Just what is Meta for, anyways? Options

[Tarc]

Not technically "Wikipedia" related, but WMF in general. Its kinda nuts up there, as our dear WR contributor Mbz1 is using Meta's RfC process as her sole remaining battleground from which to fire salvos at Gwen Gale; http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_fo...mment/Gwen_Gale

I called for the whole thing to be shit-canned but they quickly shat upon that idea and shuffled it off to a sub-section of the RfC itself.

Mbz1's formerly "voluntary indef" on en.wiki has been made into a real one, due to harassment of Gwen at....ding ding ding...Meta. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif)

This post has been edited by Tarc:

[Manning Bartlett]

To answer the actual thread question, Meta was created to play the role currently filled by the Wikipedia namespace. We decided to create it around November of 2001.

The idea (at the time) was that Wikipedia was to be exclusively for articles, article discussions and user pages.

All policy, project discussions, disputes, notifications, etc, etc were to be contained on meta.

When the idea of namespaces was born, it was decided that the Wikipedia namespace would be used for "help" type pages only. Meta was still to remain the place for policy/project discussions.

Somewhere around mid 2002 the drift back to doing everything on WP began. This chiefly happened because the drama queens were annoyed that all of their "VITAL" input was not appearing on the WP recent changes page (which was the single most followed page at the time, because it was small enough to be usable.

I sometimes daydream about how much drama would have been avoided if the original goal of Meta has been preserved.

[mbz1]

To answer the actual thread question, Meta was created to play the role currently filled by the Wikipedia namespace. We decided to create it around November of 2001.

The idea (at the time) was that Wikipedia was to be exclusively for articles, article discussions and user pages.

All policy, project discussions, disputes, notifications, etc, etc were to be contained on meta.

When the idea of namespaces was born, it was decided that the Wikipedia namespace would be used for "help" type pages only. Meta was still to remain the place for policy/project discussions.

Somewhere around mid 2002 the drift back to doing everything on WP began. This chiefly happened because the drama queens were annoyed that all of their "VITAL" input was not appearing on the WP recent changes page (which was the single most followed page at the time, because it was small enough to be usable.

I sometimes daydream about how much drama would have been avoided if the original goal of Meta has been preserved.

It would have been great, if meta were like that!

Also I'd like to ask everybody to tell me what is the difference between Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fæ and RFC for Gwen Gale or rather what is the difference between the stories of an admin Fæ and an admin gwen gale.

*They both had prior accounts.
*They both went for a clean start after they have problems.
*They both were eventually identified as having prior accounts.
*Fæ wrote some articles that were BLP violations. Gwen Gale wrote two articles about not-notable herself, and added numerous links to her own bio written by her at the feminist.net to a few Wikipedia articles.
*They both were not exactly honest in their RfAs, except Gwen Gale made a few openly false or half-true statements during her RfA, while Fæ simply failed to disclose his prior accounts.
*Maybe I am mistaking, but I believe Fæ is not an abusive as admin at English wiki, Gwen Gale is.

I am simply trying to understand how somebody who read this section http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_fo...s_when_involved could claim that Gwen Gale is an average admin. She's probably not the worst one, but I am sure, she is well below average .

Please forget that this RFC was submitted by me. Let's assume it was submitted by a different person. Let's assume it was submitted on English wiki. Just tell me please, where I got it wrong, except submitting it on meta. I will really appreciate your comments. Thanks.

I'd like to clarify that the above request is a good faith request. I am willing to admit I got something wrong, and remove it from RFC, if somebody versus attacking me will discuss the content, providing some rational for his/her opinion.

[Abd]

I sometimes daydream about how much drama would have been avoided if the original goal of Meta has been preserved.

It would have been great, if meta were like that!

Meta remained relatively functional, most of the time, but was quite naturally dominated by Wikipedians. If you didn't criticize Wikipedians on meta, you were pretty free. I'll agree that criticism of Wikipedia users should stay off of meta, except as specifically relates to global locks, and that would not be criticism of WP users, per se, but of the actions of global accounts. The idea of meta bans is quite new, the result of continued slide down a slippery slope, that began with Thekohser and Moulton, and continued with Poetlister. You can see, on the Poetlister global ban discussion, some old-timers who were opposed, and others who supported, and the ones who supported were, to some degree, the ones who have generally attempted to make the whole WMF wiki family toe the Wikipedia line. That's a generalization, but I saw the familiar names.

Also I'd like to ask everybody to tell me what is the difference between Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fæ and RFC for Gwen GalePlease forget that this RFC was submitted by me. Let's assume it was submitted by a different person. Let's assume it was submitted on English wiki. Just tell me please, where I got it wrong, except submitting it on meta. I will really appreciate your comments. Thanks.

Okay, there are really two issues here. First of all, that it was submitted by you is *irrelevant.* It was improper if submitted, where submitted, by *anyone*. Ottava submitted an RfC on meta about SB_Johnny's Wikiversity behavior. Absolutely out of place. Ottava, though, has had some claque that has protected him to some degree, or he'd have been blocked for that RfC.

I'd like to clarify that the above request is a good faith request. I am willing to admit I got something wrong, and remove it from RFC, if somebody versus attacking me will discuss the content, providing some rational for his/her opinion.

Bottom line, wrong venue, and wrong web site to discuss the behavior of an admin on Wikipedia. I *reported* on admin response on Wikipedia, on Wikiversity, and that survived challenge. They griped about it on Wikipedia, which, of course, was improper! I carefully avoided actual criticism, simply reporting the events with diffs. However, in some cases some obvious criticism could be inferred. Tough. The page was a study of self-reverted edits by a blocked or banned editor, and not just my edits, others have used self-reversion as a way to *cooperate* with a ban while still *proposing* helpful edits. Self-reversion confronts the cabals by pulling the legitimate-argument rug out from under the "range block 'em, a ban is a ban is a ban" mentality. I'd say the sequence was valuable as a demonstration, but I did not personally continue it, I simply have more important fish to fry. Others could. In any case, it was demonstrably useful, and if any damage was caused, it was the kind of damage that is routinely caused by overenthusiastic block and ban enforcement, it wasn't necessary.

Within the WMF family, there is only one legitimate place to make allegations of administrative abuse, and that is on Wikipedia. Otherwise, that's what Wikipedia Review is for, and there are other places as well where you could compile evidence (WR isn't good for that, but, for example, you could, unless you get yourself blocked there too, move your evidence to netknowledge.org, once upon a time. Seems that is down. SBJ, what's happened to netknowledge.org? Wikipedia Review.com also can host wikitext. With any site, you'll need to avoid annoying the site managers, eh? Encyc?

You could also start your own damn wiki. Wikia? Maybe, you might run into WMF flak there. Your own domain? Lots of options.