JzG, same old same old, Repeats old claims Options

[Somey]

Why would anybody email a person who doesn't want anything to do with them?

Lots of reasons. Perhaps to point out a good opportunity for that person to do the right thing?

Are you autistic spectrum?

At the moment, you're the one sounding autistic, I'm afraid.

Why have you not slinked away?...

Okay, now you're sounding like an autistic Wikipedian. "Waaah, why won't people magically disappear when I click the ban-button? Doesn't the button work?"

Rick, what is your fascination with harassing JzG?

JzG is one of the worst Wikipedians in Wikipedia history, and given the size of the user base, it's perfectly natural that people might find him interesting, in the sort of way an archaeologist might be interested in the ways uncontrolled tree growth destroys buildings over time.

Moreover, you're misusing the term "harassing."

[Kato]

Rick, what is your fascination with harassing JzG?

Emailing someone to tell them about a possible "sockpuppet" is harassing them?

And besides, this is JzG we're talking about. If your bar for what constitutes "harassment" is that low, JzG himself would be in San Quentin by now. Next to Amorrow, WillyOnWheels and that Grawp guy, JzG is probably the most destructive figure ever to descend on Wikipedia.

[Abd]

However, there is an example very recently where he admitted something. I sent him an email about an obvious sock of Yellowbeard (T-C-L-K-R-D) , Cordyceps2009 (T-C-L-K-R-D) and he put up a notice at AN/I about it, noting that it was from a banned editor (me), but admitting that the suspicion was "worth investigating."

Why would anybody email a person who doesn't want anything to do with them?

Perhaps because I edited Wikipedia for two years. It does take some time to recover.

Are you autistic spectrum?

Funny, if I remember correctly, JzG asked that too, when I said he might be making a mistake. Do you by any chance live in England? No, I'm not autistic, I'm just plain crazy, but I convinced the judge to let me go. Look, if you could see what I see, you'd be crazy too. Instead, you are just stupid and vicious.

Why have you not slinked away?

Because I don't feel humiliated? I was blocked a year ago, and I felt obsessed. I deliberately didn't put up an unblock template, because I wanted to see what would happen. This time, I felt relief. Why should I slink? I did make mistakes, but I didn't do anything wrong. And I'm still not sure that I could actually have done it better. The results were decent.

The cab ran over you, Rick.

They did? What makes you think that? How come I'm free and they're still trapped, slaves to a monster project that they don't understand and that will eventually chew them up and spit them out?

Rick, what is your fascination with harassing JzG?

Hello? Sending him an email that he properly responded to? He was the one who blocked the sock master before, I thought he'd like to know. He didn't have to do anything, but he did the right thing, in fact, and he didn't complain. So who are you? Why are you hiding?

Rick, what is your fascination with harassing JzG?

Emailing someone to tell them about a possible "sockpuppet" is harassing them?

I didn't think so either. I was a little worried JzG might think so, but it wasn't my intention and he did seem to respond well.

It should be said that JzG didn't do anything to me. WMC did, but I'm not carrying resentment about WMC either. I feel sorry for him. On the other hand, I've felt sorry for some pretty awful people, much worse than WMC. Maybe I think we all have the capacity to be awful, if we aren't careful, if we only imagine that behaving badly is what other people do, not us.

And besides, this is JzG we're talking about. If your bar for what constitutes "harassment" is that low, JzG himself would be in San Quentin by now. Next to Amorrow, WillyOnWheels and that Grawp guy, JzG is probably the most destructive figure ever to descend on Wikipedia.

I really didn't think that he was that bad. I don't think WMC was that bad. I find the evil of some of their supporters worse, the ones who egg them on but who would never warn them that they are about to drive off a cliff. Where were JzG's friends? Where were WMC's friends? The ones who would tell him, uh, you're going too far here, before he trashes his bit?

WMC is in a bad way, he seems to be lashing out, trying to see how far he can go without being blocked. Bad sign.

[Kato]

I find the evil of some of their supporters worse, the ones who egg them on but who would never warn them that they are about to drive off a cliff. Where were JzG's friends? Where were WMC's friends? The ones who would tell him, uh, you're going too far here, before he trashes his bit?

JzG was told in no uncertain terms to knock it off by many people in this Rfc last year

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...or_comment/JzG2

I really didn't think that he was that bad.

I didn't think so either until he completely lost the plot in 2007. You are probably unaware of the full history. He accelerated almost all the biggest disputes in WP's history and helped them into the international news. From the Naked Short Selling thing, the Secret List thing, to the Rachel Marsden thing and many more including being a catalyst in feuds with Greg Kohs, Jon Awbrey, Dan Tobias and TheFieryAngel. His judgement is berserk.

[Angela Kennedy]

I find the evil of some of their supporters worse, the ones who egg them on but who would never warn them that they are about to drive off a cliff. Where were JzG's friends? Where were WMC's friends? The ones who would tell him, uh, you're going too far here, before he trashes his bit?

JzG was told in no uncertain terms to knock it off by many people in this Rfc last year

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...or_comment/JzG2

I really didn't think that he was that bad.

I didn't think so either until he completely lost the plot in 2007. You are probably unaware of the full history. He accelerated almost all the biggest disputes in WP's history and helped them into the international news. From the Naked Short Selling thing, the Secret List thing, to the Rachel Marsden thing and many more including being a catalyst in feuds with Greg Kohs, Jon Awbrey, Dan Tobias and TheFieryAngel. His judgement is berserk.

And me! (Didn't want to be left out.)

[Mathsci]

You should expect some editors to try to undo some of the edits you made now that you're temporarily banned and can't respond on-wiki. It's the nature of the Wikipedia model.

Exactly which edits are you referring to? Abd has hardly made any edits to wikipedia articles that have lasted. Easy enough to check for yourself. He has created a stub or two.

Just as when Abd was page banned, things will proceed calmly.

It's like having a fly in the room: irritating when it's there, but immediately forgotten once it's been swatted.

BTW Abd's allegations of a cabal, rejected by ArbCom, have so far driven away two female contributors, Woonpton and Crohniegal. Not great. But that's what happens when people make things up.

This post has been edited by Mathsci: Fri 18th September 2009, 7:07am

[Cla68]

BTW Abd's allegations of a cabal, rejected by ArbCom, have so far driven away two female contributors, Woonpton and Crohniegal. Not great. But that's what happens when people make things up.

Well, Woonpton told me on her userpage that, "I'm not at all interested in editing noncontroversial areas of the encyclopedia...my interest was in hoping to slow the accelerating handover of the encyclopedia to fringe interests of all kinds." I guess that included ABD.

In my opinion, anyone who edits Wikipedia with the intention of trying to "fix" controversial science articles and eliminate "misinformation" are doomed to disappointment and frustration, because the Wikipedia model doesn't support that kind of agenda. You have to be willing, in most cases, to compromise and allow minority viewpoints/POV in if they're supported by reliable sources.

[EricBarbour]

Just as when Abd was page banned, things will proceed calmly.
It's like having a fly in the room: irritating when it's there, but immediately forgotten once it's been swatted.
BTW Abd's allegations of a cabal, rejected by ArbCom, have so far driven away two female contributors, Woonpton and Crohniegal. Not great. But that's what happens when people make things up.

Oh looky. We had Tweedledum and now here's Tweedledee, trying to push this
thread off-topic and onto their mutual neuroses.

[Moulton]

And it's one, two, three, what are we fight for?

In my opinion, anyone who edits Wikipedia with the intention of trying to "fix" controversial science articles and eliminate "misinformation" are doomed to disappointment and frustration, because the Wikipedia model doesn't support that kind of agenda.

Dedicated scientists and academics will be the first to abandon the fight, as they have much better ways to spend their time and energy. That leaves the warrior types, who thrive on the thrill of the fight.

And so, on balance, WP erodes what little academic lustre it might have once enjoyed, and instead becomes an increasingly corrupt and banal fight game.

[Abd]

I find the evil of some of their supporters worse, the ones who egg them on but who would never warn them that they are about to drive off a cliff. Where were JzG's friends? Where were WMC's friends? The ones who would tell him, uh, you're going too far here, before he trashes his bit?

JzG was told in no uncertain terms to knock it off by many people in this Rfc last year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...or_comment/JzG2

I'm thinking of those whom he would think of as friends, if there were any. "Allies" is not a synonym for "friends." An ally will not tell you that you are in danger if you foolishly attack his enemy. A friend will. ArbComm reminded me not to persist with methods of dispute resolution that were ineffective. Those "methods" were actually attempts to wake up JzG's friends to the danger. In fact, though, the danger to his bit wasn't great, but that's because he effectively retired as the RfAr approached. Had he insisted on his actions, as WMC later did, he might have been desysopped. Another admin explained the situation to me as JzG being put on a short leash. If he does shit like that again, he's toast, as long as anyone cares enough about it to bring it to ArbComm.

I really didn't think that he was that bad.

I didn't think so either until he completely lost the plot in 2007. You are probably unaware of the full history.

Not merely probable, it's a sure thing. I wasn't going after JzG, I was supporting the principle of administrative recusal. The same was true in the next case, but the Cab did successfully muddy it, and it was only WMCs almost-beyond-belief stubbornness that led to his desysopping. There are lessons to be learned. It shouldn't be so hard.

[...]His judgement is berserk.

Wikipedia's judgment process is berserk. JzG was burning out. Given the structure, it is to be expected. Very few can survive the environment unscathed, it brings out, eventually, the worst in people. This could be fixed. Anyone interested in how, please email me, and you could become part of the group that considers and, perhaps, develops a solution. It's only obvious once it's understood, and before then it is far from obvious, there are a hundred "obvious" objections that turn out to be based on unexamined but very common assumptions. Only a few people can get past that, at first, which is very normal and says nothing about the intelligence or good will of the others. But it only takes a few, and it will expand from there.

[Moulton]

I was supporting the principle of administrative recusal.

Very few can survive the environment unscathed, it brings out, eventually, the worst in people. This could be fixed.

Recusal is a practice found in ethical cultures. It is not a practice found in corrupt cultures.

Theoretically, a corrupt culture can be repaired and become an ethical culture. But in the case of Wikipedia this is unlikely, as Jimbo has expressly declared that the concepts of ethical management are beyond the scope of any WMF-sponsored project.

[Abd]

You should expect some editors to try to undo some of the edits you made now that you're temporarily banned and can't respond on-wiki. It's the nature of the Wikipedia model.

Exactly which edits are you referring to?

The ones that are being undone, of course!

Abd has hardly made any edits to wikipedia articles that have lasted. Easy enough to check for yourself. He has created a stub or two.

This thread is supposed to be about JzG. Want to write about me, start a thread, asshole.

However, the cries that Abd should be banned started with RfC/JzG 3, so I'm defacto a part of the issue. That was quite a show! Simple RfC, conclusive evidence, support from Durova, etc. And the response of two-thirds of editors commenting: ban Abd!

The substance: As a Wikipedia editor, I was mostly reactive. I was creative occasionally, when I was expert on the topic or did special research. Take a look at the history of Donna Upson (T-H-L-K-D), for example, or look at the history of lyrikline.org (T-H-L-K-D). Almost every "what links here" for the latter was placed by me. That lyrikline.org is whitelisted at en.wikipedia was my work, and there are two jobs remaining to be undone: delisting at meta, which I believe is now possible, and adding more links to covered poets. There is a page in my user space, showing pages on poets with en.WP articles where links were added, and the hundreds remaining to be done. User:Abd/lyrikline poets (T-H-L-K-D). In addition, redlinks there may indicate an article that could be created, or the spelling is different.

However, from the beginning, my interest was in social structures, and my first semi-SPA edits in August 2007 were about voting systems, which are an aspect of that, and where I have some considerable expertise, recognized off-wiki and also on, in the RfAr, by Newyorkbrad in his vote for the ban.

Just as when Abd was page banned, things will proceed calmly.

It was calm with the original page ban because I kept it that way. It's not calm now, disruption based on this case has expanded. Yes, things work out, but the wasted energy is enormous.

It's like having a fly in the room: irritating when it's there, but immediately forgotten once it's been swatted.

When the room is fully of stinking bullshit, swatting flies is just like .... playing whack-a-mole with expanding legions of persistent socks, never considering that maybe they had a point, and when people have a point and you try to shut them up, they sometimes become persistent even though you'd think it makes no sense.

BTW Abd's allegations of a cabal, rejected by ArbCom, have so far driven away two female contributors, Woonpton and Crohniegal. Not great. But that's what happens when people make things up.

What ArbComm rejected was a word. I asked them to address the substance, they mostly didn't, probably because it is a difficult issue and they'd have had serious trouble finding consensus on it.

As to Woonpton and Chronie, these were far from innocent bystanders suffering collateral damage. They were named only after investigation, and the evidence was given. Not of reprehensible collaboration, nor for any reprehensible action at all, I made no effort to show such, and though some level of reprehensibility could be inferred from some of the evidence I presented on them, it is mild by Wikipedia standards. Basically, a "cabal" allegation for an editor was specific to the case, and represented a judgment, clearly shown by the evidence, of a prejudgment, a kind of "involvement" with the issues or persons of the case. That's all. And if Mathsci actually can't understand that, well, it just goes to show that expertise in mathematics doesn't teach you anything at all about people. And if he can, he's not only an asshole, he's a liar.

What I called a "cabal" is what Carcharoth called "an appearance of a cabal." Appearances have effects, they are socially real. It's like "racism." There is no physical reality to "race," that's well-known, but a lot of people will argue with that! It's a social reality, and it has real effects. If I tell someone that they are racist, I might be absolutely correct, in the academic sense: they believe, or act as though they believe, that race is real. But it will be considered inflammatory, and probably correctly, unless sufficient context has been laid. I laid the context for "cabal," but the context was ignored and denied even when reaffirmed, with comments like, "Yeah, but what he really means to say is," followed by what I repeatedly denied. And then Woonpton and Crohnie reacted to (or created, in the case of Woonpton) the false imputations only, in spite of substantial attempts to personally explain. Crohnie apologized, actually, but then was egged again on by Woonpton. With Crohnie, I assume simple gullibility, falling in with a bad crowd, and holding understandable opinions, with Woonpton, it's worse than that, the woman is vicious and vindictive, ABF personified.

Crohnie is not editing because of back surgery, and she seems to be recovering. Maybe her temperament will recover, too. Woonpton loudly protested she was retired, but isn't, and had made her conclusions about the Cold fusion article before I was ever involved, and I was banned since the beginning of June, she didn't take up editing! Mathsci is just repeating the propaganda about "driving away experts or editors." Nobody was driven away by me, unless perhaps they were incapable of ignoring arguments that they ignorantly disagree with. Or even that they intelligently disagree with.

This post has been edited by Abd: Fri 18th September 2009, 2:01pm

[Abd]

[...]

Oh looky. We had Tweedledum and now here's Tweedledee, trying to push this thread off-topic and onto their mutual neuroses.

It's not my fault he broke my nice new rattle.

Actually, I was wearing a crow costume, having been hired by the crow to flush them out of hiding and soften them up. So when the crow shows up, they will say, "That's just Abd again, hah hah!"

[Moulton]

The wasted energy is enormous.

Ayup.

[Viridae]

Why would anybody email a person who doesn't want anything to do with them?

Lots of reasons. Perhaps to point out a good opportunity for that person to do the right thing?

Are you autistic spectrum?

At the moment, you're the one sounding autistic, I'm afraid.

Not in the slightest, he used an effective metaphor.

[Abd]

Recusal is a practice found in ethical cultures. It is not a practice found in corrupt cultures.

Theoretically, a corrupt culture can be repaired and become an ethical culture. But in the case of Wikipedia this is unlikely, as Jimbo has expressly declared that the concepts of ethical management are beyond the scope of any WMF-sponsored project.

The assumption here is that Jimbo and the WMF are in charge. They have legal control of the wiki, but they depend on the real sponsor, the community, and the only reason the community can't fix wikipedia is that it's asleep, dreaming as it were, and waking up isn't yet practical. But it will be. Waking up the community is my project, and "community" actually means "human community," as I wrote long ago, Wikipedia is just a particular project, one relatively small example that would benefit, realize its ideals without compromising its values, if even a fraction of the editors understood and applied the concepts. Could actually be quite a small fraction.

Cynicism is a normal response at this point. Only a few will be able to move past this formidable obstacle. It's not going to be handed to the community on a silver platter, they wouldn't accept it, they would believe that it's poison. I was prepared for this by a schizophrenic mother who did actually believe that about poison; to survive my childhood, I had to be able to tolerate insanity (not without damage, but that's another story -- or maybe it's this one!).

All that has happened with Wikipedia is that individual insanity has been replaced by the collective insanity of an ochlocracy, which reduces collective intelligence instead of enhancing it, and while democratic structures improve the situation some (ArbComm is a democratic structure), consensus structures can do much more, far more effectively and, in the end, more efficiently. It is known how to do the latter on a small scale, what is new to the FA/DP concepts is potential application on a large scale, which has been considered impossible by political scientists. They didn't think of something.

This post has been edited by Abd: Fri 18th September 2009, 2:33pm

[Moulton]

Recusal is a practice found in ethical cultures. It is not a practice found in corrupt cultures.

Theoretically, a corrupt culture can be repaired and become an ethical culture. But in the case of Wikipedia this is unlikely, as Jimbo has expressly declared that the concepts of ethical management are beyond the scope of any WMF-sponsored project.

The assumption here is that Jimbo and the WMF are in charge.

Jimbo put himself in charge of rejecting any effort to introduce the principles of ethical management into the project.

[Abd]

Recusal is a practice found in ethical cultures. It is not a practice found in corrupt cultures.

Theoretically, a corrupt culture can be repaired and become an ethical culture. But in the case of Wikipedia this is unlikely, as Jimbo has expressly declared that the concepts of ethical management are beyond the scope of any WMF-sponsored project.

The assumption here is that Jimbo and the WMF are in charge.

Jimbo put himself in charge of rejecting any effort to introduce the principles of ethical management into the project.

Never mistake effort for control.

This post has been edited by Abd: Fri 18th September 2009, 7:46pm

[Moulton]

Jimbo put himself in charge of rejecting any effort to introduce the principles of ethical management into the project.

Never mistake effort for control.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Jimbo, however, threw out the water, so that no one might drink.

[Mathsci]

BTW Abd's allegations of a cabal, rejected by ArbCom, have so far driven away two female contributors, Woonpton and Crohniegal. Not great. But that's what happens when people make things up.

Well, Woonpton told me on her userpage that, "I'm not at all interested in editing noncontroversial areas of the encyclopedia...my interest was in hoping to slow the accelerating handover of the encyclopedia to fringe interests of all kinds." I guess that included ABD.

In my opinion, anyone who edits Wikipedia with the intention of trying to "fix" controversial science articles and eliminate "misinformation" are doomed to disappointment and frustration, because the Wikipedia model doesn't support that kind of agenda. You have to be willing, in most cases, to compromise and allow minority viewpoints/POV in if they're supported by reliable sources.

Which users are you suggesting edit Wikipedia with the intention of trying to "fix" controversial science articles and eliminate "misinformation"? Certainly I have never edited any wikipedia article of that type. Who are you talking about then?