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Posted by: A Horse With No Name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Herostratus_2

Is there a point to any of this?

Posted by: EricBarbour

No, but it is hilarious. Sorta.


You're being too reasonable, dear. Hero's been a smarmy twat ever since he first logged in. And that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators_open_to_recall/Past_requests ought to be an embarrassment to Wikipedia, yet hardly anyone even looks at it.

Posted by: Eva Destruction

Re-read what I wrote, it was worded quite carefully. Wikipedia five years ago was a bunch of nerds and weirdos sharing crappy in-jokes and maintaining a shitty website that nobody read, and people like this fit right in. Wikipedia now (whether you think it's a good or a bad thing) is full of kids and casual visitors who aren't steeped in net-nerd culture, maintaining a still-shitty website that lots of people read. The kind of fuckwittery that was acceptable five years ago, since nobody gave a shit, is no longer appropriate. The vast majority of Wikipedia's "problem" admins are members of this pre-2006 old guard, fighting to maintain their status in a culture where they're increasingly out of place.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Absolutely well-said.

(Did you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Herostratus_2/The_Great_Galoot_Scare_Of_2010? Does that not scream "smarmy twit" or what?)

Perhaps I should tiptoe around Herostratus, he being damaged goods.

My ultimate point: he's not the only one getting away with it. Clearly, Wikipedia has an ingrained culture of smarminess and assholery. By all means, recall Herostratus, if you can. His recall has attracted some of the worst of WP's admin freak-show, people like Cirt and Stifle. If sanity prevailed, THEY should be recalled, too. And so should a long list of other smarmy twits, who have had the Magic Admin Fairy Wand too damned long.

Here's a WP: BOLD idea for ya. If WP was run by reasonable people, adminship would be a short-term position, perhaps for two years or thereabouts. Even American Congressmen, despite a general systemic tendency to be reelected automatically, still have to re-run for the seat every two years.

But nooooo.......adminship is a lifetime appointment. So, nerds and crackpots vote each other into the club for life.
Great idea! Guarantees quality! [/sarcasm]

Posted by: Milton Roe

And Caesar was granted the title "Dictator for Life..."

It might even change the culture a bit if they called these positions what they are, which is Administrator for Life.

At present, I think it's only partly power-hunger that keeps the present beaurocracy in place. Yes, of course Stifle and his ilk knows he'd never survive "re-election." The other part of it, though, is shear laziness. The site creaks along on a couple of thousand admins who mostly spend their time doing work a machine could do for them (although the new weak version of flagged revisions, I predict will spread and become the norm, eventually). They're short-handed as it is, and don't quite know what to do about it. If everything turned over every two years, it would just add that much work to the thing.

They're in sort of a tough bind.

Posted by: ulsterman

And frighteningly it's 11/8/6. Thus the early signs are that plenty of people might want herostratus to be an admin. Of course, a lot can happen in seven days ...

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

For those of you who don't read Hollywood Reporter, McBride was recently cast as Prof. Phineas J. Whoopie in the upcoming live-action feature film based on "Tennessee Tuxedo."

Posted by: MZMcBride

Jesus, if you're going to insult someone, at least include a YouTube or Wikipedia link. Like I have any idea what the hell "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Tuxedo_and_His_Tales" is (and I'm certainly not alone). Perhaps best to stick to a non-comedic profession.

Posted by: Kevin

Is there anything lamer than a neutral vote at RFA? What is the point of these?

To me, they read "I haven't seen which way the wind is blowing, so I can't vote yet in case I'm on the losing side".

Posted by: Cedric

Stuff and nonsense! Next you will try to convince us you have never heard of the famous Commander McBragg. Balderdash, Chumley! Unalloyed buncombe!

Posted by: milowent

The new RFA has been closed by Nihonjoe, under a determination that the recall RFA process is not approved and violates WP:RPC/U.

Cirt was immediately questioning it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nihonjoe#Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship.2FHerostratus_2

see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Herostratus#RFA_closed_early

i opposed the recall because the guy has a freakin sense of humor and the new RFA was a witch-hunt because Herostratus called a ridiculously marginal BLP subject a "mook" and "homophobe" in an AfD. Big whoop.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

That's not how I'd conjugate the tenth word.

Posted by: milowent

you mean conjugal?

Posted by: Subtle Bee

-in(g), -ish, -azoid.

-out!

Posted by: Zoloft

As the level of lulz increases, it's been fussily reopened.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Perhaps you have a less self-aware sense of humor than I do, because I find his "jokes" to be amazingly imbecilic, pedantic and tactless. Just being self-effacing isn't quite sufficient. (Especially if you're gonna make light of your intensive editing of articles dealing with pedophilia.) Perhaps it's a wiki-witch-hunt, it isn't the first and it damn well won't be the last. Still, I'm having difficulty managing some sympathy.

After reopening, now it's 14/20/12. Not going too well, eh, Hero, you dick?......

Posted by: Eva Destruction

Exactly. Either you think Wikipedia's a failure as an "encyclopedia" and has become a chatroom full of kids, in which case this kind of thing is totally inappropriate. Or, you think Wikipedia still has the potential to be a genuine academic project, in which case this kind of thing is totally inappropriate. I find it hard to imagine anywhere where http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Herostratus&oldid=369756701#Origins_and_Early_Life would be appropriate—I doubt even ED would want it.

Posted by: Moulton

Mediocrity, thy name is Wikipedia.

How pathetic. WP fails as a serious academic enterprise, and it mostly fails as an absurdist self-parody.

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

First, my name is not Jesus. Second, I never write for the lowest common denominator. And, third, anyone who has never heard of Tennessee Tuxedo is a ninny.



Uh, hello, when did I become the last stop on the road to bad taste?

Besides, I would never (1) make fun of the Dutch -- Queen Beatrix is still hot, (2) make fun of drug addicts -- too many of my friends had ruined lives because of that, (3) make fun of the constellation Orion -- it happens to be my favorite constellation, (4) make fun of Mendel -- simply because there is no reason to, and (5) write something as thoroughly dismal as that paragraph. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Unrelated observation: Nice to see "noobs" like Andromedabluesphere440, East of Borschov, The Blade of the Northern Lights and Tommy2010 becoming well-versed regulars at RfA after a mere three or four months on Wikipedia.

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

He was the greatest man that never lived.

Posted by: Ottava

I wonder if Nihonjoe realizes that what he did is an abuse of Bureaucratic ops and that he can now have them removed by ArbCom or the community through a similar request. That would be interesting, as I don't really remember much from Nihonjoe that has ever made me think that he would be trustworthy with adminship let alone something else.

Posted by: Somey

I doubt it, personally. Word on the street is that he's suffering from advanced Alzheimer's Disease and doesn't even know his own address, or the names of any of his 573 children, all by different women. Moreover, he's been forced to live under a park bench, nearly starving to death, because he can't remember the PIN for his ATM card in order to get access to his checking account - which is rumored to contain over $47 million due to his having one the Mega Millions Lottery just over a year ago. As a result, his internet access has been spotty, since he's been having to lug his EeePC netbook into various coffee shops and shopping mall food courts in order to connect. Luckily, none of this has interfered with his administrator/bureaucrat duties on Wikipedia - if anything, these factors have actually enhanced his ability to implement administrative actions that are consistent with Wikipedia policy and procedure, as evidenced by his apparent support of User:Herostratus.

Despite his having been treated somewhat unfairly (IMO) here and elsewhere for his attempts to take a supposedly "constructive" approach to the WP pedophile problem, I still believe Herostratus should not be an admin, even on a site like Wikipedia.


Ah, but do you remember rock 'n' roll radio?

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Heck, I remember rock 'n' roll rodeo

Jon

Posted by: ulsterman

Nihonjoe is no fool; he knew exactly what he was doing. It seems to me a perfect example of when you should use WP:IAR. It was a breach of the rules with the aim of improving the project. We should be pleased that there is a bureaucrat with the intelligence and bravery to use WP:IAR so effectively.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Videque

• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03415d.htm

Or, justifying the ways of Nihonjoe to man.

Jon

Posted by: Kevin

You really have fallen for the whole Wikipedia thing haven't you? I think there is a 12 step program that could make you normal again.

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

He is so!

What do you say we set up a poll here...how many people think Nihonjoe is a fool and how many people think he isn't? That should be interesting.

Posted by: Ottava

From WP:RFA: "Any user may nominate another user with an account."

It does not say "another user without administrator status already".

RfA can be held for those who have adminship already. Everyone who has ever opened up that page can clearly read that. Nihonjoe is a liar and obviously blind.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Yes, there is … 12 steps down an 11 step plank …

Jon

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

Is it true that Risker was a groupie for John Philip Sousa?



Why stop there? I can share some fat jokes, if you really want to go the full mile.

Posted by: Subtle Bee

Jimbo has proclaimed his latest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Herostratus_2#Some_philosophical_thoughts. I'm reminded of Jack Handy.* His first axiom is that "[t]here is broad support for the idea that admins need not keep the same high level of popularity that was necessary to originally become an admin." It's a little like putting the cart before the horse, then shooting the horse while the cart rolls back over the carcass, and then pondering where to go from there. He finishes with this moving endorsement:

Now THAT is leadership.

*I think it's sad that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs.

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

Uh, there are other animals that you can abuse. Why not pick on the tapir?

Posted by: Subtle Bee

1. It makes a poor metaphor - what do you put in front of a tapir? Its snout? More tapirs?
2. Tapirs already have it pretty hard.
3. Inasmuch as you're a horse, I'm a bee. Sometimes I sting.

It's beyond my control.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Hey, tapirs sometimes make great metaphors. Even for abuse. What you put in front of them is (obviously) an alien-controlled hominid with a bone to pick.

Posted by: milowent

current vote tally: 40/29/12

it was even at the beginning, took a big swing for the negative, and has slowly swung in his favor, though there are still 5 days to go if it stays open for the whole 7 days.

Posted by: Subtle Bee

Yeah well, use it in a sentence (ok, another one). I swear, it's like pearls before swine (see what I did there?). Anyway, that still leaves 2, 3, and Malkovich.

Besides, tapirs are essentially short, fat, big-nosed horses, so naturally our elitist equine would encourage me to pick on them. But I'll be damned if I'll succumb to the sort of creeping ottavism that expects to dictate my editorial decisions.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

This thread has begun to tapir into stupidity.

Posted by: Milton Roe

But it cannot die, until Herostratus' fate is decided. And hair and fingernails grow for 48 hours after death, but phone calls tapir off.*

















* Johnny Carson

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Actually the skin just http://www.snopes.com/science/nailgrow.asp.

Posted by: Subtle Bee

Whatever, I offered a dash of actual content, I don't get to pick what we talk about (see creeping ottavism). But quite by accident, I found this gem that perfectly encapsulates the essence of this thread, so while we're all waiting for shoes to drop we can enjoy it together!

Posted by: Milton Roe

I knew that, but it spoils the joke. Joke-spoiler.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Now that's the smartest thing anyone has said in this thread so far.
Jimbo IS Jack Handey.
With the exception: unlike http://www.deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com/, Jimbo is utterly tiresome and
not the slightest bit funny or entertaining.

Posted by: Subtle Bee

...and that was the second smartest.




...and also that nobody actually mistook JH for a serious thinker.

Posted by: Somey

Right, but http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Unquotable:Deep_Thoughts? Jimbo Wales couldn't come up with material like that if his life depended on it.

Besides, the whole basis for this thread tangent is non-valid. These aren't "philosophical" thoughts at all - and bear in mind that Jimbo is someone who considers Ayn Rand to be a "philosopher." What he posted is little more than quasi-political navel-gazing, probably meant to set himself to take some of the credit in the exceptionally unlikely event that the WP'ers manage to come up with some sort of actual RfA reform plan.

The more interesting post is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ARequests_for_adminship%2FHerostratus_2&action=historysubmit&diff=369884477&oldid=369883926 by S Marshall (T-C-L-K-R-D) , who gets perilously close to a workable solution, but predictably suggests "unbundling" admin rights along purely systemic lines (i.e., separating delete/undelete from block/unblock, for example)... when what they need is a two- (or perhaps three-) tier administrative system along experiential lines, one that protects established users from n00bs and vice-versa.

They'll resist the idea of using time-in-game as a criteria for setting up hierarchies because it looks anti-egalitarian, not to mention MMORPG-like. But they have to accept their MMORPG-like nature if they're going to survive, because that's where the culture is headed, and as for the other thing, Wikipedia only pretends to be egalitarian. It's not, and it never has been.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

You could tar-pit that phirosophy under Forgetting S. Marshall so we can continue cracking dumb jokes uninterruptedly as our favorite shit-head burns up re-entering the herostrato-sphere.


The best words which could ever be said about that can be found here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=229906&diff=prev

Posted by: EricBarbour

Great, he managed to get some brown-nosing done. Now the count is 59/35/14 with 4 days to go.
Apparently we get to put up with his bullshit for another few months.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

I'm tempted to return to WP just to oppose his ass.

Posted by: Eight

He's winning!!!

Posted by: Somey

Hmm... I can't say I'm all that surprised, since there are large numbers of WP'ers who utterly dread the idea of an effective "recall" process that actually results in someone losing his or her admin rights, and most of the people who monitor RfA's probably fall into that category.

However, IMO it's fair to say that the people supporting him are focusing almost entirely on the one incident leading up to the vote (i.e., his comments during the Kenneth Dickson AfD), rather than his whole body of work.

I've said before that Herostratus shouldn't be an admin, and I still believe that. But on the plus side, he doesn't seem to be into the kind of devious admin manipulations we've seen from others in the past, even though he does seem to have an "agenda" going there... He'll embarrass them again, there's almost no question of that, but of course these are people who don't seem to care about being embarrassed by misguided or just-plain-dumb admin actions - probably because there have been so many they don't even notice them anymore.

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

Mmmmm...kinky!

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

And an interesting http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Herostratus_2&diff=371058599&oldid=371057421

I love this: "Oh, and would people stop calling me a ''pedophile'' for crying out loud? This is getting past the point of being amusing. There are (or were) people advocating to run me to ground on this account, and well there is little that can be done to ''me'' in real life at this point, my wife holds a position of public trust and could be destroyed by this, and how fair would that be? Who knows what the people at Wikipedia Review think or are capable of? So would y'all watch your mouths please."

Hmmmm....didn't know about a Mrs. Herostratus. Anyone got pictures of this elusive mama?

Posted by: ulsterman

He's lost.


Can someone please find Horsey a nice filly?

Posted by: EricBarbour

It appears that he http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Herostratus_2#Herostratus.27s_closing_rationale, perhaps.

But some of his admin buddies are over on his talkpage, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Herostratus#Good_form even more worthless barnstars.
Is there any point to this? Just tell him you appreciate his reasonable handling of the vote,
and move on.

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Herostratus_2#Oh.2C_and.........

Before you condemn WR, get your own house in order, asshole.

Posted by: Milton Roe

I think he was talking about http://www.cheeseburgerinacan.com/. No?

Posted by: Selina

Found this on another site:

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

He shortly latter claimed it was all a joke. Wikipedia, demonstrating "zero tolerance" for pedophiles, said "haha that's a good one Herostratus." He never provided any verification of his second claim of "just kidding." Viridae even kissed his ass and apologized.

I hope he makes a similar joke about having a bomb on an airplane the next time he flies. Then he will understand "zero tolerance."

Posted by: Malleus

He made a stupid and tasteless joke, and now he's paid the price. Can't see anything wrong with that.

Posted by: tarantino

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AMickMacNee. That has to be a record.

What a maroon he is to keep going back and slaving away.

Posted by: Alison

Well it looks like it's just become indef now

12:06, 31 January 2010 Prodego (talk | contribs | block) changed block settings for MickMacNee (talk | contribs) with an expiry time of indefinite (account creation blocked) ‎ (attitude not compatible with this project) (unblock | change block)

EDIT: Oh wait! It's back to a week again

Posted by: milowent

aren't you the poster responsible for starting the irresponsible allegations of pedophilia based on a ridiculously obvious joke from Herostratus? even GlassBeadGame is repeating it still today (above)? absurd!

but since wikipedia review doesn't worry about blp violations at all, its not surprising that people would be accused of pedophilia based on evidence similar to oprah and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7liYfhRgXGk claim.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

That's because you don't have any of that zero tolerance.

Posted by: Somey

It's hardly "absurd," Mr. Milowent. At one point I considered apologizing to Mr. Herostratus on behalf of the website, but after some consideration of the matter (which took all of about 30 seconds) I decided an apology was not warranted. Why not, you ask? First, we all know that Wikipedians, as a general rule, have no appreciable sense of humor, so it makes little sense to assume that one would be "joking" in a case like that. Second, and more importantly, even if Mr. Herostratus is one of those rare exceptions - a Wikipedian with a sense of humor - the fact remains that no sane or responsible person would joke around on a public website about a subject such as pedophilia. Because, um, guess what? It's not funny!


Well, now you're just being silly. Unless you're trying to somehow convince us that innocently misreading a talk page entry by someone calling himself "Herostratus" (hint: not his real name) is some sort of "BLP violation," in which case you're just being, well, stupid.

Remember, The Wikipedia Review is not an encyclopedia. Moreover, if necessary we can move this thread to some other forum where Google and other search engines can't see it, which is something Wikipedia won't do for BLP's - even though they've had the technology for doing that all along.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Thank you Milowent for making a bold face liar out of Sue "Zero Tolerance" Gardner.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Except on Transwiki Airlines, where certifiable dipshits have dipomatic immunity.

Jon

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Try again with the adjectives inverted and you'll see how it looks from this perspective. This "joke" of his was (ridiculously) irresponsible and the conclusions to which it lent itself were obvious, hardly an accident on part of your resident "comedian".

Posted by: Somey

Maybe we should merge the three current Herostratus-related threads into one big, impossible-to-follow thread...?

Just so as to cross the i's and dot the t's here (for the benefit of our less-directly involved readers), Mr. Herostratus seems to have come out of this recall vote without his admin rights, despite the fact that there were a significantly greater number of "support" votes than "oppose" votes. Apparently he had asked two other users, Tommy2010 (T-C-L-K-R-D) and Gwen Gale (T-C-L-K-R-D) , to form a "triumvirate" of sorts:

Tommy2010 and Herostratus both chose to treat the recall as an RfA in itself, meaning that it failed with less than an 80 percent "consensus" majority, while Gwen Gale chose to treat the recall as something requiring consensus to change, meaning it would have required an 80 percent "oppose" majority to remove Herostratus' admin rights.

It's interesting that the three of them didn't agree on this point in advance, but I suppose we can say that Herostratus (and Tommy2010) did everyone a favor by choosing to treat the process as an RfA, since this would make it easier to remove admins in future if this is used as a precedent. However, Wikipedians rarely (if ever) feel any need to rely on (or even refer to) precedent when it might mean that they could be thwarted in some way.

I have to admit that I myself read the above-quoted statement and assumed that the word "majority" meant that they were going to choose based on a simple majority of those voting, adjusting as necessary for, well, whatever it is they usually "adjust" for. In retrospect I probably wasn't paying sufficient attention to what was going on.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Eighty percent is pretty funny when granting said rights required only 73–79% support, depending on whether neutrals are part of the divisor or ignored completely.

Every recall process I've studied thus far has involved moving the goalposts while the ball is in flight. This is one reason I'd only support a universal de-adminning process which applies the same standards to everyone rather than a voluntary system which selects against those more interested in real "accountability" than playing silly buggers, while also disregarding the worst.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

So, did Parador or Patagonia win their socker match?

Jon

Posted by: Subtle Bee

I'm pretty sure WP excludes precedent on "principle", which is why every Arbcom ruling I've seen reads a lot like Bush V Gore. The fact that they didn't agree on even the basic understanding of what the hell it is they're doing here is completely unsurprising.


That is an interesting ambiguity, I myself glossed through it the other way.

Posted by: milowent

the official statement of a company becomes the reality in the weak-sauce "journalism" generally practiced these days. fox would rather report that pedophiles have found a home or whatever on wikipedia than actually explain the more complex reality.

if she says "Zero Tolerance" that's what will get reported again and again unless some horrible pedophile event is shown to occur.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Unless Ms. Winter takes the trouble to check reality against the statement. She did something like this once, earning my respect regardless of her employer.

Posted by: Moulton

I still don't know how to reliably distinguish a bald-faced liar from someone who is genuinely (but sincerely) self-deluded.

My experience with WikiCulture is that self-delusion is the norm there, and much more commonplace than intentional dissembling (where one utters a remark they know in their heart to be untrue).

In American (and British) culture (as distinguished from WikiCulture), it is permissible to utter a falsehood if the context is story-telling (clearly labeled as fiction) or jocular humor (where it is customary to laugh).

In my experience, WikiCulture does not embrace narrative fiction or jocular humor.

But it does embrace a curious culture of self-delusion, where the tools of accurate thought are not particularly welcome.