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http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Colloquium#The_alleged_discretionary_.22rights.22_of_wikiversity_custodians

Adambro http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Community_Review/Problematic_actions&diff=584728&oldid=584724,


Adambro certainly has mixed "rights" with "privileges". But that is not my main point. In essence he believes he can competently act as police, judge and jury at the same time, and at every instance that he interests himself in, just based on what he thinks Wikiversity should be, and even in the face of community opposition.

I do not know if that has ever been the consensus or custom of Wikiversity. However, from what I know from the very early days Wikiversity custodians has never been explicitly endowed with any "rights" and they only act as functionaries who would act on behalf of the community, and hence the title "custodian", in clear distinction from Wikipedia "administrator". [So please don't say we are Wikimedia blablabla and it has always been like that blablabla.] The use of the custodial tools by custodians may have changed through practice, and I would like the Wikiversity community to establish consensus on what discretions, in particular blocking others from participations, we allow our functionaries to make.

—http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Hillgentleman | //\\ |http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Hillgentleman 12:32, 5 August 2010 (UTC)



You might be better raising any concerns you have about the general use of blocks at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity_talk:Blocking_policy where the development of a policy regarding this can be discussed. I'm not quite sure how you conclude that I believe I can act "based on what he thinks Wikiversity should be, and even in the face of community opposition" when in the quote you highlight I specifically said that I would use my custodian rights in accordance with both "what I judge to be in the interests of the project and in accordance with the views of the community". On the issue of my "custodian rights", I refer to the ability to block as a custodian right because that is what it is widely referred to as. You can find a list of the rights that members of the Custodians group have at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:ListGroupRights.

—http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Adambro 12:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)



These problems are not here because of missing policies. Policies may help to solve actually problems, but on the other hands, they will build up barriers around custodians, who will no longer be possible to use their brains and fantasy, to fix problems.

—http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Juan_de_Vojn%C3%ADkov 12:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)



I agree that would be nice to know. I'd also like to know in general what discretion anyone has to make any independent decisions. Is the impact that a decision has part of what discretion people are willing to give anyone? I believe that is usually true on other wikimedia projects. A decision to rename a resource usually only impacts the people working on the resource and the people reading the resource for example. If most people do the things that Custodians block for that would have more of a direct impact on the Wikiversity community, than if only a few people do the things that Custodians block for. Is having a direct impact a consideration as well? I think where people stand on issues that have no direct impact on them seems to vary.

—http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Darklama 13:05, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtneill#Emotions_and_Motivation

Hi James. I see you are working on a textbook project that explores http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Motivation_and_emotion/Textbook. As you may know, I have published some NSF-funded research on this topic, most of which is summarized in an article entitled http://knol.google.com/k/cognition-affect-and-learning#. Would you be interested in including or referencing any of the ideas or materials from that research? —http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/-/3iyoslgwsp412/0# 12:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Barry - this is a very relevant, appropriate resource - I've added a link in here for now: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Motivation_and_emotion/Textbook#References and I hope we can learn from it. -- http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Jtneill - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtneill - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jtneill 01:51, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I would be glad to work with your students on any of this material that they find of interest. Note that portions of it may have some daunting math, but I believe we can get past that with a little patience and some good metaphors. —http://knol.google.com/k/barry-kort/-/3iyoslgwsp412/0# 01:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

James, let me know if you need any custodial help with this course. Psychology always fascinates me and I'm pleased to see a spiffy new textbook will be coming out of this course!!! (Maybe next time you teach 102, we'll get a better introductory psychology wikibook ) http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Geoff_Plourde 06:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Barry and Geoff for your willingness and contributions already. Please feel welcome to join in - I'm pretty new to the topic myself - it will be a bit of an experiment, but in the past students have been amazed and appreciative of outside assistance via Wikiversity. -- http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Jtneill - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtneill - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jtneill 07:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I have got to say I find this incredibly inappropriate. Unblock Barry or don't, either way. But welcoming block evasion is just not acceptable. http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=User:Thenub314&action=edit&redlink=1 09:00, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand there's a long history here and that different people have different views, but from a personal point of view, I'm happy to work with good faith edits from any user. I'd be concerned about block evasion if it was vandalism etc. (I think it's a bit unnecessary when we undo/rollback constructive edits to Wikiversity). If/when the community and http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Moulton wish to undertake a community review to consider unblocking, then I would support this. In the meantime, a constructive edit is a constructive edit regardless of where it emanates from. If my intended approach is of particular concern then please share with me more about that - and maybe we can explore the issue in a wider discussion. -- http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Jtneill - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtneill - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jtneill 09:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

There was a community !vote about Moulton in the past. The way I see it there are two possibilities, first JWSchmidt is correct that this was a show trial, in which case one should be making an effort to get a true community !vote on the issue. The other possibility is that the community actually felt he should be blocked, in which case it is a bit out of line to invite him to edit with out first starting a community discussion. In the mean time (to me) it looks like your side stepping involving the community. http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=User:Thenub314&action=edit&redlink=1 13:03, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

This is good food for thought, thankyou. Personally, I am in favour of a new review in which Moulton can participate. But it's not clear whether Moulton wishes this and it would require first community consensus to detach/rename his account from the global block in order to allow logged in participation. I'm open to developments in this direction, but I haven't yet sensed much interest (there are lots of diverse views). In the meantime, for projects I'm working on, if any anonymous IP makes productive edits, I am grateful for them. I realise that this might cause some unease when such IP edits emanate from a user who has one or more blocked accounts - a kind of http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance, perhaps. It could be helpful to explore more about we feel about constructive edits by people with blocked accounts. -- http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Jtneill - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtneill - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jtneill 13:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

OK. Lets open a new review. But do not break community consensus please. We were talking about ban, not block - it is something different. Its long standing. And if I have a look what is Moulton doing elsewhere I will support his block here. --http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Juan_de_Vojn%C3%ADkov 13:36, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Community_Review/Moulton%27s_block#Summary, you were neutral at the time of the ban discussion. Geoff was against the ban. I did not post as I was the enforcing admin. SB Johnny did not vote as he was the closing admin. Moulton has still not agreed to the most basic of terms to ensure he can come back - agreeing to stop using real names and to drop what happened in the past. Looking at the numbers and people's responses, I do not think that there will be any future consensus to undo that previous ban and Moulton, when talking before, stated that he did not want to be unbanned. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Ottava_Rima (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Ottava_Rima) 13:57, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Adambro has succinctly stated the common-law rule for administrators. In the absence of specific and clear policy to the contrary, this is the most that we can expect from any custodian, it is actually a lesser standard that the custodian would, for example, agree to only act within the clear confines of explicit policy. Wikiversity could establish this latter standard, but I'd highly recommend against it. "Police" are not "judges," they exercise executive power, which only allows temporary, ad-hoc "judgment," pending a deeper process where the community (or government, or university administrator, for, say, campus police, up to and including courts) reviews the actions. If Adambro regularly abuses discretion, that should be specifically addressed, not the principle of discretion, which is essential. Until this community gives much clearer guidance to Adambro, he cannot be deeply faulted for his actions as long as they are not clearly contrary to policy. If someone believes that a specific action is problematic, or a set of specific actions, and this cannot be resolved by direct discussion, that should be taken to a report on http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Custodian_feedback for the community to advise the custodian and the person(s) with a complaint. Instead, we have a habit of ineffective complaint through useless discussion, here and there, which just wastes everyone's time while accomplishing nothing. --http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Abd 18:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't get why some admins/editors feel that a game of virtual whack-a-mole is necessary. I guess it's their entertainment.

Contempt of Kort


I think it's more than mere entertainment. I think they really want to learn something about how to handle this situation when the roles are reversed (as they often are).

No, I think it's really just a matter of personality.

This is probably a big part of it. Some people are just more rules-oriented than others, and see things mostly in black-and-white. I know Moulton likes to trot out his hierarchies and whatnot, but I prefer to just see it as the reality of dealing with people. They are what they are, and preaching jargon doesn't change a thing.

On Commons, Adambro has now capriciously blocked three contributors (me and two others) for reverting the addition of a category to a few images. Out of the blue, totally unpredictable, and completely unexpected.

The Foundation loses out on on three weeks of free volunteer labor, for what?

Really, folks, people get indeffed for less, and that's what it takes to even get me mildly excited, any more.

Maybe it's time you started using the internet for what it was really intended for, namely PORN.

That might get me more than mildly excited.

On a good night.

I am, after all, 66.

I much prefer, however, a real woman. Thanks, God.

Really, folks, people get indeffed for less, and that's what it takes to even get me mildly excited, any more.