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 Wiki-Paranoia 101, Will Be Back Ward |
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| Jon Awbrey |
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| dogbiscuit |
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Could you run through Verifiability not Truth once more?
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QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Wed 29th September 2010, 12:50pm)  QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Tue 28th September 2010, 10:00pm) I posted this under General Discussion because it's not really about Will Beback — even if I couldn't resist troping his nom in the subtitle. It's really about the kind of paranoid mindset enculcated by Wikipediot Cultcher — so amply illustrated by the exchange between Sumbuddi and Will Beback, ending, for the moment, with this little gem, where WB warns ∑buddi that even discussing the issue is a form of disruption: QUOTE Making a few good edits does not compensate for significantly disrupting the project. There are millions of people working on the project. We don't need to help of people who've already been determined to be disruptive or worse. Can you point to an edit that is significant enough to merit this extended discussion? If fixing typos is important then I suggest that we could have fixed a great many in the time we've spent here. That's why the simplest solution with banned users is just to revert them rather then getting into an extended conversation over which edits are good enough to keep as that is simply another form of disruption. Will Beback talk 22:50, 28 September 2010 (UTC)Jon (IMG: http://wikipediareview.com/stimg9x0b4fsr2/1/folder_post_icons/icon9.gif) Actually, it is quite an instructive last element to the exchange. I always thought that the most effective way of dealing with someone being a nuisance was "ignore them and they'll go away."* Will BeBack complains of the disruption of an extended conversation when perhaps the least disruption is to ignore these innocuous edits. He suggests that removing the edits of the socks stops the sock gaining credibility - but by then the decision has already been taken. Surely it is more satisfying to say "Ha! all that effort to the benefit of Wikipedia and you've still been banned. So long and thanks for all the fish." Oops! I was thinking about the real world for a minute, foolish me. QUOTE I'm saying that a banned user should not be making any edits at all, and that one approved method of discouraging their return is to blanket revert their work. The sole purpose of those edits was to provide cover to make the socks look innocent. The point of the blanket revert was to enforce the point that any contribution was unwelcome in the hope that they'd get bored and go away. That is such 2006 thinking. *Unless you are dealing with Moulton. |
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| Herschelkrustofsky |
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I doubt it. There are several factors to be considered. First of all, the reverts that re-introduce spelling and grammatical errors represent sort of a "Triumph of the Admin Will," at the extreme end of the existentialist spectrum. If all admins did was improve Wikipedia, there wouldn't be much a thrill to it, because it would be like being a "slave to the project." It is in the arbitrary and capricious use of power that the real gratification lies. The extreme existentialists (AKA Satanists, of the philosophical rather than the head-banging variety) argue that free will can only be truly exercised against The Good, because if you spend all your time doing good, you are not truly free; you are a slave to morality. Therefore, the choice to do evil is the only truly "free" choice. Of course, your typical WP admin hasn't worked this out all that rigorously or consciously. Otherwise, Will needs to ban lots of newbies to maintain the fiction that he is defending the project against socks, when in reality he is simply evading this policy. |
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| Jon Awbrey |
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QUOTE(Herschelkrustofsky @ Wed 29th September 2010, 4:44pm) I doubt it. There are several factors to be considered. First of all, the reverts that re-introduce spelling and grammatical errors represent sort of a "Triumph of the Admin Will", at the extreme end of the existentialist spectrum. If all admins did was improve Wikipedia, there wouldn't be much a thrill to it, because it would be like being a "slave to the project". It is in the arbitrary and capricious use of power that the real gratification lies. The extreme existentialists (AKA Satanists, of the philosophical rather than the head-banging variety) argue that free will can only be truly exercised against The Good, because if you spend all your time doing good, you are not truly free; you are a slave to morality. Therefore, the choice to do evil is the only truly "free" choice. Of course, your typical WP admin hasn't worked this out all that rigorously or consciously. Otherwise, Will needs to ban lots of newbies to maintain the fiction that he is defending the project against socks, when in reality he is simply evading this policy. Good Grief, let's not glorify Sheer Wiki-Pigheadedness by dragging down Existentialism into their slop. There is nothing in any brand of Existentialism that would debase human autonomy and authenticity to the depths of Wikipedism's craven grøøpstink. Jon (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/sick.gif) |
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| Abd |
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Postmaster
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This is one of my Favorite Topics.
It's an example of the conflict between the naive wiki vision and the parasites that this vision attracts and empowers.
Users are banned because someone with the power to make that decision made it; the theory is that banning a user eliminates the "waste of time" involved in filtering their edits for valuable material.
However, there is an old solution to the problem that was completely ignored. The highly defective solution of block-revert-ignore was a result of ignorance of organizational process. Wikipedia forgot to consult with experts; I suppose this is related to the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit." It's the "encyclopedia that anyone can design."
It was worse than design by committee; committees usually involve a relatively small number of people, and they can use orderly process to consider alternatives. It is, in fact, committees which have become too large that are famously dysfunctional.
I became involved in this matter of "harmless edits" from banned editors in the matter of ScienceApologist. He'd been banned from editing articles on fringe science. I now know why, from his recent dumping in Cold fusion and related discussions (as on the Reliable sources noticeboard).....
He was making spelling corrections; I became aware of this because he made one to Cold fusion. Hipocrite reverted it, taking the whole thing to Arbitration Enforcement. Was Hipocrite trying to enforce the ban? No, Hipocrite was working with ScienceApologist, whose plan was to discredit the ban by getting blocked for making a harmless edit. It was at this point that WMC opined that to block someone for making a harmless edit was 'stupid."
But what I saw, before it became clear that SA's agenda was disruption, not improved spelling, was that it was possible to have the best of both worlds. I saw that if SA were to self-revert "per ban," he would call attention to these edits, but since the edit was self-reverted, there wasn't any need to consider the edit a ban violation. Wikipedia normally "forgives" edits that are promptly self-reverted. The difference here would only be that the edit would be deliberate, whereas the normal "forgiven" edit would be, perhaps, a 3RR violation. Or incivility, sometimes.
It was said by the mindless "ban is a ban" people that he should suggest the edit in Talk. That ignores the fact that it is probably ten times easier to simply make a correction than to describe it, and then someone else has to find the text to make the correction. IAR would *clearly* require that the edit just be made. If it is needed, it is trivial to refer to the self-reversion diff to suggest restoration. Normally, that wouldn't be necessary. A self-reverted edit with a summary of
"Spelling correction, self-reverted per ban" would almost always attract support from RCP and editors with the article on their watchlist.
The mindless "ban is a ban" really don't believe in IAR, except when it comes to their own actions. WMC had it right. It's stupid to block someone for harmless edits. However, complicating ban enforcement isn't exactly harmless. It was SA's agenda, in fact. And he did end up biting an admin; he went at this several different ways. He asked an arbitrator for permission to edit a certain article in the fringe science area, N-rays. He then edited it and was blocked. It was perfect for him; he had cover because he'd been given permission by an arbitrator, which he had not disclosed.
What if, instead of taking up the time of an arbitrator, he'd simply made the edit and self-reverted "per ban." The edit would have been immediately seen by those watching him, most especially his "enemies." If it's a good edit, some of these would be inclined to revert it back in. This, then, converts ban enforcement, though cooperation between the banned editor and the rest of the community, into good content. SA wasn't interested in that. His name is a revelation of his agenda, he's a scientismist, a pseudoskeptic.
But I suggested self-reversion to another topic-banned editor, an SPA who is an expert in his field. He was seriously distressed by being banned. I had actually supported the ban; the problem was his style in discussion and a tendency to revert war because he was "right." Wikipedia definitely developed defacto procedures that, instead of supporting editors (and guiding them and helping them toward functional participation in consensus-building), tends to punish them. If an expert believes that it is of value to explain their Favorite Topic, they get dinged for Wall of Text. Even though it only takes seconds to collapse an allegedly offensive tome.
Much more satisfactory, for the parasites, to Ban his Ass. Excessive discussion has never become policy as a reason for ban. They tried to get a remedy passed for me on that one, and there was enough opposition that it failed, but, then, I still got dinged by an arbitrator for discussion on Cold fusion when I came off ban.
Be that as it may, I realized that self-reversion actually was to the interest of both the banned editor and the community. The banned SPA I mentioned made a complicated, extensive edit to the article from which he was banned, and self-reverted per ban. I really hadn't anticipated that he'd do this, and I'd have worried that it would be too much work to review it, so it would be ignored. However, the editor who had asked for the ban in the first place -- who else would be likely to see this edit quickly! -- accepted the edit and reverted it back in with a few tweaks.
Self-reversion had cause cooperation to appear between otherwise opposing editors.
And I saw this happening every time self-reversion has been tried. But self-reversion was actively rejected when I was banned from Cold fusion by WMC, and I saw a harmless correction to make on Cold fusion. WMC blocked me. At this point, it wasn't his personal ban, because I had stated my intention to defy his ban as improper. (ArbComm later, more or less, confirmed this, and the community sort-of clarified that admins, absent discretionary sanctions, could not individually ban, they could only state an intention to block for disruptive edits, i.e., threaten block. The "ban" isn't a "ban," merely a warning, and creates no community enforcement.) When I did that Enric Naval asked for a community ban, the cabal poured in, I realized that no matter what, there was going to be disruption, and since I wasn't banned from the topic, I could still participate in the ongoing mediation, it wasn't worth fighting, and I asked my friends to let it go.... and I asked only for a neutral close, knowing that it was very likely that such a close would result in a temporary ban only. It was during this ban that I saw this harmless edit to make.
The same people who had defended SA's harmless spelliing corrections now piled in to attack self-reversion. As collateral damage, it was noticed that I'd advised PJH about self-reversion, and he was told not to depend on this.
Basically, a "rule,' that banned editors should strictly follow a ban, was placed above IAR, so that someone would be sanctioned for something that is clearly harmless. If someone were to fill up an article history with useless self-reverted edits, they never get accepted, okay. But that would usually be a self-limiting behavior. Such an editor would abandon self-reversion.
Self-reversion facilitates cooperative behavior on both sides. It is, itself, a manifestation of cooperation. It shows awareness of the ban, and a level of respect for the community's right to restrict behavior.
The reality is that self-reversion implements an ancient deliberative principle, that a motion isn't debated unless seconded. Self-reversion, if practices, requires an editor under sanction to obtain a second. That's all.
It could be automated by bot. The bot could have a control file, editable only by an admin, which controls what kinds of edits will be automatically reverted, from a specified editor. With such a bot in place, there is an intermediate remedy between a voluntary ban and a site ban. The bot equivalent to a site ban/block would be that all edits would be reverted. A list of reverted edits would be compiled as part of this. That list, then, is a ready resource if it is ever to be considered lifting the ban.
As an editor who has been both site-banned (for three months) and topic banned, I would vastly prefer even a site-revert bot, with, say, my user space exempted, to a block, even with Talk page access remaining. The biggest pain involved in being blocked was that I could not archive my Talk page or handle my user files.
But the Muggles have taken over. I was able to use self-reversion to help Thekohser get unblocked on Wikiversity. I don't know that it was necessary, Wikiversity is pretty ban-averse. Some nonsense about academic freedom....
But it sure didn't hurt. Thekohser can tell us what it was like. I suspect that the worst part of it was when Adambro finally said, "This test is over, we know that Thekohser can make good edits, now, either get his global lock lifted or go away." Sort of. Demonstrating that content did not matter, all that mattered was "following rules." Adambro then blocked the IP that Thekohser was openly using, and that had not been used to make any disruptive edits.
It was then possible to get a community decision to unblock, and the renaming device was used by SBJohnny to delink Greg's account from the global SUL, thus defeating the global ban.
Small victory for sanity, on a small wiki, and even there this took far more disruption and discussion than should have been required.
Wikipedia is an experiment in what happens when you set up a structure operating under certain conditions. What will people do with it? Now, I could have expected much of this, as could others with organizational experience.
It's possible to fix it, but it will take more than one or two editors. Not a lot more, in fact, the number could be surprisingly low. What these editors will need to do is to set up decision-making structures for themselves that would be the ones that would work for Wikipedia. Even though their numbers would be initially small, and thus those structures might seem too complicated. But if these structures are not in place when the scale is small, an oligarchy will develop that will, if it were to grow, simply reproduce Wikipedia defects with different faces. The founders of this need to see beyond themselves and their own vision and wisdom, and create conditions for community vision and wisdom to emerge.
It's been done before. If anyone is interested, contact me, PM here will do the job. So far, my observation has been that interest arises for too few to be able to start this up. People who have not been burned by Wikipedia typically don't see the need, and people who have been burned often think that it's impossible to fix the system.
I've seen this all over, this is not just Wikipedia. The biggest enemy of true reform is usually not the oppressors, who are merely filling roles that the system has set up, it is despair, the belief that meaningful change is impossible. (Or, a variety of this, that the problem is due to Them and if we can just toss Them out, all will be well. This usually fails, but when it succeeds, the result is often worse, not better.)
Back to self-reversion: what the community should do is to formally declare, as policy, that absent specific and demonstrated harm, self-reversion by a banned editor should not lead to any sanctions. The editor is doing the enforcement work! This would apply, as well, to blocked editors. Self-reversion by a blocked editor, to be meaningful, involves disclosure of identity.
So if Wikipedia decides to block me, it could happen any day, I would then continue editing more or less as before (which isn't much), but by IP -- or maybe through a declared sock account, that declaration would become visible immediately with the first edit, self reverted per ban of Abd. Policy would be that a sock would not be blocked unless it violated the ban by making non-self-reverted edits. Same for the IP.
Now, consider this: present practice is to block socks of banned editors on identification. This is done whether or not the sock has actually been disruptive. But the result, in practice, is that an editor who will sock will simply create more socks, creating more need to apply enforcement labor.
Self-reversion will not be practiced by many or most blocked editors. If an editor is kind enough to self-revert, the community should provide a quid pro quo. It's easy to watch a specific named account. It's easy to watch a specific IP. By self-identifying with all edits, the editor has made that far easier. Since the editor is making it easier for Wikipedia (compared to staying anonymous), Wikipedia should sensibly support this by making it easier for the banned editor.
And the result is nothing but content improvement, or no harm at worst. In actual practice, there has been nothing but content improvement through self-reversion.
It's often said that a banned editor will simply find a meat puppet to revert the edits back in. That's not a harm, that is an identification of a meat puppet! If the edits are harmful, the meat puppet can then be sanctioned. I've done a fair amount of reversion back in of edits by blocked editors, mostly not self-reverted. I've certainly received complaints about this, that I was "enabling" or "encouraging" block evasion, but I've never been blocked for it. Raul654 threatened it, once, and I think this was part of his downfall, though he'd already irritated many functionaries by his insane anti-Scibaby campaign.
Cooperative and collaborative solutions are often possible, but Wikipedia isn't a cooperative, collaborative community, too often. The structure was open to gradual assimilation by those who prefer to apply personal power. Supermajority approval for admins probably encouraged this, because it was not required that admins retain supermajority approval!
This post has been edited by Abd:
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| Jon Awbrey |
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Ï„á½° δΠμοι παθήματα μαθήματα γÎγονε
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| Abd |
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QUOTE(Herschelkrustofsky @ Sat 2nd October 2010, 2:18pm) QUOTE(Abd @ Sat 2nd October 2010, 8:17am) The mindless "ban is a ban" really don't believe in IAR, except when it comes to their own actions.
That, in a nutshell, is it. IAR, supposedly a core policy, asserts that the most important thing is to improve the putative encyclopedia. But that would obviously ruin the all-important WikiMMORPG. Damn! And here I thought someone might pay me to write a summary! Yeah, HKOS, you got it. There is a theoretical path to their interpretation. It goes that disruptive users waste the time of productive editors. However, what's missed in this is that the community doesn't have the power to totally exclude. It can simply waste more and more time excluding. They also missed that NPOV as a policy requires true consensus. While there are some people who aren't willing to participate in true consensus formation, Wikipedia quite often gets it wrong, and bans the people who would, in fact, cooperate with good process and keeps the people who merely push their POV with more understanding of wikipolitics or deeper ass-kissing. (NPOV isn't an absolute, it is relative, so an NPOV policy should mean that the project will attempt to maximize consensus among representatives of all points of view -- or at least all notable ones. The most disruptive editors are the ones who condemn others for "pushing" their POV, while imagining that the POV they are pushing is "NPOV." ScienceApologist, classic example, he's called himself an "NPOV-pusher.") |
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