Admissions of and justifications for favouritism, Not that favouritism is *always* a bad thing Options

[AB]

Okay, I'm not implying that favouritism is a bad thing,
except when the people at WP do certain things that
they should be doing for everyone only for people
they like, but can we confirm that policies and people
at WP do indeed admit to and justify favouritism,
whether those instances of favouritism be good, bad,
or whatever?


So, to start off, Calton suggests that Greg shouldn't
even be allowed to hear the evidence for a false (and
I believe untrue and defamatory) statement that was
made about him, due to the fact that Greg was banned.
In other words, defaming banned people is OK.

Durova, please don't hide close this discussion until people have a chance to see what you're going to say in response to the heap of evidence that your claim against Kohs (that I've "given misleading information to journalists") is bogus. --72.94.158.49 05:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

You're banned, Greg: you're in no position to demand anything. --Calton | Talk 08:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Daniel Brandt could tell us where this quote
came from. So far as I understand, this was used as
a justification for not deleting Daniel's article.

Mackensen, 2006-04-05: "Wikipedia does not negotiate with terrorists."

A rationalisation from Tony Sidaway. (Note that it
isn't true in all cases, but that's not the point.)
Implication here, based on context, being that
somehow how nice a person is is related to their
likelihood of being a sockpuppet.

Please be nice. We like nice people. Be nice and you may find that others are nice.

'Honey' sounds a lot like a metaphor for 'bribes'.
(If only I could find someone who would accept
bribes openly labelled as such. As opposed to,
say, voluntary contributions 'for the good of the
project', later used for leverage / the argument
that helping someone who helps the project in
turn helps the project.)

Indeed. You catch more flies with honey than with boiling vitriol

'This' refers to Brandt's attempt to discover
NYB's identity, which NYB seemed to think
was supported by WR as a whole. Equates
hurting NYB to hurting WP. NYB, if you are
reading this: wrong argument. Many of us are
indeed trying to hurt WP, and proud of it. And
many others of us really don't give a bloody
damn if WP gets hurt. When addressing WR,
a better argument would be to focus on your
rights as a human being. Or do you think that
you have more right not to be outed than us
WP critics?

This is, however, an example of the sort of thing that I believe gives some of Wikipedia's critics a reputation for seeking purely to hurt our project rather than improve it.

An exchange on wikien-l. 'He' refers to Daniel
Brandt.

On 10/12/2007, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> That would be because he is a sociopathic liar.

Right.

So why the hell are we trying to accommodate him?

The very fact that a 'respected admin' does not
like a person can be used as evidence against
that person.

When a respected admin like SteveBlock thinks there's a problem with an editor, there's most likely a problem.

The fact that someone is a 'respected admin'
is evidence that they are not racist. Actually,
the term 'racist' probably does get thrown
around a lot when it isn't deserved, though I
haven't looked at this particular case... but
would it be more acceptable to call a
non-admin racist? If not, why say 'accusing
a respected admin' rather than 'accusing a
fellow human being'?

Since your protestations to being blocked have included accusing a respected admin of racism and calling these actions malicious, its unlikely that you're willing to take ownership of the problems you've caused and correct them.

Fairly straightforward.

Sure, I am not very trusting of banned users. Especially those who
systematically attempt to evade their bans. But some users are not
very trusting of our long-standing editors, either. People seem to
forget that in Wikipedia, "admin" is synonymous with "long-standing
user" more than with cop, moderator or nazi.

No need to look at the evidence, the fact that
a person was banned is the evidence.

I suggest that users blocked or banned as often as you and Raphael
have been, from as many venues, may have trouble convincing people
that you are onto something with this one. I know that sounds unfair,
but that's just how it is. They're likely to assume "well, they would
say that, wouldn't they."

People they don't like don't get the right to vanish.
Which is really counterproductive, if they want
people they don't like to leave. So they are more
interested in taking revenge than in actually saying
goodbye.

Sometimes the community will not extend the courtesy: for example, if the user is not actually leaving, or if the user is not in good standing.

To be continued....

This post has been edited by AB: Fri 7th March 2008, 1:34pm

[Amarkov]

It's hard to institute restrictions on power if people aren't willing to admit that such power exists. Thus, we get favoritism like this. After all, there's nothing wrong with making friends, and that's all that's formally happening.

[Nathan]

Of course "it's ok to defame banned users". They've done that to me any chance they can get.

No matter how much I complain about NPA being broken, nobody listens anyway. It's a double standard.

It seems that in some admins' points of view, nobody cares about banned users, Wikipedia rules don't apply and it's okay to attack them.

I have examples of my own but that'd just be overkill.

[AB]

It's hard to institute restrictions on power if people aren't willing to admit that such power exists. Thus, we get favoritism like this. After all, there's nothing wrong with making friends, and that's all that's formally happening.

For the record, I don't care if people are a bit extra
nice to their friends, e.g. if they only give e-hugs to
their friends, and things like that. But everyone
should be treated like a human being.