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 Jimbo's lording over Wikiversity again, This time, Privatemusings gets the axe |
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| Somey |
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Can't actually moderate (or even post)
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 13th March 2010, 12:20am)  Jimbo, Jimbo, when will you ever learn? You cause more trouble than it's worth. Well, you just have to remember, it's not the "breaching experiment" part that bothers them - to them, that's just more participation, and therefore a good thing. It's the "ethical" part they can't deal with, because they know deep down inside that what they're doing by trying to maintain the Wikipedia edifice is, itself, deeply and fundamentally unethical. Anything that threatens to expose the truth of that must be suppressed - there will never be any point in trying to organize these things on a Wikimedia-funded "project." I'm afraid Mr. Privatemusings never really had a chance, unfortunately. It's an interesting problem... it seems like you can only claim valid results if you can maintain secrecy, but then who do you trust? You almost have to do the whole thing single-handedly to make sure, and that's a lot of effort if you want to put together a big-enough sample to mean anything. Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious! |
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| Subtle Bee |
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QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 13th March 2010, 12:05am) QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 13th March 2010, 12:20am) Jimbo, Jimbo, when will you ever learn? You cause more trouble than it's worth. Well, you just have to remember, it's not the "breaching experiment" part that bothers them - to them, that's just more participation, and therefore a good thing. It's the "ethical" part they can't deal with, because they know deep down inside that what they're doing by trying to maintain the Wikipedia edifice is, itself, deeply and fundamentally unethical. Anything that threatens to expose the truth of that must be suppressed - there will never be any point in trying to organize these things on a Wikimedia-funded "project." I'm afraid Mr. Privatemusings never really had a chance, unfortunately. It's an interesting problem... it seems like you can only claim valid results if you can maintain secrecy, but then who do you trust? You almost have to do the whole thing single-handedly to make sure, and that's a lot of effort if you want to put together a big-enough sample to mean anything. Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious! Wikipedia is an ethical klein bottle - there is no "deep down inside" in which to know things. They just don't like bad press. I'm not sure what PM is up to, but I'm rooting for him. Who doesn't enjoy Wales breaching? (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/evilgrin.gif) |
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| SB_Johnny |
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QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Sat 13th March 2010, 6:28am) Are all you Wikiversity people aware that your Main Page's "News" section contains four items, the most recent of which is from August 2009? (Is Wikiversity the Movie still going ahead? Who's going to play Moulton? I understand noted actor Michael Schmidt may have some time on his hands soon, and he has previous experience playing a troll.) Are you confusing him with JWSchmidt? Frankly I've never gotten involved in the main page: it's always been at the center of various dramas. Ah, here's the "previous discussion". Nice. Who the hell is this guy? |
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| SB_Johnny |
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| Eva Destruction |
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QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 13th March 2010, 3:42pm) QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Sat 13th March 2010, 10:36am) QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 13th March 2010, 3:27pm)
Jimbo's threatening to close Wikiversity again...
" If you don't let me make up new rules I'm taking my ball and going home." Does he even have the power to close Wikiversity (or any of the WMF projects) unilaterally even if he wanted to? If he does, I'd imagine there'd be a valid case for any WMF donor to demand their money back as it's no longer being used for the purpose for which it was solicited. (IANAL when it comes to Florida, but AFAIK that's a basic principle of charity-law US-wide.) I'm fairly sure he doesn't. The disturbing thing is that this is the same thing he said when pressuring us about Moulton, and we collectively tucked our tails between our legs. There is a valid case to be made for closing Wikiversity (and even more so Wikinews) as not-best-use-of-funds-or-time as regards the WMF's sole legal object ("to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally") towards which all those millions of Google dollars are supposed to flow. I somehow doubt that's what he means, though. |
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| thekohser |
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QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Sat 13th March 2010, 10:36am) QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 13th March 2010, 3:27pm)
Jimbo's threatening to close Wikiversity again...
" If you don't let me make up new rules I'm taking my ball and going home." Does he even have the power to close Wikiversity (or any of the WMF projects) unilaterally even if he wanted to? If he does, I'd imagine there'd be a valid case for any WMF donor to demand their money back as it's no longer being used for the purpose for which it was solicited. (IANAL when it comes to Florida, but AFAIK that's a basic principle of charity-law US-wide.) While he is being a cry-baby, he did at least say he was going to take a recommendation to the The Board to close Wikiversity. So, he's not really saying "he" will close Wikiversity. The thing about demanding money back is interesting, but in practice, it will be irrelevant -- because clearly 99.9% of the financial donors to the Wikimedia Foundation don't even care whether their money is being used effectively or not, given that a critique like this hasn't dissuaded them yet. They are brainwashed. If they are told by Jay Walsh and Sue Gardner and Jimbo Wales that the closure of Wikiversity was necessary to further the goals of the Foundation, the cult followers will believe. That's how a cult works. Now, Hale-Bopp is approaching, and our spaceship outta here is hiding from NASA radar behind that comet. Brothers and sisters and Wikimedia donors, take these pills, put on your track suits, and lay down in your bunk beds. |
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| SB_Johnny |
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QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sat 13th March 2010, 11:26am)
Wikiversity seems an especially ill focused wing of the WMF projects. I really don't know what it is suppose to be. It seems to have no interest in any kind of instruction whatsoever. Perhaps it is merely some kind of phony research institution. If so it is a miserable failure at that too.
One thing that has always struck me as odd about WP as "a learning community" is that it has a complete absence of people who actually have interest in learning anything. It is more of a vehicle for expresson of the rampant smarty-pants-ism that infects Wikipedians.
I have spent considerable time in recent months in various on-line communities of people pursuing language acquisition. Things are much different in such communities as many participants are very motivated in learning from other participants. This combines nicely with the fact that an ordinary person who is a native speaker of a language is in many ways a better authority than someone with graduate training in the same language. The result is a kind of humility and cooperation that is the exact opposite of WMF projects. These online communities may offer a viable alternative to WP to people interested in learning communities, unless of course they are only interested in their own brand of smartypantsism.
Well, not a complete absence. My original involvement on WP was making stubs for obscure weeds and wildflowers I was researching, and they were added to by others who knew more, etc. Stress there on "others who knew more" though: this was before the BLP circus had infected everything to the point that a simple addition of information about an obscure weed or wildflower was instantly reverted under "WP:V". My original involvement on wikiversity was pretty much on the same lines: working on the Bloom Clock was certainly educational for me personally, and my contributions there are now an "open notebook" for anyone who wants to continue it (in fact, my employees refer to the keys there frequently when boning up on the plants we work with). The wiki's mission and scope are rather hard to fathom (to me, too!), and it's never really had much in the way of positive attention from the foundation. In fact, I'm leaning toward the opinion that our association with the foundation has done much more harm than good over the years. |
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| Doc glasgow |
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Wikipedia:The Sump of All Human Knowledge
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 13th March 2010, 6:13pm) QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Sat 13th March 2010, 10:36am) QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 13th March 2010, 3:27pm)
Jimbo's threatening to close Wikiversity again...
" If you don't let me make up new rules I'm taking my ball and going home." Does he even have the power to close Wikiversity (or any of the WMF projects) unilaterally even if he wanted to? If he does, I'd imagine there'd be a valid case for any WMF donor to demand their money back as it's no longer being used for the purpose for which it was solicited. (IANAL when it comes to Florida, but AFAIK that's a basic principle of charity-law US-wide.) While he is being a cry-baby, he did at least say he was going to take a recommendation to the The Board to close Wikiversity. So, he's not really saying "he" will close Wikiversity. The thing about demanding money back is interesting, but in practice, it will be irrelevant -- because clearly 99.9% of the financial donors to the Wikimedia Foundation don't even care whether their money is being used effectively or not, given that a critique like this hasn't dissuaded them yet. They are brainwashed. If they are told by Jay Walsh and Sue Gardner and Jimbo Wales that the closure of Wikiversity was necessary to further the goals of the Foundation, the cult followers will believe. That's how a cult works. Now, Hale-Bopp is approaching, and our spaceship outta here is hiding from NASA radar behind that comet. Brothers and sisters and Wikimedia donors, take these pills, put on your track suits, and lay down in your bunk beds. Amusing analysis, but really will only convince members of the anticult cult to which you belong. The reality is that a) Wikiversity is a pointless waste of time, which any responsible charitable board would wish to de-invest in. b) You really think the Wikimedia Foundation is being unreasonable in not allowing its servers to be used to plot breeching experiments? Try starting a facebook group called "how to destroy facebook"- and get some sensible suggestions that might cause them trouble - and see how long you'd last. One does not need to be a Jimbo-groupie, or drink any kool-aid, to see this analysis is only useful for those recovering from alien abductions. |
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| SB_Johnny |
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 13th March 2010, 1:13pm) While he is being a cry-baby, he did at least say he was going to take a recommendation to the The Board to close Wikiversity. So, he's not really saying "he" will close Wikiversity. The thing about demanding money back is interesting, but in practice, it will be irrelevant -- because clearly 99.9% of the financial donors to the Wikimedia Foundation don't even care whether their money is being used effectively or not, given that a critique like this hasn't dissuaded them yet. They are brainwashed. If they are told by Jay Walsh and Sue Gardner and Jimbo Wales that the closure of Wikiversity was necessary to further the goals of the Foundation, the cult followers will believe. That's how a cult works. Now, Hale-Bopp is approaching, and our spaceship outta here is hiding from NASA radar behind that comet. Brothers and sisters and Wikimedia donors, take these pills, put on your track suits, and lay down in your bunk beds. Tell ya what Greg: if we buy a domain name, can we direct it to your IP? Serious question, because he's just gonna keep doing this and a good number of us are profoundly dissatisfied. I'll take you over Jimbo any day. |
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| thekohser |
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QUOTE(Doc glasgow @ Sat 13th March 2010, 1:21pm)
Try starting a facebook group called "how to destroy facebook"- and get some sensible suggestions that might cause them trouble - and see how long you'd last.
Nice try, but the Facebook group would be called something more like, "Documenting past flaws and mistakes of Facebook, and discussion of ethical experiments that would test Facebook's current quality-control measures". Doc, I don't even know why I'm having to point this out to you. Do you really think Privatemusings was out to "destroy Wikipedia"? Or, do you think he was curious about finding ways to document and discuss the unethical problems that Wikipedia chooses to harbor in the name of something else. I believe the latter, but if you want to go about it in a more juvenile manner, feel free. QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 13th March 2010, 1:21pm)
Tell ya what Greg: if we buy a domain name, can we direct it to your IP? Serious question, because he's just gonna keep doing this and a good number of us are profoundly dissatisfied. I'll take you over Jimbo any day.
Do you mean that you'd be building content directly on Wikipedia Review.com, but using another domain name to "direct" traffic into it? (Similar to what I do with www.GregoryKohs.com ?) I'd be delighted to see something like that develop. If, on the other hand, you're asking if I will be the "benevolent server host manager" for a project that would fully reside on your chosen domain name... I would consider it, but I'm not sure I need another website to manage in my life right now. I'm flattered that you'd ask me. |
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| SB_Johnny |
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 13th March 2010, 2:21pm) QUOTE(Doc glasgow @ Sat 13th March 2010, 1:21pm)
Try starting a facebook group called "how to destroy facebook"- and get some sensible suggestions that might cause them trouble - and see how long you'd last.
Nice try, but the Facebook group would be called something more like, "Documenting past flaws and mistakes of Facebook, and discussion of ethical experiments that would test Facebook's current quality-control measures". Doc, I don't even know why I'm having to point this out to you. Do you really think Privatemusings was out to "destroy Wikipedia"? Or, do you think he was curious about finding ways to document and discuss the unethical problems that Wikipedia chooses to harbor in the name of something else. I believe the latter, but if you want to go about it in a more juvenile manner, feel free. QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 13th March 2010, 1:21pm)
Tell ya what Greg: if we buy a domain name, can we direct it to your IP? Serious question, because he's just gonna keep doing this and a good number of us are profoundly dissatisfied. I'll take you over Jimbo any day.
Do you mean that you'd be building content directly on Wikipedia Review.com, but using another domain name to "direct" traffic into it? (Similar to what I do with www.GregoryKohs.com ?) I'd be delighted to see something like that develop. If, on the other hand, you're asking if I will be the "benevolent server host manager" for a project that would fully reside on your chosen domain name... I would consider it, but I'm not sure I need another website to manage in my life right now. I'm flattered that you'd ask me. Probably more of the latter, assuming you have bandwidth and don't have to pay extra for additional domains. We've been pretty well burned by the old boss, so having control of the domain name would be better for us. No offense, but "wikipediareview.com" doesn't fell, well, pseudoacademic enough (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) Why flattered? I thought it pretty clear that you have respect (except, of course, when you get a bit too vulgar for my tastes). |
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| Somey |
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Can't actually moderate (or even post)
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QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Sat 13th March 2010, 10:23am) The Kool-Aid is strong in this one. Is this someone trolling? I can't believe anyone could be this Jimbophantic. Yikes, what an idiot! Even after being corrected, this person insists that the term "ethical breaching experiment" must actually mean "an experiment designed to 'breach ethics,'" by which I assume he means "commit a breach of ethics." Actually, with people like that around, why isn't Wikiversity shut down? It's obviously a complete failure in almost every sense of the word, and if people like that are allowed to influence policy, or even content, there's not much hope of improvement. |
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| Ottava |
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| SB_Johnny |
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QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 13th March 2010, 2:34pm) QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Sat 13th March 2010, 10:23am) The Kool-Aid is strong in this one. Is this someone trolling? I can't believe anyone could be this Jimbophantic. Yikes, what an idiot! Even after being corrected, this person insists that the term "ethical breaching experiment" must actually mean "an experiment designed to 'breach ethics,'" by which I assume he means "commit a breach of ethics." Actually, with people like that around, why isn't Wikiversity shut down? It's obviously a complete failure in almost every sense of the word, and if people like that are allowed to influence policy, or even content, there's not much hope of improvement. You know that's just an "SPA", right? Jimmy has a deep pool of attack dawgs to call on, I suspect this one was dredged up from there. The 'crats know how to weigh things, after all (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) |
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| Jon Awbrey |
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Ï„á½° δΠμοι παθήματα μαθήματα γÎγονε
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QUOTE(Ottava @ Sat 13th March 2010, 2:50pm) QUOTE But go! Nephew! We're ruined! Everything's gone! And I predicted it! I predicted it! What's happened? I knew it, I ran miles to tell you What is it? I forgive everybody What is it? This! Locusts! The flying plague! Well! Let them come! But the lion, the harvest! What can we do against the gods? It's not the gods! It's a thing of nature! We can fight it! Have you ever seen a plague of locusts? No but … I have! They came in millions The air is black with them and stinky — The Good Earth (1937) |
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| Ottava |
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QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 13th March 2010, 8:06pm)
I saw it. Your fellow custodians are a good bit more battle hardened than we were last time though, Jeff. Privatemusings is actually a good man for the job (since he tends to observe and comment rather than act), and I hope you'll do your part in his defense on this.
That's the hard part, you know: defending people even though you'd rather they not do what they're doing.
I left him with a warning after I deleted the production of content that was deemed unacceptable for WMF linkage. He stopped furthering the process. I made it apparent what happened on his talk page. If everyone bothered to look first, they would have seen that the matter was handled and stopped 12 days earlier. I do not think privatemusings should be blocked, and I hope Jimbo will reconsider the block after seeing that privatemusings was dealt with on the topic and did not pursue it further. Could someone please point that out and point out that the person trying to cause trouble came 12 days after the situation was handled? I just find it insulting that the matter was finished and settled, without any resulting problems, and this happens anyway. Jimbo is not to blame but the person who posted on his talk page like that is clearly responsible for skewing the matter in a very inappropriate way. |
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| SB_Johnny |
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QUOTE(Ottava @ Sat 13th March 2010, 3:33pm) QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sat 13th March 2010, 8:06pm)
I saw it. Your fellow custodians are a good bit more battle hardened than we were last time though, Jeff. Privatemusings is actually a good man for the job (since he tends to observe and comment rather than act), and I hope you'll do your part in his defense on this.
That's the hard part, you know: defending people even though you'd rather they not do what they're doing.
I left him with a warning after I deleted the production of content that was deemed unacceptable for WMF linkage. He stopped furthering the process. I made it apparent what happened on his talk page. If everyone bothered to look first, they would have seen that the matter was handled and stopped 12 days earlier. I do not think privatemusings should be blocked, and I hope Jimbo will reconsider the block after seeing that privatemusings was dealt with on the topic and did not pursue it further. Could someone please point that out and point out that the person trying to cause trouble came 12 days after the situation was handled? I just find it insulting that the matter was finished and settled, without any resulting problems, and this happens anyway. Jimbo is not to blame but the person who posted on his talk page like that is clearly responsible for skewing the matter in a very inappropriate way. You know I unblocked and undeleted already, don't you? And Jimbo is definitely to blame for the whole knee-jerky thing. He's clueless about WV, and shouldn't meddle there. QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sat 13th March 2010, 3:30pm) QUOTE(everyking @ Sat 13th March 2010, 3:27pm)
My advice to Wikiversity (or any other project cursed by his interventions): Tell Jimbo he can have as much influence on Wikiversity as his contributions to your project warrant. In other words: if he's not writing for the project, he needs to get lost, because you're not giving him any special privileges.
At least Mr. Wales seems to have enough sense to direct his concerns in the direction of the WMF Board and not trust in the wisdom of the crowd. He's only doing that because he knows "the crowd" is against him in this case. I suspect the board will see that the crowd is wiser than Jimbo in this case, because in this case it is. I hope it's embarrassing for him when they tell him he's a kook. |
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| SB_Johnny |
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QUOTE(Ottava @ Sat 13th March 2010, 3:51pm) It appears that my deletion was known by the user who complained to Jimbo, and yet he did not once bother to tell Jimbo that the situation was already dealt with and the problematic material was already deleted. I feel like blocking RTG on the basis of deceit. Stop talking and start doing. You're the trusted guy, right? QUOTE(privatemusings @ Sat 13th March 2010, 4:32pm)
I'm (barely) up on a sunny sunday here - and am catching up with the various goings on - thanks to SB for unblocking and kicking off the discussion - I'm kinda busy doing nothing in the real world today, so probably won't comment at length, if at all, until tomorrow / early next week.
No hurry, this is about you, but you're just the poor guy in the middle (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif). |
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