Poll: Should WR take over Wikiabuse.com?, This here be a poll! Options Rating

[blissyu2]

With Rootology shutting down wikiabuse.com, and offering it up for sale, the suggestion now is whether Wikipedia Review should take it over. They have already been linked in a lot of ways, with it being posted here, and discussed here so much, and many of the users here posting over there too. Wikipedia Review, like Wikitruth (and now like Wikiabuse) was the target of serious legal threats by Wikipedia and Jimbo Wales, and survived, quite happily. They tried to shut us down and failed miserably. So I think that we would be quite confident that we would survive legal threats if we were to take over Wikiabuse.

However, as we've discussed here, there are many issues that we might want to consider if we were to take it over, so I am going to do a poll here to go over some of the options.

Lots of options! Beware its a Blissy poll!

[Somey]

With Rootology shutting down wikiabuse.com, and offering it up for sale, the suggestion now is whether Wikipedia Review should take it over.

Does it have to be a wiki, though? I hate those things... unless they're being used for satirical purposes, of course.

I mean, I don't see why something like Joomla or even a group blog like WordPress couldn't be used for something like that. Presumably there would be less edit-warring that way, and it would be fairly clear who was saying what, at least.

[norsemoose]

Should Wikipedia Review take over wikiabuse.com?

I think it's best for wikiabuse to remain independent of WR.

Should Wikiabuse.com allow outing?

Really, I haven't decided. It's probably best not to.

Should Wikiabuse.com allow open accounts, or by invitation only?

Open accounts. Must register first. Must verify registration via email. If possible, must be approved by an administrator (that might require some code tweaking).

Should Wikiabuse.com record details of all administrators, or only those with a record of abuse?

All administrators, and some users who are not admins.

Should Wikiabuse.com record details of abusive users?

Depends on the circumstances.

Should Wikiabuse.com record details of disputed long-term user bans?

Probably.

Should Wikiabuse.com have details of Wikipedia critic sites?

Some of the more prominent ones. It wouldn't be feasible to list everyone and everything.

Should Wikiabuse.com include anything else?

I would have liked to see detailed !voting records for XFD debates and RFA discussions. It would be quite useful to be able to look at a glance and see that Admin XYZ had !voted in 372 AFD debates, 48 keep, 7 merge, 317 delete, for example.

[BobbyBombastic]

Part of the problem with answering this is I don't know who we are dealing with, regarding the credible legal threat. This is a person or group who finds Wikipedia very fucking important, evidently more so than I. That and I don't know what was said.

I've seen the promise a site like this offers and I've also seen that people have a lot of different ideas as to how a thing like this should be ran, so I have low confidence in anything like it being replicated.

Yes, I do think it has to be a Wiki. And no, there should be no outing. But these questions are really not the problem at this point, the problem is figuring how to deal with a "credible legal threat" from someone who has financial interest in the success of Wikipedia. That's a question I can't begin to answer. If you can figure that out, then you've figured out who will take over WA, unless of course the whole thing is an over reaction.

[Cedric]

I voted "yes" as to whether WR should take over WA, but that "yes" is premised on two all-important conditions.

First, get the site off wiki. I am convinced that this alone proved the source of so many headaches for Root that he was ill-prepared to deal with the legal threats that were sure to come, and did come. I must admit, though, that they set upon him far sooner than I would have imagined, given the modest and conservative goals he set for the original site. I guess the cabalistas' paranoia goes even deeper than I thought (and that would be pretty damned deep).

Second, memberships by approval only. The concern here is that abusive admins on WP will try to continue the mischief they began on the old site. That is not to say all WP admins should be ineligible; I am very much aware that some valuable contributors on WR are WP admins. But careful screening here is definitely in order. This is not merely to protect the integrity of the site, but also to protect WP admins who may choose to provide valuable information to the site. Naturally, means should made available to anyone to communicate with the mods in order to provide info that may be of use. But it would not be safe for all of such to be direct contributors. The cabalistas will most definitely be lurking about, looking for "edit patterns", "unique phrasing", etc., to aid them in their constant witch-hunts. No need to assist them any more than may be avoided.

[GlassBeadGame]

Part of the problem with answering this is I don't know who we are dealing with, regarding the credible legal threat. This is a person or group who finds Wikipedia very fucking important, evidently more so than I. That and I don't know what was said.

I've seen the promise a site like this offers and I've also seen that people have a lot of different ideas as to how a thing like this should be ran, so I have low confidence in anything like it being replicated.

Yes, I do think it has to be a Wiki. And no, there should be no outing. But these questions are really not the problem at this point, the problem is figuring how to deal with a "credible legal threat" from someone who has financial interest in the success of Wikipedia. That's a question I can't begin to answer. If you can figure that out, then you've figured out who will take over WA, unless of course the whole thing is an over reaction.

Bobby is right. WR needs more information about the nature and source of the legal threat before it can consider taking on the mission. WR also needs to consider exactly what "WR" is from the point of view of the entity making the threat. Iowa Non-Profit Corporation would be nice, but is not presently the case. Legal advise would be useful. The burden/cost of getting on a proper footing might be small.

[Somey]

WR also needs to consider exactly what "WR" is from the point of view of the entity making the threat. Iowa Non-Profit Corporation would be nice, but is not presently the case...

Even if WR were to somehow incorporate itself - not likely or necessary, IMO - it would be best to do it outside of the US anyway. If there are people out there looking to engage in legal harassment against anti-WP websites, as seems to be the case, better that WR has the advantage of not operating in the world's most litigious society, right?

Still, I'm told the incorporation fees in Iowa are fairly reasonable...

[GlassBeadGame]

WR also needs to consider exactly what "WR" is from the point of view of the entity making the threat. Iowa Non-Profit Corporation would be nice, but is not presently the case...

Even if WR were to somehow incorporate itself - not likely or necessary, IMO - it would be best to do it outside of the US anyway. If there are people out there looking to engage in legal harassment against anti-WP websites, as seems to be the case, better that WR has the advantage of not operating in the world's most litigious society, right?

Still, I'm told the incorporation fees in Iowa are fairly reasonable...

Defending WR in Dear Leader's Peoples Court might turn out to be more of a burden to WR than to WR's adversaries. Taking some measures to limit personal liability seems prudent.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I voted "yes" as to whether WR should take over WA, but that "yes" is premised on two all-important conditions.

First, get the site off wiki.

Second, memberships by approval only.

I agree with Cedric's perspective on this, but if his conditions are met, wouldn't we simply have another Wikipedia Review? I think that the one we have is sufficient. The one thing that WikiAbuse had to offer that we do not presently offer was concise profiles of abusive admins, with some documentation. We might think about preparing something like that here at WR.

[blissyu2]

Obviously, registering in Russia or other countries with next to no legalities with regards to internet use is best. Australia is not a good country to register a web site with if you want to protect it from legal hassles. But then again, doing it like that is just asking for trouble. I say you register it with whichever is cheapest, and most convenient, but make sure that whoever it is registered with has good legal grounds. Its more the company than the nation.

As I said elsewhere, it sounds like "no outing" is a good policy, but that is if you associate outing with cyber stalking. But here's a couple of reasons why its a bad policy:

- Wikipedia will call it an "outing" site regardless of its policy on outing (David Gerard and SlimVirgin, supported by Wikipedia discussion list, already said that Wikiabuse was an outing site)
- Some of the "outing" is needed in order to protect from abuse (esp see Essjay, Seigenthaler's harasser)
- Wikipedia is an attempt at an encyclopaedia. An encyclopaedia is meant to have everyone's names on it.

If you say "no outing" then it puts you in a difficult position and hides the truth. Wikitruth allows outing, and I think that that is the way to go. Of course, if Amorrow-style "outing" happens, that's a different matter, because that's illegal. Regular old Brandt-style outing is quite legal.

[GlassBeadGame]

WR also needs to consider exactly what "WR" is from the point of view of the entity making the threat. Iowa Non-Profit Corporation would be nice, but is not presently the case...

Even if WR were to somehow incorporate itself - not likely or necessary, IMO - it would be best to do it outside of the US anyway. If there are people out there looking to engage in legal harassment against anti-WP websites, as seems to be the case, better that WR has the advantage of not operating in the world's most litigious society, right?

Still, I'm told the incorporation fees in Iowa are fairly reasonable...

I think some corporate protection from liability is important. A 501( c )(3) is not needed, just simple non-profit status, and maybe a solicitation license (to do limited fund raising) this would not permit foundation grants, nor would donations be tax deductible, but I doubt if either of these would matter. I think to have someone available in state/nation is important. Look at the problems bringing an action in FL when Brandt is in Texas causes. Imagine doing something in Russia. US is litigious but sec. 230 might be available or at least a deterrent. English language seems vital. Australia might make sense but Blissy says not so great. I'm not sure why. Maybe some kind of lease/contract with domain owner(Blissy?) root admin (Selina?) and the non-profit. All of this is for discussion and advice of counsel in relevant jurisdiction should be sought.

In some ways the wiki did prove successful in WA. Might need to tighten who can edit, arguments run both ways. As for IRL responsibility i.e. outing I have discussed my thoughts here. I believe it is an important activity but do not think this should be part of the WA project.

That's my two cents.

[BobbyBombastic]

It seems like there's several topics on this now, so I am not sure where the best place to post this is, but I want to put these thoughts out there:

I think some people are automatically attaching wiki=bad because they feel that wikipedia is bad. The software is only as good as the people who are using it. A wiki isn't inherently bad, but it is understandable why some people may be leary of using it. You have to weigh inherent advantages and disadvantages, as there is rarely a perfect solution.

The inherent disadvantages of a wiki--well you all know quite well. It's easy to subvert if membership is open and there isn't a core group watching. Right now I think we have a core group to defend against that sort of thing. And of course the edit warring, general whining, and petty fighting. That kind of thing is too much for one person in charge to deal with, and there should be two "in charge" and at least five very trusted admins to start.

The advantages are, if membership is relatively open, you will have members that are "good" admins on WP that want to snipe at another admin, with good evidence of course. Also, not restricting heavily who edits it, good content is more likely and it will be less myopic.

For example, say I am a person that doesn't post here for whatever reason, but I want to edit an article about an admin and his abuse. If the process is to ask someone for access, wait to be authorized, etc., it is a lot harder than just signing up and adding my piece and never coming back. You have to remember "that guy" that only wants to comment on one thing and get the hell out of your way.

The advantage of the blog is that it's stable and probably will be more entertaining. The disadvantage is, as Blissy said in another post, not everyone wants to write a blog. It's more of an individual sport, while a wiki is supposed to be a team sport. If you misstate something on a wiki, someone may come around and fix it. If it's on a blog, it's usually pointed out in the comments (maybe) and then maybe it gets fixed and maybe it doesn't. Your work is more heavily criticized.

A blog would be more about ideas or recent happenings, while a wiki has to mostly be about cold hard facts. A blog is inherently myopic, with the author bringing his own experience and interpretation of events into things. Who is around to say, "well you have that part right, but this other part didn't happen like that, it happened more like this." With a wiki you have that.

It depends on what you want. I liked the idea of a wiki that people could use when someone slapped an arbcom on them. They could look in one area (not multiple threads or blog postings) and get some good information that perhaps led them to other information. I can't see a blog doing that. If it even comes close to that, the information would not be as easily found by whatever person was searching for it.

This post has been edited by BobbyBombastic: Fri 13th July 2007, 4:46pm

[blissyu2]

Speaking from talker experience, the most popular talkers were the ones that had massive restrictions on people to join. There were some that required you to submit your e-mail address (hotmail etc were banned) and then do this and that and this and that to get through, and then you were junior and so forth. They were the most popular ones.

Seriously, people who want to post won't mind too much at having to ask. And even having to ask on WR. They could ask on e-mail or PM as well, it wouldn't have to be made public.

People would do it.

Just letting anyone join and you get people like User:Person on Wikiabuse, who just ruin the whole thing.

[BobbyBombastic]

Just letting anyone join and you get people like User:Person on Wikiabuse, who just ruin the whole thing.

Does that type of Person (like User:Person, heh) ruin it entirely though? Starting something like this I expect some type of problem, the only question is the severity of the problem. I know you had some battles with User:Person, but I think part of the problem was that Root was taking on too much responsibility in dealing with everyone. If there was more than one individual that could have acted against User:Person (more than reverting), then maybe it wouldn't have been a nuisance at all. Not to mention that the way Person acted was very obnoxious and condescending but his points were not always wrong, he was just a dick.

For example, say we do the wiki thing and it's restricted to members of WR only. There are still going to be conflicts, because I know for a fact we do not all agree on how such a thing should be approached. Conflict is unavoidable, the only thing that can be done is limiting it.

[taiwopanfob]

Conflict is unavoidable, the only thing that can be done is limiting it.

It may be profitable to consider why WR is not inundated with slavish devotee's of the cult. Maybe being a wikipariah has its advantages? (Or are the Authorities here quietly beating them off with a stick?) If Wikiabuse is to be resurrected, perhaps the first item on the agenda is to ensure it will be subject to the usual "den of iniquity" commentary from the alpha-admins at WP.

[Jonny Cache]

Conflict is unavoidable, the only thing that can be done is limiting it.

It may be profitable to consider why WR is not inundated with slavish devotee's of the cult. Maybe being a wikipariah has its advantages? (Or are the Authorities here quietly beating them off with a stick?) If Wikiabuse is to be resurrected, perhaps the first item on the agenda is to ensure it will be subject to the usual "den of iniquity" commentary from the alpha-admins at WP.

It's because we allow, encourage — indeed, demand — real criticism here. Wikipediots have forgotten how to do that, along with everything else that they have fogotten about the world outside their hive, and their skills in it have e-trophied to the level of bans & barn*s & nada in between.

It's that cult mentality — solidarity for its own sake — that renders them ever more incapable of functioning outside the Self-Love Of The Hive (SLOTH).

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Fri 13th July 2007, 7:08pm

[blissyu2]

I didn't say just WR members. This was my idea for how to do it:

Initially: Only "trusted" WR members (there's a group, and they get to see all the hidden boards)

Then: Anyone from the outside can personally ask one of the members, either by e-mail or message here, and they get in (ad infinitem). A bit like how you get a Gmail account from someone.

Doing it that way there will of course be problems. Some of us disagree rather hugely on how to do an article. But we at least have some kind of a common approach.

The second part of that is to decide how we are going to do it. Is it going to be much the same as wikiabuse.com? If so, then we all know what we're doing, and working together has more of an aim. Primarily to just document admin abuses.

How many people have Gmail now anyway? Like a billion?

But anyway we'll see what people want to do.

[blissyu2]

To summarise the responses so far:

WR should take over wikiabuse.com (8/5/3)

Wikiabuse.com should not allow outing (5/9/2)

Wikiabuse.com should not allow anonymous IPs. Still undecided whether to have registered accounts (as Wikiabuse.com was originally run) (4), invitation by e-mail (6) or invitation through WR. Could conclude that we could allow either invitation by e-mail or invitation by WR, with a possibility to allow open editing for registered accounts in the future.

Still undecided whether wikiabuse.com should record details of all administrators, or just abusive ones (split 8/7/1). A reasonable compromise would be to list all, but have stub articles on the less controversial ones, as happened in original wikiabuse.com.

Wikiabuse.com should record details of regular level users who act as sock/meat puppets of admins, but undecided whether to extend this to include all abusive users.

Wikiabuse.com should record details of bans, at least highly controversial bans, and possibly all disputed ones, maybe even all long-term bans. This can be developed as it goes.

Wikiabuse.com should list details of all Wikipedia critic sites (10/3/1/2)

Wikiabuse.com should include other things, especially such things as analysis (e.g. SlimVirgin & Crum375), to be analysed further later.

So most things we are pretty well decided on. Wikiabuse.com having no outing I actually disagree with, but so be it.

[the fieryangel]

So most things we are pretty well decided on. Wikiabuse.com having no outing I actually disagree with, but so be it.

My personal feeling is that if an admin. is only doing his job, that outing isn't necessary; However, I know of at least one specific situation in which an admin. is editing under a conflict of interest situation that you can't explain unless you can say "X's name is John Doe He works for this church, according to this document and that explains the edits he makes on the subject of Y".

If an editor has a conflict of interest that he or she is abusing and it has been proven by documented evidence, and the only way to point it out is to "out" that person, then I would think that this might be an exception. I would put together some sort of a mechanism where these kinds of situations would have to be approved by someone before the information got into circulation, maybe by the head sysop of the site or something?

I also feel strongly that where the money is coming from and how it is spent has to be an important part of this system. We have theories that certain people edit certain articles because they are paid by certain interests. I believe that WP is full of these hidden agendas. This is probably what caused Root's problems too, but this is where the real problem lies....

[blissyu2]

The thing is that at the time, we all thought that outing Essjay was pointless. After all, Essjay was a pretty good administrator old told, quite polite on most occasions, etc. Similarly, most of us thought that outing Kelly Martin and SlimVirgin (and Jayjg if it was possible) were very good ideas, not to mention Snowspinner. However, those 3, who probably deserved to be outed, didn't really go anywhere, and at least in Snowspinner's case, he was able to turn it around against this site. While Essjay as it turned out really warranted outing, not because of needing to know who he was, but because he was lying about credentials, and using those credentials to change history.

Of course, in saying that, we haven't really had topics to analyse Essjay's contributions, because I think that most people here agree that Essjay was a good contributor to Wikipedia. Not faultless, but pretty good.