Jimbo calls for global ban on Thekohser, and his bidding is done Options

[thekohser]

Jimbo must not like living in a trailer park. Seems he has a lot of pent up anger. I wonder what the specific crime was, to call for this today? It's gotta be the trailer park, right?

Kohs is permanently and globally banned from all Wikimedia projects.--[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] 04:04, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

This post has been edited by thekohser:

[thekohser]

Am I seriously still blocked on English Wikiversity? Not only that -- but no e-mail access rights, no Talk page rights, and I can't edit my User page to look the way I want it to?

Does Adambro run that joint?

Wikiversity really has a problem.

[Abd]

Am I seriously still blocked on English Wikiversity? Not only that -- but no e-mail access rights, no Talk page rights, and I can't edit my User page to look the way I want it to?

Does Adambro run that joint?

Wikiversity really has a problem.

Sure. So new?

Greg, I asked you if you wanted intervention, and suggested that, for me to attempt it, I'd want some assurances about your behavior, at least short-term. I am not accusing you of misbehavior, but if I stick out my neck to seek your unblock, I'd not want to see you take the opportunity to, basically, get yourself blocked again, in short order. If you don't push the edges and they go after you anyway, I'd stand behind you, that much I don't mind at all, and we owe it to each other.

You might notice that you are still listed as a speaker on Wikipedia, on the meta speaker page. They may try to take it out again, possibly, but I don't think it will be difficult to maintain relative consensus there. I've been busy so I haven't even responded to some of the flak.

You didn't really answer me, or you answered me with, more or less, a refusal to comply with what I'd need. No harm, and, in a way, I don't blame you, but ... I would trust your assurances, it's up to you.

Hey, what do you want to do on Wikiversity? Why do you care about access rights? Give me some reason to think -- and to argue -- that you'd be good for the place. Simply being right, often, isn't enough!

And if an ugly user page is the problem, send me some wikitext. I'll put it up if I don't consider it disruptive. If you want email access to a WV user or administrator, send me an email to forward and I'll forward it or tell you why I'm not. Greg, I absolutely don't approve of the way you have been treated, but that doesn't mean that I think all your behavior was wise or useful.

I've asked for adminship there, Ottava has agreed to sponsor/mentor me, but I doubt I would use it in this matter, because I'm probably too involved. I'd rather work for consensus, anyway.

Your comment above about Adambro, if it's typical of what you'd write on wikiversity, doesn't make me hopeful, though. But I do realize this is the Review.

As to consensus, timing is a huge part of it. Jimbo came down on Wikiversity (and you), and, in response, there was the meta proposal to remove the founder flag from Jimbo. It was going nowhere, running about two to one against. Then came the Commons incident. The issue was really the same, but the nature of the immediate conflict raised a lot more attention. So it's now four to one for removal. My guess is that the flag won't be removed, because the essential tools that could be used to make the same mistakes he made at Wikiversity and on Commons have been removed. But one never can tell.

I'm hoping that Jimbo starts to use his influence, what's left of it (it's probably still considerable), to push for better governance, true consensus process. I think it's possible. Meanwhile, many dream that the problems will just go away if they can only get rid of those bad guys. False hope, even if you do get rid of one set of bad guys, with enormous effort and huge wasted time, more will take their place. The system creates the bad guys out of the material fed to it and according to the structure that exists.

It may fix itself, if given a hundred years. Maybe.

[thekohser]

You didn't really answer me, or you answered me with, more or less, a refusal to comply with what I'd need. No harm, and, in a way, I don't blame you, but ... I would trust your assurances, it's up to you.

You make it sound like Abd is the only human who could possibly get my account unblocked on Wikiversity.

Hey, what do you want to do on Wikiversity? Why do you care about access rights?

I don't know! Maybe it's just the principle of defying the irrational acts of a tyrant. Who knows where the human imagination will take me? Have you seen some of my recent efforts on NetKnowledge.org? How disruptive have I been there? Many of my peers there are Wikiversity veterans. We seem to be getting along.

And if an ugly user page is the problem, send me some wikitext. I'll put it up if I don't consider it disruptive.

Do you consider this disruptive? If not, put it up on my Wikiversity User page. Then, get it back in place on Meta.

Your comment above about Adambro, if it's typical of what you'd write on wikiversity, doesn't make me hopeful, though. But I do realize this is the Review.

I'm finding that Adambro's contribution history is little different than that of a bot designed to welcome new users, revert vandalism, create new categories, and move pages from place to place. Why does a bot have rule over the entire project?

I'm hoping that Jimbo starts to use his influence, what's left of it (it's probably still considerable), to push for better governance, true consensus process. I think it's possible.

I'm hoping to win the Powerball Lottery, then devote a month's worth of training to run a 4-minute mile, and then I seek to become a licensed neurosurgeon. I think it's more possible than what you think is possible.

This post has been edited by thekohser:

[Abd]

You didn't really answer me, or you answered me with, more or less, a refusal to comply with what I'd need. No harm, and, in a way, I don't blame you, but ... I would trust your assurances, it's up to you.

You make it sound like Abd is the only human who could possibly get my account unblocked on Wikiversity.

Probably not, I don't see why you say, "you make it sound" that way. I'm one person offering assistance and asking for something as a condition. Were I an admin there, as it looks like I might become, I would do the same, unless I saw the block as purely disruptive. There is an argument for that, but there is are arguments in the other direction. I'm trying to respect both sides of this, plus the welfare of the project itself. Overall, I suspect, it will benefit from your restrained participation.

Hey, what do you want to do on Wikiversity? Why do you care about access rights?

I don't know! Maybe it's just the principle of defying the irrational acts of a tyrant.

Pardon me if I make sure I'm not standing next to you when the guards notice your defiance. If you are going to shoot the King, don't miss! I appreciate your comment, and well understand it, but it doesn't make me feel particularly safe, thinking of suggesting unblock. Are you capable of restraining this impulse? Not suppressing it, that's different, but being careful about where you place and express your defiance. Just being back as an editor at Wikiversity would be a kind of defiance and victory, but if you then act in a way that justifies the block, you'd undo much of that or more.

Who knows where the human imagination will take me? Have you seen some of my recent efforts on NetKnowledge.org? How disruptive have I been there? Many of my peers there are Wikiversity veterans. We seem to be getting along.

Good sign. Why don't they support your unblock on Wikiversity? Surely that would help. Or is only one faction represented there? (I haven't looked, don't have time yet). Problem is, Greg, those who would support you on Wikiversity, disappeared, abandoned the field. It wasn't just that they were blocked, mostly they are not blocked. But, probably, they got tired of the endless controversy. Hence my caution.

Take a look at the promise I made today at My RfA. What if you made a promise like that, for some probationary period? I.e., "If you support my unblock, and during a set probationary period, I consent to reversion by you, I promise to stop any on-wiki activity if you object to it during the probationary period, and, if I violate this promise, and you request it, I consent to a block by any administrator who has supported or implemented this unblock request, with the administrator only allowing a violation of the promise if the administrator agrees that the welfare of the project required the violating action."

Or something like that. Your words. A promise you could keep and that protects those who support you and that might even mollify those who would rather see you drop dead. In fact, they may believe that you would be unable to keep the promise, so they will assume that, next time, you'll really be in the wiki-grave, truly banned by local consensus. They may try to stop the unblock anyway, out of habit, but not with great vigor, the rug having been pulled out from under their argument. Only those who approve your unblock get the promise, as I wrote it, which means that they are voluntarily willing to take the risk that they'd have to object....

You would have set up conditions that would not only make serious disruption quite unlikely, you would also have effectively solicited support by possible fence-sitters. Of course, if you really just want to be able to complain about the idiot administrators who block you, you may not want to do this.

I think there is valuable work you could do at Wikiversity, and I disagree that Wikiversity is not a place for criticism of Wikimedia projects. But such criticism should be done with the highest standards, and there is a problem at Wikiversity with inadequate supervision, so a resource there can readily become, shall we say, excessive. Or can be seen that way by those criticized. In order for this to not be disruptive, then, the criticism must be handled so that self-serving objection to it becomes visible as such. Which means giving those criticized no excuse. And that probably requires a community, not just one individual.

And if an ugly user page is the problem, send me some wikitext. I'll put it up if I don't consider it disruptive.

Do you consider this disruptive? If not, put it up on my Wikiversity User page. Then, get it back in place on Meta.

I'll look and do what I can, or tell you why not.

Your comment above about Adambro, if it's typical of what you'd write on wikiversity, doesn't make me hopeful, though. But I do realize this is the Review.

I'm finding that Adambro's contribution history is little different than that of a bot designed to welcome new users, revert vandalism, create new categories, and move pages from place to place. Why does a bot have rule over the entire project?

Oh, come on! Wikiversity is very short of contributors. He helps, and maybe he did something less than helpful. It can be undone. It's a wiki. Do you think that you help the cause of unblocking you by criticizing Adambro? You know how far that argument goes, on Wikipedia, i.e., "I should be unblocked because the blocking admin is a biased robot of no intellligence." The editor might as well write [declined] himself.

I'm hoping that Jimbo starts to use his influence, what's left of it (it's probably still considerable), to push for better governance, true consensus process. I think it's possible.

I'm hoping to win the Powerball Lottery, then devote a month's worth of training to run a 4-minute mile, and then I seek to become a licensed neurosurgeon. I think it's more possible than what you think is possible.

Good luck. I'm about the same, except I WP:DGAF about the license. I noticed that you can buy scalpels without a license. Mostly, I haven't tried directly to influence Jimbo. I haven't felt ready. Just like I'm not doing any neurosurgery yet. Maybe tomorrow.

[thekohser]

Pardon me if I make sure I'm not standing next to you when the guards notice your defiance. If you are going to shoot the King, don't miss! I appreciate your comment, and well understand it, but it doesn't make me feel particularly safe, thinking of suggesting unblock. Are you capable of restraining this impulse? Not suppressing it, that's different, but being careful about where you place and express your defiance. Just being back as an editor at Wikiversity would be a kind of defiance and victory, but if you then act in a way that justifies the block, you'd undo much of that or more.

What I meant was that the mere click of the "Unblock" tab by an admin, any admin, would be the act of rebellion. All this negotiation about what I will promise to do or, more specifically, not do once unblocked is rather beside the point. Jimmy Wales' block of me on Wikiversity was wrong, unsupported by community process there. People who have ethical marrow would restore my account at Wikiversity, no strings, free of conditions. What you're doing, Abd, is grandstanding. Which is fine. But, good gravy, man. Just look at everything you typed and typed and typed above. Then compare what Jayvdb did.

He saw something stupid and unjust, and he overturned it. No 600-word essays.

This post has been edited by thekohser:

[jayvdb]

... Then compare what Jayvdb did.

He saw something stupid and unjust, and he overturned it. No 600-word essays.

I do have the advantage of being able to do something about it, while Abd can only wax lyrical, and he is well versed in this.

I wouldn't describe the block action as 'stupid' or 'unjust', but the process was a bit of both.

Based on only a little reading, it seems the block was justified by your "wikisins" on (and around) English Wikipedia, and I can appreciate that some administrators on other projects feel that this is either sufficient to warrant a global ban, or that it is expedient to take preventative action. Jimbo could have performed a global ban using the tools he had at his disposal at the time, or he could have initiated a global ban request/discussion on meta, but instead we have a mess, with blocks that use circular logic, or references to overturned decisions.

More importantly, I don't like other projects being subjugated to English Wikipedia; their administration methodology and decisions are a consequence of the make up of their community, and the "pace" at which the en.wp community wants to push the project, which can be very dysfunctional at times.
The other projects need to able to make their own mistakes.

This post has been edited by jayvdb:

[Moulton]

I don't like other projects being subjugated to English Wikipedia; their administration methodology and decisions are a consequence of the make up of their community, and the "pace" at which the en.wp community wants to push the project, which can be very dysfunctional at times. The other projects need to able to make their own mistakes.

As far as I know, the the precedent for power cliques on the English Wikipedia invading and subverting Wikiversity first occurred two summers ago, when Greg, WAS 4.250, PrivateMusings, TheFieryAngel and I started a workshop there on Managerial Ethics. At that time IDCab, JzG, Cary, and Jimbo intervened there to shut it down. They got away with it then, so Jimbo pulled the same stunt, single-handed, a couple of months ago. And he got away with it again.

[jayvdb]

I don't like other projects being subjugated to English Wikipedia; their administration methodology and decisions are a consequence of the make up of their community, and the "pace" at which the en.wp community wants to push the project, which can be very dysfunctional at times. The other projects need to able to make their own mistakes.

As far as I know, the the precedent for power cliques on the English Wikipedia invading and subverting Wikiversity first occurred two summers ago, when Greg, WAS 4.250, PrivateMusings, TheFieryAngel and I started a workshop there on Managerial Ethics. At that time IDCab, JzG, Cary, and Jimbo intervened there to shut it down. They got away with it then, so Jimbo pulled the same stunt, single-handed, a couple of months ago. And he got away with it again.

To be fair, as English Wikipedia was the subject of the Wikiversity project, and Wikipedians were the subject, it was the Wikiversity project which imported the English Wikipedia politics. This Wikiversity project, and probably many others, have a human ethics problem which still concern me. Wikiversity needs a Human Research Ethics Committee before it should permit any research or case studies about people (esp. living people) to be conducted on public pages.

[Abd]

Sheesh! Way too long, and no time to cut it down. Ah, well, skip it if ye choose.

To be fair, as English Wikipedia was the subject of the Wikiversity project, and Wikipedians were the subject, it was the Wikiversity project which imported the English Wikipedia politics. This Wikiversity project, and probably many others, have a human ethics problem which still concern me. Wikiversity needs a Human Research Ethics Committee before it should permit any research or case studies about people (esp. living people) to be conducted on public pages.

Fascinating. It's allowed to write whatever garbage one wants on, say, a Wikipedia noticeboard, raking a person over the coals, describing their contributions using the most abusive language, but a simple set of diffs with relatively neutral language is an ethics violation on Wikiversity? Does perhaps it matter whose ox is being gored?

Precisely why is it allowed to have a BLP on Wikipedia, but not a BWA (biography of a Wikipedia account) on Wikiversity? The concept that this is "human research" is quite a stretch. It's studying what happens, the dynamics of a public web site, where the history is all open. But I didn't review the content at the deleted WV project. Perhaps there were specific violations there, going beyond the pale, such as outing editors, libel -- as distinct from simply looking at documentation of behavior --, or other offenses. Which could presumably have been dealt with directly.

I helped start a WV project -- in spite of the dire predictions of some that the JimBolt would flash down from the sky, incinerating the entire project -- looking into the Treatment of Newbies at Speedy Deletion. Because it's sensitive, I've been very careful about what's there, maybe even too careful, I'd even hidden actual user names -- you had to look underneath, at an actual link or diff to see them -- but that was changed by another. So far, no problem.

My view is that the research should be done, but should be carefully conducted, and should have an educational purpose, and we might ask editors who were involved in some affair, instead of directly editing the resource page, to be interviewed. And the interviewer would put up material and take responsibility for it. It would not just be raw and possibly inappropriate content. Some of the objections obviously came from people who simply don't want to allow criticism, but other objections had, at least, some basis. We know the difference when we answer whatever might possibly be legitimate. If objections persist and insist, it's likely coming from something else.

I have my own history with Wikipedia conflict, and would not use a WV project to "attack" editors involved. It's a simple understanding of conflict of interest, and a recognition that when I'm personally involved, I'm less likely to be objective. It's certainly tempting to use my own experience with Wikipedia, and I do when discussing issues, but that's not appropriate in a learning resource on Wikiversity. Maybe on a Talk page, sometimes. With caution.

I put the material Greg wanted on his WV user page. No problem, so far. I reverted Greg's speaker listing on meta, back in. So far, some objections from the usual suspects, but no real problem. We'll see if this lasts. But I'm seeing the repressive oligarchy losing power, losing this battle and that, including some big ones. That doesn't, by any means, indicate that the WP problem is solved, because that oligarchy was just a set of players filling roles defined by the system. They are not the problem, so I expect it to pop up in new forms. But in some areas, things may get better.

I made this comment on Greg's WV user talk page. On WV, no response may mean nobody has an objection, but it can also mean that nobody saw it. It's a tad slow there. However, I see that vandalism is being reverted, consistently. So it's not completely dead.

I'm not yet requesting that Greg be unblocked on WV, because I'm personally not satisfied that he won't use the opportunity to make more sarcastic remarks about the idiots, which just irritates them (whether they are idiots or not, certainly some of them are, metaphorically) for no good cause. I've applied for adminship, but I certainly would not use it to unblock him unless it were clearly acceptable to community consensus, in which case, I wouldn't be needed.

On the other hand, I can still do whatever seems reasonable as an ordinary editor. Perhaps there will be an occasion, as an example suggested above, to interview him and write it up for a research report relevant to some project on WV. I do believe that criticism of Wikipedia, conducted in a way consistent with reasonable academic standards, is appropriate for Wikiversity. But I'd also want to interview others as well. Because of the sensitivity, I put an NPOV tag on the Newbie project, to encourage that page to not become a repository for anti-Wikipedia opinion, or, in the other direction, to discourage opposition from expectation that this is what it would be.

Greg is not blocked, now, on a number of WikiMedia projects. My prediction is that the only projects he will be blocked on when the smoke clears will be en.wiki and maybe some others if he actually caused problems there. There was some socking, which complicated things. Greg, didja rolly needta do that, reshokeht? Yeah, in a sane community we would just laugh. But the community isn't sane, not yet, anyway.

Communities that cannot integrate and handle people like Greg and Moulton are in trouble, in my view. None of this means that blocks were necessarily inappropriate, but this whole ban thing strays way too far into punishing disagreement. I'm uncomfortable with the paid editing of Wikipedia thing, but it would actually be dependent on details. What if everything Greg did followed policy? Except, of course, for being paid, i.e., having a conflict of interest? If he were unblocked, could he disclose such conflict and suggest articles, full-blown?

Why not?

There is often a way to resolve legitimate conflicts. I think it's completely silly to disallow paid editing, partly because it's utterly unenforceable. But also paid editing would normally be good content, there is a reason why the media use press releases so much, written by professionals.

Good editing, then, means carefully fact-checking the "press release," and making sure that it's neutral, but it would be stupid to forbid companies from sending them to you! And a skilled Wikipedia editor could write content that was clearly acceptable. Once in a while a paid article would be misleading, but that would be unlikely to last, it's like anything else, and there is no way to prevent all misleading content.... I'd say it's safer if it's openly disclosed, much safer. It will be carefully examined, then.

And I bet that Greg would disclose his paid articles if he were confident that they, and he, would be treated fairly. After all, if he does good work, he can then sell more article work.

What if this was part of the path to the Wikipedia future, paid article editing? Paid editors would have an investment in the project having a reputation for neutrality and accuracy and interest, and they would restrain each other, and be motivated to contribute good free content.... Just an idea.

But the idiots, so to speak, want to coerce everyone into running the project the way they think best, which is often pretty bad, with boring articles fully of silly details that nobody cares about being perfectly okay, and really interesting content sometimes getting deleted because someone didn't like the sourcing and Wikipedia has no regular way to solicit expert review and correction....