, involved constant effort and vast range blocks over a long period of time. All because the global warming cabal didn't want to allow real dispute resolution to take place with skeptical editors, they wanted to get rid of them, and they were usually successful in that. Except that Wikipedia can't actually eliminate editors, it can merely play whack-a-mole with them.

ArbComm had an opportunity with my case to examine real cabal behavior. I did not invent the term "cabal" for this specific constellation of editors; it was not only common here on WR, but was in major media about WMC and his friends. Compared to that configuration, the EEML cabal, such as it was, was truly minor and with little impact. By insisting on "cabal" as requiring, in its definition, proof of secret collaboration, ArbComm almost entirely avoided facing the real issue, and instead blamed me for raising a claim of reprehensible behavior that I actually did not raise. I did not claim that there was anything reprehensible about "belonging" to a cabal. I only claimed that editors so involved were mutually involved, not neutral, in disputes where they would pile in on one side

In fact, when there were discussions about, say, a bad block on the part of WMC, the cabal would pile in, leading the overall "vote" to be roughly 50-50. And then the cabal would claim that WMC had been vindicated, that the "community" agreed with WMC's block. All this was brought out in evidence and ignored. I raised the cabal issue because these editors, more generally aligned on an anti-pseudoscience position, had piled in to my case to argue for my being banned, it was quite striking, these were the same editors who had been arguing the position -- one which the community does not generally support when there is a wide enough discussion -- in prior cases, before I ever had contact with them. The administrators supporting WMC's clearly involved blocks of me were the same ones who had been arguing and defending involved blocks previously, and who continued to argue, and who continue to argue, that there is nothing wrong with blocking while involved in the topic, that it is necessary, and that recusal policy is the problem, being used by "wikilawyers" to attack fine, upstanding administrators. I.e., them.

All that "cabal" meant was a group of involved editors who mutually support each other, preferentially. And that's not actually reprehensible except as the individual actions are reprehensible, and for those actions, the individuals are responsible, not their friends who may or may not have been aware of them. I asked for no sanctions against "cabal members." The evidence was blanked, which is pretty unusual, because one editor had complained up and down about being "accused" of being a participant. But she had participated in a position, over enough discussions that the affiliation implied was reasonable. Given how much seriously offensive assumptions of bad faith routinely stand -- and she had been asserting bad faith, over and over -- it was amazing to me that ArbComm allowed the blanking. But not surprising, I'm sure, to those who believe that ArbComm is just a front for the real cabal, the truly powerful one.

I don't actually believe that. Rather, the problem is much more banal.

[Guesswork Orange]

We are not a closed group, applications are welcome (but are screened for trolls and idiots...).

@Piotrus: The show must go on. But the cover is blown, so let's quickly reframe it, so that people can say the EEML group is open and harmless and meanwhile the operational base has just moved outside.

This tactic of purposefully framing the cabal into a discussion group is actually included in the archive. (Piotrus, 20090819-2328-[WPM])

Based on the comments I've seen about this accidental posting, what was posted was a personal email inbox or other mailbox, not an archive of the list. None of the references I've checked out match anything in my archive of the list since I joined at the beginning of October.

Please try to understand the situation before you bury everyone alive with these huuggee chunks of text. The reason you don't know these emails is because they excluded you from it. You've joined the EEML tourist version.

I'm subscribed to the list now, and, suffice it to say, the above is a vast ABF oversimplification of what these editors do.

You don't think it's at all possible that since the list is effectively "public" now (for it certainly wasn't openly advertised before), that behavior on-list might be a little "different" to how it was?

Spot on!

In the less than two weeks, between the point of time where Radeksz left WPM and the point where he accidentally leaked his new mails, he received about 160 mails shared between the old cabal members.

Radeksz tried to defend it with creative summaries and tampered with the evidence deleting carefully the number of emails of the three biggest threads so that a hundred of them (about two thirds) vanished.

This post has been edited by Guesswork Orange:

[wjhonson]

But Halibutt is not gone.

See this link

Or did you mean that Halibutt left for a while and came back?

Speaking of Encyclopedia Dramatica, if someone felt that the site were harassing them, why wouldn't they sue the site? Isn't for example, Fred a lawyer? I saw what they said about Fred. To me it seemed a lot like a lot of childish bathroom-wall-writing.

On the other hand, some of the articles there, while full of vile, are also full of exactly the kind of inWiki diffs that a person would want to have at their fingertips to see what some past "difficult" issue with an editor was exactly.

Too often, inWiki and even out of Wiki people are reluctant to give out enough information to really dig up the dirt.

By the way, if the purpose of the EEML was, in part, to discuss how to deal with problematic editors, why not discuss those issues inWiki ?

This post has been edited by wjhonson:

[radek]

See this link

Or did you mean that Halibutt left for a while and came back?

It's a matter of perspective. Take a look at 2008/04.

You got an editor who used to be really active, who worked a fuck load to try and diffuse conflicts with other EE editors, who created lots of content, who somehow had the stamina to take a lot of abuse and answer back with kind words, who straddled several topics and ethnicity with grace, and who was driven out by simple trolling and abuse.

I guess he still has enough emotional attachment to the "idea" of the project to make an edit or two.

Personal disclosure here. I used to edit topics that had nothing to do with EE but I would check in on Eastern Europe related articles once in awhile. Back then I'd see it and think "well, at least Halibutt is around so it's okay" and then go back to my non-EE corner of the world... which just shows you how one good editor does the work of many.

But shit's changed.

These aint' your momma's trolls. People like Irpen and Ghirla, as obnoxious as they could be a lot of times, have nothing on the present crew. In some way those old-school guys (on a good day I'll throw Deacon in with them) still had some respect for the fact that there was an encyclopedia somewhere at the end of the tunnel, it was still about NPOV (as they understood it) and it was still about verifiability.

The new crop are lot more vicious and cynical. I even have a soft spot for someone like Matthead who's can't help bust out with a "the Nazis weren't all that bad and the Poles should be grateful that Cracow didn't get razed as well" or something like that once in awhile. There's a certain honesty to that - and if he'd ever got banned I think I would actually miss him (Matthead, if you ever read this, I agree with you on the whole West Germany thing so if you ever need a revert or two on that article, lemme know and I'll be happy to set up a sock puppet account just to revert any nonsense about "East Germany" being the real Germany for you)

It's a different ball game these days.

By the way, if the purpose of the EEML was, in part, to discuss how to deal with problematic editors, why not discuss those issues inWiki ?

This is a very good question, and one which probably deserves a side-discussion of its own. Why can't you say the things you think are perfectly innocent to say on Wiki? Probably because AGF is a fucking bad joke and if you edit in a controversial area you know there are people who comb over your every word (and sometimes your personal emails) to find something that can be made into an AN/I or AE report.

"Dispute resolution" (I cringe every time I see those two words) on Wikipedia is a bad joke. RfC, 3O, etc. - you gotta wait weeks for somebody, usually totally clueless, to comment. On Wikipedia "dispute resolution" pretty much mean "get my content opponent banned" - dispute resolved!

Skal!

[radek]

But Halibutt is not gone.

See this link

Or did you mean that Halibutt left for a while and came back?

Speaking of Encyclopedia Dramatica, if someone felt that the site were harassing them, why wouldn't they sue the site? Isn't for example, Fred a lawyer? I saw what they said about Fred. To me it seemed a lot like a lot of childish bathroom-wall-writing.

Hmm, it's a crazy idea but ED is what it is. Like you don't expect anything but lulz from it. So it's not like you can't blame asshole for being assholes after they told you they were going to be assholes. But then you have this insane idea that ArbCom and Wikipedia is different. They're "reasonable people" or something. And then you get "arbitrated" and you realize that these people are not just plain ol' assholses, like the ED folks, but they're creeps, self-righteous creeps who like to pretend that they're some kind of "moral authority" but who at the same time play up to the same sentiments that ED bounces around.

I've been fucked a lot of ways on this ArbCom case, and I gotta say there's been a lot more honesty from ED (bwahahahaha look at him!) than from the arbcom (basically, saying nice shit to your face and doing something totally else. Let's bring MBsanz into this. Same thing. Phoney ass shit for MBisanz. Mean and nasty but honest stuff from ED folks. I know which one I'd rather have)

[Deputy Cabal Ringleader]

But Halibutt is not gone.

See this link

Or did you mean that Halibutt left for a while and came back?

Look at the data I provided and you'll see what I mean.

Again, I use Halibutt as an example as he has made his comments in public. I have, however, enquired in private about reasons of leaving (or limiting activity) of any reasonably active member of WP:POLAND who left, and while I cannot give specific names here (privacy of interviews), without a single exception, all editors gave explanations that echo what Halibutt wrote (and current EEML editors who are thinking of leaving share them, surprise, surprise).

By the way, if the purpose of the EEML was, in part, to discuss how to deal with problematic editors, why not discuss those issues inWiki ?

Because when we did that in the past we were accused of demotivating editors by planning to harass them or of displaying battleground mentality? Mind you, most of those discussions of "how to deal with problematic editors" were as simple as "do you think those diffs are enough for a report". There were also a few instances of discussing whether somebody is socking, meating or account sharing, those for obvious reasons were more private (to avoid tipping the hat). Finally, often it was the conclusion that the evidence is not sufficient to press it, and unlike our opponents, we don't enjoy harassing others with insufficient evidence, and in fact I do agree that discussing others should be kept off wiki as much as possible (if for no better reason that it is indeed demotivating and if you say something bad about others, it's best to keep it private, where it has little chance to damage their reputation; I wrote essays on mud sticking, and I have no intention of slinging mud at anybody - even at my opponents (and even through time and again they have proven they have no qualms about it; I may be losing the mud slinging battle but at least I am respecting my own principles)).

In other news, there is an interesting analysis of the arbcom done by Radek: here, minor refactoring here. It inspired me to a two part reply here and here. Alternatively, you can find those two posts by going to this revision and searching for "My favorite part of this ArbCom...".

Long story short, I have came to a major realization about ArbCom (years after I should have had it, but better now than never): ArbCom is doing a good job enforcing narrowly interpreted policies, but is doing a lousy job enforcing the spirit of the policies and supporting the project's ultimate goal of building an encyclopedia. That raises the following question: was ArbCom's mission ever to support encyclopedia? And should it be? Personally, I think that any part of Wikipedia that puts the letter of policies over the spirit is maldesigned, and needs to be reformed, as it is part of the problem.

[Digwuren the Grey]

Off-wiki communication is what could dethrone the oligarchy, they are not about to allow anyone but them engage in it. They can't stop it, but they can try.

Therefore, off-wikipedia communication should be encouraged.

Lists have inherent danger of leaking, as making copies of posts is an automatic part of list operation. Since this can apparently lead to dire consequences to identifiable participants, basic security engineering tells us a more successful cabal will use something more like Futaba: web-based, no automatic copying, brief lifetime for posts, and anonymity for deniable plausibility. Add invitation-only membership and you'll have the Next Generation Wikicabal Platform.

Some of the members of the list, indeed, had a pretty strong us vs. them POV, battleground mentality. But WP *is* a battleground, and looking at what's been happening with these editors, they were right, in that there are editors out to get them banned. It's not a friendly place.

Wikipedia *is* a battleground. The idea that it isn't is wishful thinking, and/or a taboo. Of course, Wikipedia is not the first cult that harasses realists for breaking nonsensical taboos.

"Considers admin status a body armor: 20090622-2140"

Well, it is body armor. Otherwise certain admin(s) who have posted here on WR before would have been blocked long ago.

No it isn't. It's a well-correlated proxy.

Membership of The Cabal is the body armour. But the current RfA procedure makes sure that The Cabal membership is a prerequisite for adminship, so outsiders are generally well-advised to try to not get into fights with admins because most of them are protected.