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

[Milton Roe]

Interesting. This reminds me of King Henry crying, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

I can hardly wait for King Jimbo's Wiki-Penance …


   

Jon

Randroids don't do "penance." That's for people who feel guilt.

[Moulton]

Randroids don't do "penance." That's for people who feel guilt.

Milton is correct. But while there is good evidence that Wales doesn't feel remorse, there is some evidence that he does feel bruised or wounded by negative characterizations, insults, and similar expressions of disrespect.

If that analysis is correct, then one possible gambit that (as far as I know) hasn't been tried in these pages is to sincerely pray for Jimmy -- pray that he finds his remorse.

[Jon Awbrey]

Interesting. This reminds me of King Henry crying, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

I can hardly wait for King Jimbo's Wiki-Penance …


   

Jon

Randroids don't do "penance". That's for people who feel guilt.

Sometimes penance is imposed by a Higher Power …

The death of Becket unnerved the king. The knights who did the deed to curry the king's favor, fell into disgrace. Several miracles were said to occur at the tomb of the martyr and he was soon canonized. Hordes of pilgrims transformed Canterbury Cathedral into a shrine. Four years later, in an act of penance, the king donned a sack-cloth walking barefoot through the streets of Canterbury while eighty monks flogged him with branches. Henry capped his atonement by spending the night in the martyr's crypt. St. Thomas continued as a popular cultist figure for the remainder of the Middle Ages.

— Eye Witness To History

Jon

[everyking]

It's unremarkable that Jimbo wants Kohs banned. What really disgusts me is the way some people are stepping up to justify and enforce Jimbo's edict, knowing perfectly well that it represents nothing more than a petty personality feud. Actually, Kohs has contributed far more Wikipedia content than Jimbo. Jimbo offers the project nothing more than tired platitudes on a good day and tiresome threats on a bad one.

[thekohser]

It's unremarkable that Jimbo wants Kohs banned. What really disgusts me is the way some people are stepping up to justify and enforce Jimbo's edict, knowing perfectly well that it represents nothing more than a petty personality feud. Actually, Kohs has contributed far more Wikipedia content than Jimbo. Jimbo offers the project nothing more than tired platitudes on a good day and tiresome threats on a bad one.

Remarkable that you'd continue to embrace a community and project that disgusts you so.

But, thanks for stating what should be the obvious.

[Abd]

I commented in the Wikisource discussion. Fools rush in....

[everyking]

It's unremarkable that Jimbo wants Kohs banned. What really disgusts me is the way some people are stepping up to justify and enforce Jimbo's edict, knowing perfectly well that it represents nothing more than a petty personality feud. Actually, Kohs has contributed far more Wikipedia content than Jimbo. Jimbo offers the project nothing more than tired platitudes on a good day and tiresome threats on a bad one.

Remarkable that you'd continue to embrace a community and project that disgusts you so.

But, thanks for stating what should be the obvious.

I don't think the project is defined by the dishonesty of its worst members. It's important to differentiate between the patient and the illness.

[Jon Awbrey]

It's unremarkable that Jimbo wants Kohs banned. What really disgusts me is the way some people are stepping up to justify and enforce Jimbo's edict, knowing perfectly well that it represents nothing more than a petty personality feud. Actually, Kohs has contributed far more Wikipedia content than Jimbo. Jimbo offers the project nothing more than tired platitudes on a good day and tiresome threats on a bad one.

Remarkable that you'd continue to embrace a community and project that disgusts you so.

But, thanks for stating what should be the obvious.

I don't think the project is defined by the dishonesty of its worst members. It's important to differentiate between the patient and the illness.

When it comes to social diseases, they are in fact defined by the condition of their worst member.

Jon

[A Horse With No Name]

When it comes to social diseases, they are in fact defined by the condition of their worst member.

Calling Jimbo a "member" is correct in regard to medical terminology, but rather opaque in regard to genital-related epithets.

[thekohser]

I commented in the Wikisource discussion. Fools rush in....

I know it's only been a couple of hours, but you seem to have stunned them into silence, Abd. Well done. Now what? Can a bunch of sheep be transformed into mighty lions, merely by reading your prose?

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

What really disgusts me is the way some people are stepping up to justify and enforce Jimbo's edict, knowing perfectly well that it represents nothing more than a petty personality feud.

Actually, Kohs has contributed far more Wikipedia content than Jimbo. Jimbo offers the project nothing more than tired platitudes on a good day and tiresome threats on a bad one.

Yes, I never understood that part of human behavior.

Going back to the discussion of Wikipedia and social entropy, at what stage is the Wales relationship? Is he giving in or taking out more? How does it break down financially?

I always thought that it is was wrong to take all those five figure speaking fees and corporate endorsements as a personal benefit. Especially wrong if does not pay, or even chuck a $20 tip at, one of his unpaid serfs for doing the dirty on someone like TheKohser.

It is abuse of the system which is meant to be a 501 c registered trust.

What other leaders of a world renown "charity" uses charitable volunteers to go around stuffing and obstructing his personal critics ... especially where the criticism has some validity?

... and public interest value.

[Kelly Martin]

What other leaders of a world renown "charity" uses charitable volunteers to go around stuffing and obstructing his personal critics ... especially where the criticism has some validity?[/b]

That's actually pretty common. Look up David Miscavige, Sun Myung Moon, and that guy that Jossi used to shill for, for starters.

[Abd]

I commented in the Wikisource discussion. Fools rush in....

I know it's only been a couple of hours, but you seem to have stunned them into silence, Abd. Well done. Now what? Can a bunch of sheep be transformed into mighty lions, merely by reading your prose?

Doesn't seem terribly likely, does it?

A couple of thoughts. I've done something there that, if I valued my account, I'd never do. I told the community that if there are problems, they are the community's fault. It's not Jimbo's fault, it's not Kohs' fault, it's a collective fault. It's our fault. Most people will do almost anything rather than accept responsibility. It is much easier to blame others, and then imagine that if just these others can be excluded, desysopped, forced to stop exerting authority, or just shamed into silence, all will be well.

Once in a while, though, a community will recognize and accept a message like that, and act on it. More commonly, if they can reach the whistle-blower, they will tear him to shreds.

The wiki system that developed, with an administrative cabal, Jimbo called it, that was advised by the general community, depends on a coherent community, but the community is rarely coherent. It does tend to develop a general consensus, that slowly improves -- sometimes -- over time. When elements in the community slavishly follow the cabal, a loop is set up, the restraint that the community would exert over the cabal disappears.

When a group of people are volunteers, when their activity cannot be coerced, and when they are the largest contributor of value, collectively, to some project, they have the real power, unless their contributions are replaceable. However, typically, large volunteer groups working in an organization aren't organized, they depend on the organization for that.

If the editorial community were to self-organize, there would be no power that could prevent it from finding, on the one hand, internal consensus and thus coherence, an ability to act with one mind, or, on the other hand, to identify coherent subgroups that cannot agree, or which are not ready to agree, and which could therefore fission, partially or fully, both becoming, through this, freer and more efficient. When there is no critical property involved, fission can enhance the overall function of an organization. There are then two organizations which can sometimes cooperate and sometimes compete, and the sum of this can be greater.

There is no critical property involved in Wikipedia. If half the editors went one way and half the other, both halves could survive quite well. Well, there is one piece of critical property, I lied. The name, which then means the nameservers.

In the end, this must be faced, as a Foundation issue. Should there be one repository of "the sum of all human knowledge," or should there be many, each operating independently, developing different systems? All evolution teaches us that a single centralized asset is highly vulnerable and will ultimately be corrupted.

Fission, though, isn't possible without coherence, we've seen again and again that spin-off projects started by no more than a handful of editors discontented with Wikipedia dysfunction, don't have the support, generally, to survive.

If the community became coherent, it might not need to fission! There is no way to know in advance.

The mission of Wikipedia requires methods of finding consensus, but finding consensus is notoriously difficult, and facilitating consensus is a special skill, a profession. Wiki process for consensus-building was never created in a way that would allow efficient and reliable operation.

And those who understand how precarious the whole project is becoming, and who are attached to its success, are terrified at losing valuable administrators, whom they imagine are crucial to continued operation. When the cabal is looking at a dispute between an admin with 100,000 edits, considered crucial for the operation of certain areas of activity, and an editor, perhaps an SPA, with maybe a thousand edits, whom will they avoid offending?

The problem, of course, is that by becoming dependent upon that admin, the cabal has sacrificed neutrality, which was mission-critical. There would be ways to far more widely distribute the tasks that maintain the wiki, to make its operation far more efficient and sustainable, but ... trying to implement these typically runs into fierce resistance, most of all from the cabal, for its value to the project is dependent upon project inefficiency, and they believe that distributing power more widely would wreck the place.

Yes, it's stupid. It burns out the cabal admins and editors. But mostly they don't realize that until it's too late. When they burn out, they blame, on the one hand, the "trolls" and "vandals" and "pov-pushers" who, they think, made their work hell. And, on the other, they blame the rest of the community for not seeing things their way, for not always crushing these enemies of the wiki, i.e., whomever they are upset with at the moment.

WMC, having dominated for years, is now bitter and contemptuous of the powers-that-be on Wikipedia. He's far from the only one to go through this cycle.

[Jon Awbrey]

I commented in the Wikisource discussion. Fools rush in ……

I know it's only been a couple of hours, but you seem to have stunned them into silence, Abd. Well done. Now what? Can a bunch of sheep be transformed into mighty lions, merely by reading your prose?

Doesn't seem terribly likely, does it?

…

Speaking of sheep …

[Abd]

I know it's only been a couple of hours, but you seem to have stunned them into silence, Abd. Well done. Now what? Can a bunch of sheep be transformed into mighty lions, merely by reading your prose?

I just checked. My edit of 18:21, 4 May 2010, is still the latest revision of the Wikisource Administrators' Noticeboard. It is now 01:37, 5 May 2010. This page had been quite active.

History

Out of curiosity, this is a list of editors of that section (issue) and their status during that period of silence.

Contributions/Jeff_G. no edits.
(bug report here. Period in URL is not presented to browser).
Contributions/Sherurcij no edits.
Contributions/Cygnis_insignis very active. Blocked Reshokeht (Blocked Thekohser earlier).
Contributions/Billinghurst not active.
Contributions/ResidentScholar not active.
Contributions/Bookofjude not active.
Contributions/JeepdaySock not active.
Contributions/Spangineer edits
Contributions/Prosfilaes not active
Contributions/Darkoneko not active. Steward.
Contributions/Charles_Matthews many edits
Contributions/Reshokeht blocked, of course.

Reading over this, I'm getting a sense of Thekohser's biggest offense: he obviously doesn't take this matter SERIOUSLY. Here they are, discussing blocking him, and he comes in with this blatant sock, hilarious. Muggles, my conclusion. How dare he show such contempt of our Serious Process? Who does he think he is? Somebody special? I bet he thinks he's smart!

There are, in fact, serious issues here, and maybe someone will pick up on that. But meanwhile, a peer community which cannot tolerate jesters and clowns is on its way down, it's dying and it's just a matter of time. Sure, if a jester interrupts every process, it should stop, and usually it's enough to ask, politely. If not, okay, then some action is called for. But this is Thekohser himself, surely he has some rights on this page, he didn't start this mess. He'd behaved on Wikisource.

Speaking of sheep …

Glad to be of service. Any time.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

The wiki system that developed, with an administrative cabal, Jimbo called it, that was advised by the general community, depends on a coherent community, but the community is rarely coherent. It does tend to develop a general consensus, that slowly improves -- sometimes -- over time.

Fission, though, isn't possible without coherence, we've seen again and again that spin-off projects started by no more than a handful of editors discontented with Wikipedia dysfunction, don't have the support, generally, to survive.

Rather than use simple nuclear fission as an analogy ... I think a biosphere model is more applicable.

The Wikipedia as a Serengeti national park with various species adapting different survival methods from out and out big toothed carnivores, to plodding immovables (with big tusks), to herds of non-confrontational herbivores, to tiny poisonous blood sucking insects.

What exactly is WR in relationship to that ... poachers turned gamekeepers?

[Milton Roe]

The wiki system that developed, with an administrative cabal, Jimbo called it, that was advised by the general community, depends on a coherent community, but the community is rarely coherent. It does tend to develop a general consensus, that slowly improves -- sometimes -- over time.

Fission, though, isn't possible without coherence, we've seen again and again that spin-off projects started by no more than a handful of editors discontented with Wikipedia dysfunction, don't have the support, generally, to survive.

Rather than use simple nuclear fission as an analogy ... I think a biosphere model is more applicable.

The Wikipedia as a Serengeti national park with various species adapting different survival methods from out and out big toothed carnivores, to plodding immovables (with big tusks), to herds of non-confrontational herbivores, to tiny poisonous blood sucking insects.

What exactly is WR in relationship to that ... poachers turned gamekeepers?

Is there something about the shear size of the elephant graveyard that will be needed to build Sanger's Ivory Tower?

[Jon Awbrey]

The wiki system that developed, with an administrative cabal, Jimbo called it, that was advised by the general community, depends on a coherent community, but the community is rarely coherent. It does tend to develop a general consensus, that slowly improves — sometimes — over time.

Fission, though, isn't possible without coherence, we've seen again and again that spin-off projects started by no more than a handful of editors discontented with Wikipedia dysfunction, don't have the support, generally, to survive.

Rather than use simple nuclear fission as an analogy … I think a biosphere model is more applicable.

The Wikipedia as a Serengeti national park with various species adapting different survival methods from out and out big toothed carnivores, to plodding immovables (with big tusks), to herds of non-confrontational herbivores, to tiny poisonous blood sucking insects.

What exactly is WR in relationship to that … poachers turned gamekeepers?

Is there something about the shear size of the elephant graveyard that will needed to build Sanger's Ivory Tower?

The Latitude of the Platitude is Inversely Proportional to the Incisiveness of the Attitude.

And Dat … sometimes … generally … Is Dat, Eh, Dude —

Jon

[jayvdb]

I just checked. My edit of 18:21, 4 May 2010, is still the latest revision of the Wikisource Administrators' Noticeboard. It is now 01:37, 5 May 2010. This page had been quite active.

History

Out of curiosity, this is a list of editors of that section (issue) and their status during that period of silence.

Contributions/Jeff_G. no edits.
(bug report here. Period in URL is not presented to browser).
Contributions/Sherurcij no edits.
Contributions/Cygnis_insignis very active. Blocked Reshokeht (Blocked Thekohser earlier).
Contributions/Billinghurst not active.
Contributions/ResidentScholar not active.
Contributions/Bookofjude not active.
Contributions/JeepdaySock not active.
Contributions/Spangineer edits
Contributions/Prosfilaes not active
Contributions/Darkoneko not active. Steward.
Contributions/Charles_Matthews many edits
Contributions/Reshokeht blocked, of course.

Most of these people are English Wikisource admins, where we have yearly reconfirmations. JeepdaySock is admin Jeepday.
Jeff G and Darkoneko are the only people who are not regular contributors to Wikisource.
The "silence" that you encountered is quite typical for Wikisource.

[Jon Awbrey]

This Just In — Pathetic Child blocks Thekohser on Beta Wikiversity —

¡ Viva el Cinco de Mayo !

Jon