Tim Vickers, Blocking is 'a tool to enforce policies' Options

[Peter Damian]

Vickers is one that really puzzles me. Clearly intelligent and educated, he seems to have swallowed all the Wiki-logic hook line and sinker, in a way that only the stupidest Wikipedians normally do. Here I question his belief that Wikipedia is somehow 'egalitarian'.

Egalitarian in that we all have the same rights and responsibilities and that we all face the same penalties if we hinder the goal of the project. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Well then Scientology IP's don't have those rights. And you are an admin. You have the right to block me, I don't. Wrong from the start. And why on earth did you become an admin, believing in the 'egalitarianism'? Peter Damian (talk) 20:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the right to block you, I have access to a tool that allows me to enforce policies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...#Egalitarianism

I loved the last line. The Stazi could not have said it better. A gun: "a tool that allows the state to enforce policies".

Here are some of his contributions to WR

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?act=S...sult_type=posts

Does anyone have any problem understanding what his replies actually mean?

User page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TimVickers

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Wed 22nd July 2009, 8:12pm

[Nerd]

I loved the last line. The Stazi could not have said it better. A gun: "a tool that allows the state to enforce policies".

Amusing that you compare the block button to a gun. It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Anyway, I thought you retired, and wanted to leave?

This post has been edited by Nerd: Wed 22nd July 2009, 8:13pm

[Peter Damian]

Amusing that you compare the block button to a gun. It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

I have had an ulcer for a long time and when I get blocked it gets quite painful. That might explain my wanting to leave.

[Grep]

It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Isn't there a research funding body that made it a condition that grant-holders publish their results on Wikipedia? Being blocked could have some definite RL consequences there.

[GlassBeadGame]

It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Isn't there a research funding body that made it a condition that grant-holders publish their results on Wikipedia? Being blocked could have some definite RL consequences there.

WTF?

[Peter Damian]

[edit] Some of his enthusiasm is expressed in his article here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TimVicke...s_and_Wikipedia

And perhaps it is justified in someone whose speciality is a technical scientific subject like Molecular and Cellular Biology. But even here there are problems. Vickers' original introduction to the Enzyme kinetics article was this

Enzyme kinetics is the study of the rates of chemical reactions that are catalysed by enzymes. The study of enzyme kinetics provides information on how enzymes work, how their activity is controlled in the cell and how drugs and poisons can inhibit their reactions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=79165392

This is compact and efficient writing. But someone has since changed it to this

Enzyme kinetics is the study of the chemical reactions that are catalysed by enzymes, with a focus on their reaction rates. The study of an enzyme's kinetics reveals the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme, its role in metabolism, how its activity is controlled, and how a drug or a poison might inhibit the enzyme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=302069980

which is a mess. How can a project which aims to bring the sum of all human knowledge to everyone, possibly be consistent with the view that all editors are equal?

[edit] And before people question why I am still involved with the project, I used to be a teacher, for God's sake. Teachers don't get paid much but they are like doctors. They heal people's minds with knowledge. When they see the world being fed with the muck that is served up in Wikipedia, a true teacher feels like a doctor who sees their patient being fed hemlock.

[edit] Here's some more of Tim's propaganda

http://www.slideshare.net/TimVickers/tim-v...lk-on-wikipedia

Tim, this is not true. (Although he does say at the end 'expert contributors needed'. What? Surely the whole idea of an 'expert' is anti-egalitarian??)

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Wed 22nd July 2009, 8:52pm

[Grep]

It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Isn't there a research funding body that made it a condition that grant-holders publish their results on Wikipedia? Being blocked could have some definite RL consequences there.

WTF?

I mis-remembered:

Recently, a small journal entitled RNA Biology announced that it will now require all authors to also create Wikipedia pages about their discoveries. Specifically, the journal says: At least one stub article (essentially an extended abstract) for the paper should be added to either an author's userspace at Wikipedia (preferred route) or added directly to the main Wikipedia space (be sure to add literature references to avoid speedy deletion). This article will be reviewed alongside the manuscript and may require revision before acceptance. Upon acceptance the former articles can easily be exported to the main Wikipedia space. See below for guidelines on how to do this. Existing articles can be updated in accordance with the latest published results.

See this.

[taiwopanfob]

I loved the last line. The Stazi could not have said it better. A gun: "a tool that allows the state to enforce policies".

Amusing that you compare the block button to a gun.

But the gun is the tool that the State ultimately uses to enforce policies.

It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

You may want to google up "equivocation".

[Milton Roe]

Amusing that you compare the block button to a gun. It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Would somebody block Nerd from this website?

[Nerd]

Amusing that you compare the block button to a gun. It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Would somebody block Nerd from this website?

That would just be cruel. Oh now look, you've gone and upset me.

[Milton Roe]

Amusing that you compare the block button to a gun. It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Would somebody block Nerd from this website?

That would just be cruel. Oh now look, you've gone and upset me.

No. This will not affect you in any way. Trust me. Or, it might be educational.

[GlassBeadGame]

It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Isn't there a research funding body that made it a condition that grant-holders publish their results on Wikipedia? Being blocked could have some definite RL consequences there.

WTF?

I mis-remembered:

Recently, a small journal entitled RNA Biology announced that it will now require all authors to also create Wikipedia pages about their discoveries. Specifically, the journal says: At least one stub article (essentially an extended abstract) for the paper should be added to either an author's userspace at Wikipedia (preferred route) or added directly to the main Wikipedia space (be sure to add literature references to avoid speedy deletion). This article will be reviewed alongside the manuscript and may require revision before acceptance. Upon acceptance the former articles can easily be exported to the main Wikipedia space. See below for guidelines on how to do this. Existing articles can be updated in accordance with the latest published results.

See this.

Well its not funding but it is strange and interesting. Oddly it might serve to make a record of "good article degeneration" unless the topics are so obscure as to never attract anyone's attention. Of course even t that they might become a niche vandal specialty. "Articles in user namespace" have received uneven treatment on Wikipedia. This is probably a pretty Wikipedia-Friendly initiative so they might not get too much aggravation.

[Cla68]

Vickers is one that really puzzles me. Clearly intelligent and educated, he seems to have swallowed all the Wiki-logic hook line and sinker, in a way that only the stupidest Wikipedians normally do. Here I question his belief that Wikipedia is somehow 'egalitarian'.

Egalitarian in that we all have the same rights and responsibilities and that we all face the same penalties if we hinder the goal of the project. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Well then Scientology IP's don't have those rights. And you are an admin. You have the right to block me, I don't. Wrong from the start. And why on earth did you become an admin, believing in the 'egalitarianism'? Peter Damian (talk) 20:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the right to block you, I have access to a tool that allows me to enforce policies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...#Egalitarianism

Tim is exactly right here. As an admin he's charged with enforcing policy. One of the tools given to him to enforce policy is the block button. The goal of Wikipedia is larger and more important than any individual editor, which is one of the reasons why it bothered me that the old ruling clique members like JzG could escape sanction for violations of policy that got other editors blocked and banned.

[Angela Kennedy]

Vickers is one that really puzzles me. Clearly intelligent and educated, he seems to have swallowed all the Wiki-logic hook line and sinker, in a way that only the stupidest Wikipedians normally do. Here I question his belief that Wikipedia is somehow 'egalitarian'.

Egalitarian in that we all have the same rights and responsibilities and that we all face the same penalties if we hinder the goal of the project. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Well then Scientology IP's don't have those rights. And you are an admin. You have the right to block me, I don't. Wrong from the start. And why on earth did you become an admin, believing in the 'egalitarianism'? Peter Damian (talk) 20:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the right to block you, I have access to a tool that allows me to enforce policies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...#Egalitarianism

Tim is exactly right here. As an admin he's charged with enforcing policy. One of the tools given to him to enforce policy is the block button. The goal of Wikipedia is larger and more important than any individual editor, which is one of the reasons why it bothered me that the old ruling clique members like JzG could escape sanction for violations of policy that got other editors blocked and banned.

Yeah, but he's contradicting himself, isn't he? He's banging on about "Egalitarian in that we all have the same rights and responsibilities and that we all face the same penalties if we hinder the goal of the project." Well, there is plenty of evidence that this (a) doesn't happen because (b) WP, for all it's 'anyone can edit' and ' consensus- gathering' and 'reasonable people' claims- there are massive, sometimes apparently arbitrary, abusive power-structures on Wikipedia, that make the word 'egalitarian' as a descrption of Wikipedia absurd.

The over used but relevant phrase here is 'some are more equal than others'. Admins are given extra powers. Some abuse them. JzG remains- the situation hasn't changed with him as such. Vickers himself is not above using his tools to POV push (See the Lyme article and talk pages for an example) in a way that some people would deem, quite legitimately, unfair.

I think (Am I right here Peter?) that Peter is objecting to the claims of Wikipedian 'egalitarianism' Vickers is making.

[Peter Damian]

Amusing that you compare the block button to a gun. It's a website, and it's not going to affect you in any way if you are blocked.

Would somebody block Nerd from this website?

Are Nerd/Horse/Aeon/Ottava in fact the same person? Should we be told?

[Somey]

Are Nerd/Horse/Aeon/Ottava in fact the same person? Should we be told?

See, now you're thinking like a "Wikipedia person," in that you begin to suspect that everyone who opposes you is, in fact, the same individual. That's not to say that the people mentioned don't share an annoying behavioral trait or two, of course...

I can't absolutely guarantee it, of course, but as I'm often heard to say, there's no tehcnical evidence for these suspicions that we know of.

[EricBarbour]

Are Nerd/Horse/Aeon/Ottava in fact the same person? Should we be told?

See, now you're thinking like a "Wikipedia person," in that you begin to suspect that everyone who opposes you is, in fact, the same individual.

You should listen to Somey. He can see their IP addresses.

Nerd: you're a very good, slippery troll. One of the best pro-wiki trolls this forum has
ever seen. So, it is with heavy heart that I tell you something that you are apparently
ignoring willfully:

A gun can only kill me. Wikipedia can defame me, to millions of people,
all over the world, for YEARS. That, alone, makes it a form of weapon.

And the way arrogant fools like Vickers operate WP actually maximizes its potential as
a tool of propaganda.

Instead of sniping at WP's critics here, why aren't you on the wiki, pushing for
reforms? Afraid that people here might be right, that Wikipedia is an evil mess,
and you feel the irrational need to shout them down instead?

You take the easy, fun Wiki-way, and go for the dramah and the screaming matches,
isn't that right?

[A Horse With No Name]

Are Nerd/Horse/Aeon/Ottava in fact the same person? Should we be told?

Hold it! Hold it! I wasn't even planning to be part of this conversation -- don't lasso me in just because Nerd is being naughty.

Besides, I like Tim Vickers. He is intelligent, he is friendly and he is good-looking -- just like me! What's there not to like?

[Kelly Martin]

The goal of Wikipedia is larger and more important than any individual editor

The ostensible goal, perhaps. The real goal is the size of exactly one "editor": Jimbo Wales (and his as-yet non-existent castle).

[Peter Damian]

That's not to say that the people mentioned don't share an annoying behavioral trait or two, of course...

Yes.