SB Johnny and Wikiversity Options

[Ottava]

So SB Johnny decided to block me for one week on Wikiversity just because. Wonderful stuff. He claimed I was being disruptive for complaining that Abd was pretending to check recent changes while not actually doing that.

If you haven't noticed, Abd has been selectively welcoming people who are disruptive and they all happened to vote in support of him. They also say he has been doing a good job at recent changes.

Anyone can see from my contrbs that I had to go through and fix a lot. It isn't a coincidence. SB Johnny claims I have done nothing since coming back, but that is pure bs. I love how Wikiversity is making Wikipedia look far better in terms of logical practices.

[Ottava]

Ever just wonder how Abd is just blatantly making things up?

Case in point, this list.

Active vs inactive.

Abd says this user is active: StaniStani.

1. # 04:08, 13 September 2011
2. 07:32, 15 September 2011

Previous edit: 23:47, 9 May 2011


I'm in the "inactive" even though 5 edits the day before he was nominated and 11 total if you include September and August.


Then there are a surprising amount of "new" editors who appear in August.

(Returned in August) 1 (Aug 29th),

(Few edits) 2 (August 20th), 3 (August 17th)

(Some edits) 4 (August 18th), 5 (August 23rd)


I find that really interesting.

This post has been edited by Ottava:

[Abd]

Then there are a surprising amount of "new" editors who appear in August.

Ottava is really onto something here.

(Returned in August) 1 (Aug 29th),

Fedosin is apparently a Russian physicist, with some original ideas. I'd assisted in preventing his pages on WV from being deleted by the Wikipediots. I.e., those who attempt to apply Wikipedia standards to Wikiversity. Ottava would largely be in that group, Ottava was really a frustrated Wikipedian, banned for his incivility, not for content reasons, he'd done some excellent work. So, for him, Wikiversity was desirable as a way to act out his Wikipedia fantasies. To stand for Good Content. Which, of course, requires making that decision. Wikiversity handles content disputes in a very different and highly inclusive manner. That is because even "poor content" can still have educational purpose and usage, and we don't kick a student out of our free university for writing a Bad Paper. In deletion discussions involving Fedosin articles, I saw people completely ignorant of physics criticizing them, calling "nonsense" what was just plain too complicated or too esoteric for them. We don't make those decisions, as a community, i.e., decide what's right or wrong or sensible or nonsense, deleting the latter, except in ways that are subject to high consensus.

(Few edits) 2 (August 20th),

Refugee from es.wikipedia, where, under a different user name, he'd violated guidelines and was seriously slapped down. He tells the story in my CC. He appeared because I suggested es.wikiversity or en.wikiversity, for what he'd wanted to do. He's not an academic, I think, but he knows one and that's the work he's presenting. It's solid, though his English is not great. It may not have been appropriate for es.wikipedia, but I did research it, and, whether it was appropriate or not, he had been abused, because he was just told that he was wrong, in an unfriendly way, he was not guided so that he could understand the guidelines, and he was clearly clueless. When I established rapport, I was able to explain his errors to him, he really did understand that the basic error was failing to seek consensus, insisting that he was "right."

[3 (August 17th).

White Fennec may be the same user who was blocked by me previously. This is about the article on Boubaker Polynomials, which had been deleted on various wikis in some rather weak grounds, boiling down to whether or not they are sufficiently notable. I became aware of the issue when a Popo Le Chien, claiming to be from fr.wikipedia, demanded that the article be deleted, with a racist comment. I investigated and found that there was a Popo le Chien, i.e., properly capitalized according to French usage, who was a French 'crat, and prominent there in opposition to ... Boubaker polynomials. But I strongly suspected that this was not him. And so I blocked the account, and filed a request at meta for a global lock, which was granted. Ottava made a Huge Fuss, thinking I'd been hasty. I was worried about the reputation of the real Popo le Chien, because if people read the work of a straw puppet like that, the impression might never be corrected. I was right. Or at least Popo le Chien did not want to take responsibility! (I think it really was not him). Had I been wrong, it would have easily been fixed. But it got stranger. A French user then claimed to be the real person with the name of the account that had created Boubaker Polynomials, that this was an "outing" account. I blocked the page creator and revision-deleted the traces, and suggested that the user, if they wanted to participate cooperatively, should register an account. White Fennec appeared, and took responsibility for the article. I do not know if White Fennec is the same user whom I blocked, and I don't care. What I do know is that the user is at Wikiversity to help with that resource, which is a legitimate one, clearly, hence we have a user who is there for educational content. I think, reading this, you might understand why, even though I blocked the user or a friend of the user, the user might support me. It's because I encouraged what was legitimate while prohibiting and stopping what was not. Ottava doesn't understand this. To him, people are either Good or they are Bad. To me, they are just people, and anyone can do something good and anyone can do something bad. Encourage the good, reward good behavior, and discourage what isn't good. I have raised five kids, they did well, and I have two more. I know what works and what doesn't work, and, briefly, blame and punishment don't work. Natural consequences and prevention of harm do work. Kids understand it and so do most adults.

(Some edits) 4 (August 18th),

Brick and mortar instructor, Howard Community College. Seriously active with serious use of Wikiversity for real-world academic use, an engineering course. Ottava is an idiot, and is simply demonstrating that he's clueless about how Wikiversity is actually being used. 1sfoerster is a newbie, and often edits logged-out. That will change, he's tractable and cooperative.

5 (August 23rd)

Refugee from Wikipedia. I hadn't noticed him much until he was attacked by S Larcia. S Larcia has now smelled the coffee and is very interested in Wikiversity, because he saw how my welcoming attitude caused Marshallsumter to be totally cooperative in terms of addressing the copyright concerns that had been brought from Wikipedia, whereas the Wikipedia attitude resulted in a big mess to be cleaned up without any help from the one who might have created it.

I find that really interesting.

It is. Except for 1sfoerster, these users represent a certain portion of my work, which involves inviting users banned elsewhere to contribute positively at Wikiveristy. They do. The result is less disruption elsewhere, something that completely escapes the Wikipediots, and their work at Wikiversity is either positive -- sometimes very positive -- or it's harmless. There are implications for the entire WMF.

[Ottava]

Fedosin is apparently a Russian physicist, with some original ideas. I'd assisted in preventing his pages on WV from being deleted by the Wikipediots. I.e., those who attempt to apply Wikipedia standards to Wikiversity.

This is Abd speak for - "He had crazy fringe ideas about science like me, and I gave him a platform to try and legitimize his crazy ideas".

So, for him, Wikiversity was desirable as a way to act out his Wikipedia fantasies. To stand for Good Content.

Yet I was on Wikiversity and an admin on Wikiversity long before I was ever banned. Over a year before. Funny.

Wikiversity handles content disputes in a very different and highly inclusive manner.

By that, Abd means that he allows for all the troll edits like this to stay, because this is clearly what Wikiversity is about: "My mother's name was Maryam who was born at Kraming, Khaplu Baltistan Pk. She was the second eldest of her eleven real sisters and one real brother. Her father's name was Isabaqdul who had three elder brothers namely Muhammad Jan, the eldest, Abdullah and Ali. When my mother was born, her eldest uncle Mr. Muhammad Jan decided to marry her to his second eldest son Hasan and the marriage was arranged accordingly in their mid teens. The marriage broke after birth of my sister who was a little bit disabled by birth. Mr. Hasan married another lady when his father passed away. My mother, a holy Qura'n learned lady was married to Mr. Muhammad Yar r/o Mikserpi, Khaplu, Baltistan after tallaaq and iddat... Innaa lillai wa innaa ilaihi! May Allah rest her soul in eternal peace.!"

The above was taken from this page which was previously in the mainspace. It doesn't belong anywhere on Wikiversity.

That is because even "poor content" can still have educational purpose and usage, and we don't kick a student out of our free university for writing a Bad Paper.

Odd, because Abd indefs people without waring or notice. That doesn't seem like an attempt to redeem them.


The rest is equally insane, and there is only so much insanity one can stomach.

[Abd]

Odd, because Abd indefs people without waring or notice. That doesn't seem like an attempt to redeem them.

Warning. Not waring or warring. Indeed, I do. Come to Wikiversity and with your first edit as a registered account, clearly vandalize a page, or insert a link to "Cheap Rolex Watches." If I notice it first, which is likely, you'll likely see an indef block. If I find that this is an SUL with good edits elsewhere, I might do something different. This is now, however, a WMF-wide practice, and if an account repeats this behavior cross-wiki, they get *locked* with no warning or notice, not even that there is a discussion taking place.

Warnings on Talk pages suppress later notice of the editor, so they actually complicate Recent Changes work, besides creating piles of pages that are essentially useless. If anything, we should tighten up a little bit on Welcoming. Standard practice now is to welcome simply for a test edit to the Sandbox, for example. Maybe. I'm continuing to do that, but the value is not clear. We should do an objective study. We should do objective studies about lots of things; for too long, the wikis operate on pure knee-jerk "thinking." That works, but it can also be quite misleading.

I've intervened in a couple of those global lock and block discussions, where I saw that there might be some redeeming value there. (Global block is roughly an equivalent for IP addresses, of a local block.)

I leave user Talk page access open, and the block message explains not only the reason why they were blocked, but also how to request unblock. This is the practical reality: the users whom I am indef blocking without warning and notice have, so far, never requested unblock. Why should they? This was a throwaway account. We are only talking about registered users, not IP.

I don't long-block IP addresses, unless I see persistent vandalism or inappropriate usage of Wikiversity combined with complete lack of response to suggestions (that's what it starts with) and warnings. I do warn instead of blocking whenever any account shows the slightest hopeful sign. Most IP vandalism, I don't even bother blocking, unless it's more than one problem edit.

Ottava's been repeating these claims, over and over, but he doesn't point to any specific examples. What he's doing is saying, "See! He's breaking the rules." Rules that he made up. What I'm doing is consistent with Wikiversity policy, and is clearly accepted by the community. Where are the reversed custodial actions? Where are the complaints on my Talk page? Ottava got his ass blocked by making piles of complaints without real evidence. He's completely bankrupt, but he's still pretending to be in charge, that His Opinion is the Empire's Opinion. Thus anything else is rebellion and corruption.

The rest is equally insane, and there is only so much insanity one can stomach.

That feeling in your stomach, Ottava, you really should see a professional about it. I've worked with some seriously crazy people, and one of the common traits: they think everyone else is crazy.

If I could stand in a room and speak to the Wikiversity community, this whole thing would have been over a long time ago. What I'm doing is only difficult with text. In person, the bandwidth is enormous. You'd get it, and quickly, unless you were practically brain-dead or drunk. In about one minute, two on a bad day, I can communicate what mountains of text can't.

Ottava was active as a custodian for a couple of years. He has under 4000 edits. I have over 7000 edits, rapidly growing, because real custodian work creates lots and lots of edits. Wikiversity is growing, it is becoming truly successful, and it's starting to self-organize. You'll all be able to see it within a year, I'm sure. I'm working not just to improve Wikiversity, but to make it spectacularly successful. Ultimately, the active site will be, by comparison, Wikiversity, Wikipedia will still be active, but will be what might be called a filtered mirror of Wikiversity. I.e., let's call it the Encyclopedic Best of Wikiversity. Single article per topic.

Wikiversity might have hundreds on a topic. From all points of view, with educational resources for people who actually want more than an encyclopedia, they want comprehensive knowledge. Wikiversity is to Wikipedia, ultimately, as a university, with its library and all its student work, is to an encyclopedia. Which one is ultimately most important. Does the tail wag the dog?

So, folks, if you gave up on Wikipedia, if you were blocked there, you are invited, by me, as a Wikiversity user who has this vision, to come and see what you can do on Wikiversity. It's not Wikipedia, for sure. Greg isn't blocked there, but he's not been a problem there, either. I'm banned on Wikipedia. Is that a problem? Sure, it's a problem. People bring it up. "He shouldn't be a custodian because he's banned on Wikipedia." They also say, those same people, "So and so should be blocked here because he's blocked on Wikipedia, which proves that he is a Bad Person."

And the Wikiversity community, consistently, rejects that argument.

By the way, we had a user show up, a Wikipedian, clearly a returning account, highly skilled, he'd shown up on Wikipedia and within a few days started an AN/I discussion that led to the banning of an editor without warning, with no prior block record and very extensive contributions. This new editor came to Wikiversity and asked that the user, who had started up at Wikiversity, be "stopped." He also immediately voted against my permanent custodianship. Bad news, eh? Disruption? Well, turns out the user actually reads stuff, and is able to see beyond his immediate opinions. Because my approach to Marshallsumter resulted in Marshall being totally cooperative, blanking some of his own pages to answer immediate copyright concerns, then working on the to insure compliance with copyright standards -- which can be a bit unclear -- this user realized that the process he'd started on Wikipedia was so great, after all, that the Wikiversity way was far more collaborative and far less disruptive. So he changed his position on my candidacy, he revised the research project he'd started, with a little fuss, to something far more neutral (and probably quite userful), and he accepted a suggestion that he work as a custodian at Wikiversity, and as soon as we can find an independent 'crat, he'll be a probationary custodian.

This would be completely impossible at Wikipedia. What, you have a past that you are not disclosing. No. Go Away, and you are lucky if we don't block you.

Ottava, of course, would have blocked this user, but, hey, he'd have warned him, perhaps, but if the user were not properly deferential, he'd have immediately blocked, he did this sometimes. He'd simply have driven him away, one way or another. And this was obviously a user who intended to build resources on Wikiversity, for what he considers original research. Ottava's belief is that the content is crap. I'll say this about it. It's actually interesting, he's doing something unusual, that's all. He's doing linguistic analysis. People are expecting something else, so they can't understand why he's putting up all these brief exact quotes. They are examples of usage. That's what a linguist would study! Ottava started a thread on Marshallsumter here.

Ottava is pretending that the treatment of blatant vandals and blatant linkspammers is somehow a problem. It isn't. There is almost complete consensus on what I've been doing. There is some variation in practice, that's all. A steward just blocked an account for a day. Draicone upped that to a week. I'd have made it indef, I think. All of us would allow Talk page access and appeal. None of us are arguing with each other. There is no conflict between Wikiversity and the steward community.

Some conflict might appear at some time, but we will work it out. That's because we now have an operating core that understands the wikis, the needs of the WMF, as well as our own unique mission as Wikiversity.

This post has been edited by Abd: