FORUM WARNING [2] Division by zero (Line: 2933 of /srcsgcaop/boardclass.php) FORUM WARNING [2] Division by zero (Line: 2943 of /srcsgcaop/boardclass.php) Just what is Meta for, anyways? -
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Not technically "Wikipedia" related, but WMF in general. Its kinda nuts up there, as our dear WR contributor Mbz1 is using Meta's RfC process as her sole remaining battleground from which to fire salvos at Gwen Gale; http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_fo...mment/Gwen_Gale
I called for the whole thing to be shit-canned but they quickly shat upon that idea and shuffled it off to a sub-section of the RfC itself.
Mbz1's formerly "voluntary indef" on en.wiki has been made into a real one, due to harassment of Gwen at....ding ding ding...Meta. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)
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QUOTE(Tarc @ Tue 7th February 2012, 1:40pm)
Not technically "Wikipedia" related, but WMF in general. Its kinda nuts up there, as our dear WR contributor Mbz1 is using Meta's RfC process as her sole remaining battleground from which to fire salvos at Gwen Gale; http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_fo...mment/Gwen_Gale
I called for the whole thing to be shit-canned but they quickly shat upon that idea and shuffled it off to a sub-section of the RfC itself.
Mbz1's formerly "voluntary indef" on en.wiki has been made into a real one, due to harassment of Gwen at....ding ding ding...Meta. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)
Mbz1 is about certain to be indeffed on meta, and might be globally banned if this continues. And it won't be fair. Lesser remedies will not be put in place.
The action of Hersfold in reblocking indef is questionable, being based on off-wiki behavior, but it's also not crazy. Mbz1 is really way out there, see this edit.
Mbz1, there is a little problem with "sanity checks," if they are judged by one who is insane. Take it from me. You are insane. Now, what else is possible, given this?
It is not inevitable that you remain the victim of your own insanity. It's optional. But recovery starts from recognizing your own insanity. How do you do that? Would you like to know?
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About the question about what meta is for.
In theory, meta is for cross-wiki project coordination. It used to be a bit of a refuge, things could be discussed there that would get you indeffed on Wikipedia. The user base was highly sophisticated. That's changed.
It is now a place for meta administrators -- and it's easy to get elected there -- to do Whatever They Please, to exercise power over others. They will tolerate nutso criticism, like that from Ottava or Mbz1, perhaps it amuses them, but if one seriously and sanely criticizes a steward or administrator there, with evidence -- and civilly -- indef is just one button push away, take a look at my block log there. See if it makes any sense.
In any case, once an admin gets exercised about Mbz, she's toast. Used to be there were stewards and admins who would investigate and undo the worst blocks. Apparently they are gone, busy elsewhere.
Herby will cheerfully block you, Tarc, take that seriously.
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I think the evidence for the reblock is primarily for what Mbz1 did recently on-wiki...she went on a spree at Meta, petitioning everyone from Philippe to the entire En Arbcom about some block Gale did of an IP.
We'll see what happens from here I guess. So far, Meta seems like some long-forgotten Dances With Wolves-esque outpost.
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Mila sent me a nastygram shortly after i set up an account here. I don't think online environments are good for her. Its probably best for her to keep public discussion of her (and whoever the enemy du jour is, "gwen gale" is just the latest) to a minimum.
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QUOTE(DanMurphy @ Tue 7th February 2012, 7:52pm)
Mila sent me a nastygram shortly after i set up an account here. I don't think online environments are good for her. Its probably best for her to keep public discussion of her (and whoever the enemy du jour is, "gwen gale" is just the latest) to a minimum.
I would second that, but then I would be discussing her.
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OK, the trolls have spoken.
Now it will be really interesting to hear what smart ones are thinking about the validity of reblock itself. Here's the situation. I have been blocked on English wiki since July of 2011 by my own request. My very last contribution to my own talk page was 2 months ago. I had absolutely no intentions of coming back to English wikipedia. I had never expressed any wish to come back to English wikipedia, just the opposite. Yesterday I was reblocked on English Wikipedia for alleged harassment of gwen gale that happened on Meta. Blocks are not punitive, they are preventative, so what this block suppose to prevent? RFC at meta was not deleted so far. Was arbcom trying to scare me? Honestly I got an impression they are afraid themselves, I wish I knew what they are afraid of.
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QUOTE(Tarc @ Tue 7th February 2012, 8:52pm)
QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 7th February 2012, 3:46pm)
Yesterday I was reblocked on English Wikipedia for alleged harassment of gwen gale that happened on Meta.
Since you're on Meta complaining about stuff that Gwen Gale did on en.wiki, isn't that pretty much the circle completing itself, then?
It is actually a funny response, and I like it (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) But the thing is that in this case the block becomes punitive,and it should not be punitive. So, IMO this block is unusual and so far I was not able to understand the purpose of it, but I love it.
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QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 7th February 2012, 4:11pm)
QUOTE(Tarc @ Tue 7th February 2012, 8:52pm)
QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 7th February 2012, 3:46pm)
Yesterday I was reblocked on English Wikipedia for alleged harassment of gwen gale that happened on Meta.
Since you're on Meta complaining about stuff that Gwen Gale did on en.wiki, isn't that pretty much the circle completing itself, then?
It is actually a funny response, and I like it (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) But the thing is that in this case the block becomes punitive,and it should not be punitive. So, IMO this block is unusual and so far I was not able to understand the purpose of it, but I love it.
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QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 7th February 2012, 4:11pm)
But the thing is that in this case the block becomes punitive,and it should not be punitive. So, IMO this block is unusual and so far I was not able to understand the purpose of it, but I love it.
Okay, you have asked for an explanation, so I'll attempt one.
First of all, there is no "should," because there are no standards, there is no rule of law on Wikipedia, no way to predict outcomes other than making guesses based on community psychology, and that's also unreliable because you don't know who the actor will be.
However, there is something I've called "wiki common law." Guidelines and policies are often based on it. However, the delusion that we easily fall into is that the guidelines and policies will be enforced consistently. They are not. And, in fact, if you read the collection of guidelines and policies, you'll see that they are, explicitly, not to be enforced as if they were law, that "actual community practice" trumps them.
In media coverage of Wikipedia, it will often be reported that Wikipedia does this or that, based on what Wikipedia itself says it does, i.e., what is in the guidelines and policies. Actual practice can be very, very different. But it's also impossible to conform the policies and guidelines to actual practice, because that would involve getting very clear about what actually happens, and there are way too many privileged users who don't want that to happen.
Now, there is indeed wiki common law that punishment is not allowed. Rather, all that is allowed that might otherwise be considered punishment is protection of the wiki. Hence, you are correct. Because you were not editing Wikipedia, because you showed no inclination to edit Wikipedia, because you were already blocked anyway, the change of the block to something that you might in the future request to be lifted, to an indef block by an arbitrator with a request not to unblock without consultation of ArbComm, was obviously punitive, unless there is something we don't know here, such as active socking by you on Wikipedia. That is, there *might* be some justification that the blocking arbitrator might have felt necessary not to disclose.
But I'm assuming that the reason given was the actual reason. Punitive. Now, Mila, so what?
Why did the arbitrator do this? Because she wanted to avenge harassment of her friend, that's the most likely reason. Or maybe it wasn't personal, but was to revenge harassment of administrators in general, say.
It's highly unlikely that anything will be done about this, because there is nothing in it for the project. It's not like you were an active user, making positive contributions to Wikipedia.
So it shows that the arbitrator is vengeful. Are you surprised by this? Did you think that Wikipedia arbitrators were specially professional, that they would never do anything like this?
Some of us here actually used to think this, there was a period of time where ArbComm managed to present an appearance of professionalism and fairness. That was an illusion, carefully preserved by control of what was allowed to be public, and the arbitrators held their real conversations on a private mailing list.
Instead of using the proposed decision pages to make and review proposals, they would decide privately what to have proposed, and then pile in to support it, presenting an image of cooperation and unity, considered important for the protection of Wikipedia.
Real cooperation and real unity, showing how arbitrators overcame their sincere differences, would have been more impressive, in fact, but these are not necessarily sophisticated users. Some have been, and some have left in disgust, outnumbered and frustrated.
The election method for arbitrators is defective. It does not produce a Committee that is representative of the users, but the process selects for popularity. It's obvious. If there were a large faction that voted consistently for its favorite candidates, they would all be elected, and other factions would be out of luck unless they similarly voted, and then the largest faction would win, every seat. That's the method called "Approval at large." Approval voting for a single-winner election is great. It's a lousy multiwinner method. In fact, one might say that administrators are selected by the same method, it's just that it's done one at a time. So the community is not represented. It's like clockwork.
There are far better methods, but don't hold your breath. The oligarchs do not want fair representation, they know full well that the "community" does not hold power in Wikipedia, except in a very diffuse way; rather the community is carefully kept disempowered, every structure that might allow the community to communicate in ways that would form large-scale consensus with efficiency has been crushed. Many examples can be shown.
And supermajority election of administrators seemed like a good idea at the time, eh? It seemed that it would be best if administrators "had the trust of the community," and, indeed, it would be. But it would be *continued trust* that would be important, not trust under conditions of "I've behaved really well for a year, now can I have the keys to the car?" And then the keys can only be taken back by filing a federal case, and even then it's difficult.
It's well-known that many or most administrators would not do well in a confirmation election, and there are some decent excuses given for this. But the excuses demonstrate that there is no confidence in community process, no trust that it will truly represent the community.
Because it doesn't, except by accident, almost.
By the way, the system also oppresses the olligarchs. It eventually breaks them or spits them out, most of them. It's an error to think that Wikipedia problems are due to the Bad People running it. The problems are structural. Mila, the problem is not this or that administrator, and getting rid of this or that administrator will have hardly any effect at all. Most of these people, who behave in ways that create abuse in the existing structure, would do far better with better structure. So don't take it personally.
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QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 7th February 2012, 8:46pm)
OK, the trolls have spoken.
Now it will be really interesting to hear what smart ones are thinking about the validity of reblock itself. Here's the situation. I have been blocked on English wiki since July of 2011 by my own request. My very last contribution to my own talk page was 2 months ago. I had absolutely no intentions of coming back to English wikipedia. I had never expressed any wish to come back to English wikipedia, just the opposite. Yesterday I was reblocked on English Wikipedia for alleged harassment of gwen gale that happened on Meta. Blocks are not punitive, they are preventative, so what this block suppose to prevent? RFC at meta was not deleted so far. Was arbcom trying to scare me? Honestly I got an impression they are afraid themselves, I wish I knew what they are afraid of.
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QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 7th February 2012, 10:11pm)
But the thing is that in this case the block becomes punitive,and it should not be punitive. So, IMO this block is unusual and so far I was not able to understand the purpose of it, but I love it.
Not that unusual. Most blocks on Wikipedia are punitive.
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QUOTE(Guido den Broeder @ Fri 10th February 2012, 2:02am)
QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 7th February 2012, 10:11pm)
But the thing is that in this case the block becomes punitive,and it should not be punitive. So, IMO this block is unusual and so far I was not able to understand the purpose of it, but I love it.
Not that unusual. Most blocks on Wikipedia are punitive.
But could you or somebody else maybe to provide an example of somebody who has not contributed to wikipedia for a few months getting blocked on wikipedia , and neither getting blocked nor even warned on the other project, where the alleged offense happened? If there is no such example it means my block made a history (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) Of course me not being blocked on meta could get fixed (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif) soon. see here:
QUOTE
In the end I would like to tell you that I am writing to you with my real name, and you are a bunch of mostly anonymous cowards, who are not only bullying me, but also lying about me. The whole process reminds closed Stalin's tribunals. Only here it is worse because there at least a defendant was present at the hearings, and here even I (the defendant) have no idea who said what and who voted how.I give you a full permission to publish all communication between me and arbcom. I've nothing to hide. Have you?"
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Also I'd like to ask everybody to tell me what is the difference between Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fæ and RFC for Gwen Gale or rather what is the difference between the stories of an admin Fæ and an admin gwen gale.
*They both had prior accounts. *They both went for a clean start after they have problems. *They both were eventually identified as having prior accounts. *Fæ wrote some articles that were BLP violations. Gwen Gale wrote two articles about not-notable herself, and added numerous links to her own bio written by her at the feminist.net to a few Wikipedia articles. *They both were not exactly honest in their RfAs, except Gwen Gale made a few openly false or half-true statements during her RfA, while Fæ simply failed to disclose his prior accounts. *Maybe I am mistaking, but I believe Fæ is not an abusive as admin at English wiki, Gwen Gale is.
I am simply trying to understand how somebody who read this section http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_fo...s_when_involved could claim that Gwen Gale is an average admin. She's probably not the worst one, but I am sure, she is well below average .
Please forget that this RFC was submitted by me. Let's assume it was submitted by a different person. Let's assume it was submitted on English wiki. Just tell me please, where I got it wrong, except submitting it on meta. I will really appreciate your comments. Thanks.
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QUOTE(mbz1 @ Thu 9th February 2012, 11:05pm)
Please forget that this RFC was submitted by me. Let's assume it was submitted by a different person. Let's assume it was submitted on English wiki. Just tell me please, where I got it wrong, except submitting it on meta. I will really appreciate your comments. Thanks.
This is actually a good idea, in all seriousness. Rather than continue this yourself, withdraw it, and try and find one other editor who sees your point and agrees with you, then let them post it (or certify it, even). Any editor in good standing would work, not just one who made twelve edits four years ago and got blocked.
You've been so single-minded in your pursuit of GG that no one listens anymore. Find someone, anyone to take up the case for you, and maybe you can get someone to listen.
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Just what is Meta for, anyways?
