Poor Baby !!!, Poor Wiki, Defenseless Baby !!! Options

[Jonny Cache]

Look at me ! — I'm top-posting ! I'm top-posting !

I record this here as an exercise for the reader. Use it to test your readiness and your skills for the eternal-infernal battle between reason and rhetoric.

Jonny

Subj: Re: FredBauder "Clarifies" on Attackkkkk Site Link Policy
Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 17:44:10 -0500
From: Slim Virgin <slimvirgin-...@public.gmane.org>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l-...@public.gmane.org>
Newsgroups: gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english

On 7/14/07, David Gerard <dgerard-...@public.gmane.org> wrote:

That's easy to say now, but the problem is not advocacy for WR links — the problem is that no-one is in fact reining in those admins going stupidly overboard in advocating full site bans. The problematic behaviour keeps happening over and over again, and when called on it we see (as we have on this list) that they become abusive to anyone questioning their behaviour, let alone expecting them to acknowledge that it could conceivably be problematic in any way whatsoever.

They are arguably being more disruptive and damaging to the community than the damage from the attack site links itself is.

David, you don't know what you're talking about, and these personal attacks on the list have to stop. I opposed Gracenotes' RfA because I didn't trust his judgment, and there were a number of reasons for that, which I explained here.

Wikipedia Talk : Requests For Adminship : Gracenotes

Please read that carefully before you comment again. I support people I trust, and I oppose people I don't trust, and my reasoning never rests on one issue. People are entitled to act on their instincts without being attacked for it.

Note that Gracenotes *during his RfA* restored a post from a WR anon saying I had never asked them to remove the attacks against me. It was nonsense and it was removed by two admins, but Gracenotes restored it. That is the kind of thing people opposed him over.

Speaking only for myself, I do not think it was a good idea to try to legislate for admins' judgment about links via BADSITES, which is why I got only briefly involved, then withdrew when I realized what was happening. What happened there is we were trolled and we fell for it. I also don't go around removing links, and in fact can't recall when I last did it. I don't support the incident where a link to a blog was removed, but the person who did that admitted he over-reacted, and his apology should be accepted, which means we should stop harping on about it.

There's another side to your view of evil admins stomping around removing links added by innocent sweeties who're only trying to be helpful. During one of the discussions about this issue, one of the people on this mailing list who argues in favor of linking found some attacks on me from WR, including an attempt to out me, that had been posted to another website. Delighted, he started asking whether X was now an attack site, and of course he said he didn't dare link to it (heaven forfend!) but another editor was kind enough to tell people that the attacks were on website X, page Y, section Z — only in the interests of informing the discussion, mind you. It probably broke his heart to do it.

I can't remove that discussion, because if I do, I open myself up to more personal attacks on this list, and I open the list up to another 50 e-mails from Dan Tobias. I don't want to ask anyone else to remove it, because then I expose them to the vitriol. So I have to pretend I haven't seen it, and just leave it for any passing person to read, knowing it was posted by someone who postures as a fellow editor. BLP doesn't apply to me, it seems. Please try to imagine how hurtful that is.

This is what Fred Bauder has been arguing. We need to create an environment where regular editors feel supported when they're attacked from outside, not one in which they get attacked even more for trying to defend themselves. That means not kicking up a giant fuss when links are removed, even if you don't wholeheartedly agree with the removal. It means not mocking someone over and over in public because he reacted badly to being outed and asked for a link to an otherwise decent blog to be removed. It means not taking up the cause of the attackers just because you think a policy proposal went too far.

If you think a bunch of admins are overegging it, e-mail them; don't take them to task on a mailing list. Remember that they're trying to be decent (no matter how misguided you think they are), as opposed to trying to hurt people, which is what the linkers are doing. That distinction is actually the only thing that matters in the end.

Sarah

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sat 14th July 2007, 11:46pm

[badlydrawnjeff]

When they start regulating the people who do the attacking on the inside, maybe they might have a little more credibility on going after the outside.

[Daniel Brandt]

It's hard to take her seriously when you know her name isn't "Sarah." No, BLP does not apply to characters from a fairy tale who dress up poodles. And if she was trolled by DennyColt, and took an incorrect line because of this, as she now claims, then who is to say that she's also not trolled by Jayjg?

[Jonny Cache]

It's hard to take her seriously when you know her name isn't "Sarah". No, BLP does not apply to characters from a fairy tale who dress up poodles. And if she was trolled by DennyColt, and took an incorrect line because of this, as she now claims, then who is to say that she's also not trolled by Jayjg?

Score 3 points for DB. Yup, that was the very line that made me spew my margarita all over the computer. More salt in the wounds, eh, Sarah?

Que Sarah, Sarah ...

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 15th July 2007, 12:05am

[Robster]

David, you don't know what you're talking about, and these personal attacks on the list have to stop.

In one sentence, you get a very clear view of a great deal of what's wrong with the Cabal (especially its name-changing, overly-secretive, utterly-dishonest, putative leader).

She asks for "personal attacks" (i.e. "criticism of her") to stop, but at the same time "criticizes" (i.e. "personally attacks") David Gerard. She is incapable of being intellectually honest, or of accepting that which she is so eager to dole out.

And to think, I find myself defending David Gerard. What *has* this world come to?

[blissyu2]

It sounds like such a good speech. Really, its quite reasonable to say your real first name on the internet. Come on Linda, say it. My name is Adrian by the way. I don't mind you saying it. You get in to less trouble if you're more honest about who you are.

So again, how is it that BADSITES can have failed as a policy, yet made it in through an Arbitration hearing against MONGO that banned Rootology, rather than the person who was doing the bad stuff, MONGO? And how come MONGO later got desysopped, but the ban against Rootology didn't get lifted? And how come the pseudo-BADSITES remained?

And why is WR a bad site? Because we advertised ourselves on Wikipedia at one point? It wasn't much of an advertisement anyway. Most of our advertising has been courtesy of Wikipedia admins complaining about us. PARENTAL ADVISORY sticker.

Linda doesn't need sock puppets. She keeps changing her personality every few minutes anyway. Even mid-diatribe.

[Daniel Brandt]

So again, how is it that BADSITES can have failed as a policy, yet made it in through an Arbitration hearing against MONGO that banned Rootology, rather than the person who was doing the bad stuff, MONGO? And how come MONGO later got desysopped, but the ban against Rootology didn't get lifted? And how come the pseudo-BADSITES remained?

You missed user DennyColt, a mysterious editor who came in like gangbusters on January 28, 2007 and left mysteriously on April 13, after 6,545 edits. He championed a strong "attack sites" or "badsites" policy day and night, like a pied piper, and hypnotized editors such as SlimVirgin and Musical Linguist to do his bidding. He was so brilliantly successful, that now SlimVirgin claims he was a troll, and most likely someone's mysterious sock, in that he knew all the editing tricks from day one. Slim now thinks he was an anti-Wikipedian because no one else (apart from Slim herself, apparently) could take the issue as far as he did, to the point of strategic blow-back, without being evil.

This Svengali-like troll, according to SlimTrilby's revisionism, did all of this with the intention of snaring followers like herself into going overboard with the BADSITES issue. Then it all would backfire and threaten the virtue of virgins everywhere. There are editors here and there on the mailing list who don't buy this — they question why someone who wanted to destroy an attack-site policy would choose the strategy of pushing the envelope so hard that the policy becomes ridiculous. But it makes perfect sense to Slim, and to Fred Bauder, that this is how Wikipedia works.

No one has ever identified DennyColt. Like those old Lone Ranger episodes, all they can say now is, "Who was that masked man? Which side of BADSITES was he really on? Why is Wikipedia so screwed up? Who the hell does SlimVirgin think she is? Does Fred Bauder show increased senility in his reasoning capacity these days, or was he always this slow?"

These are eternal questions in Wikiland, my friend. Those who know, don't say. And those who say, don't know.

[blissyu2]

Perhaps it was one of SlimVirgin's alter egos.

[Jonny Cache]

David, you don't know what you're talking about, and these personal attacks on the list have to stop.

In one sentence, you get a very clear view of a great deal of what's wrong with the Cabal (especially its name-changing, overly-secretive, utterly-dishonest, putative leader).

She asks for "personal attacks" (i.e. "criticism of her") to stop, but at the same time "criticizes" (i.e. "personally attacks") David Gerard. She is incapable of being intellectually honest, or of accepting that which she is so eager to dole out.

And to think, I find myself defending David Gerard. What *has* this world come to?

Yup, among other things it's an abject lesson in How To Attack Your Enemy From A Position Of Pseudo-Wikness. In SlimVirgin's wiki-waki-world, armies don't win wars on their stomachs, they win 'em on their backs.

Or is that X-No-Baks ???

It's The World Turned Upside Down alright.

Jonny

[The Joy]

When I started reading this forum, I never thought Slim Virgin was as bad as you all made her out to be.

It turns out you all were not making up this kind of stuff up! She's practically saying "You either are with us, or you are with the trolls and vandals!" and any attempt to convince her otherwise makes you a villain in her eyes.

And did she just basically tell David Gerard to put up or shut up? I thought they were allies, or Cabal-mates at any rate?

[Jonny Cache]

When I started reading this forum, I never thought Slim Virgin was as bad as you all made her out to be.

It turns out you all were not making up this kind of stuff up! She's practically saying "You either are with us, or you are with the trolls and vandals!" and any attempt to convince her otherwise makes you a villain in her eyes.

And did she just basically tell David Gerard to put up or shut up? I thought they were allies, or Cabal-mates at any rate?

No, I for one lack the WP:ORiginality to make this stuff up.

Jonny

[guy]

I thought they were allies, or Cabal-mates at any rate?

When it suits her.