Phil Sandifer request arbitration against Giano Options

[InkBlot]

They are only succeeding because he is allowing them to succeed. He has provided ammunition to his critics left right and center.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[Cla68]

...no project with responsible governance would put up with it for nearly so long.

I agree that the ArbCom, which is currently Wikipedia's only final "governance" body outside of the administrator corps, isn't strict enough when it comes to dealing with long-term, active editors/admins who are causing problems.There are probably a number of reasons for this.

From what I've read, many volunteer projects have a hard time dealing with problematic volunteer participants. The thing is, a volunteer project, well, relies on volunteers to spend their time helping with whatever the project's goal is. So, the project has a hard time telling these volunteers to go somewhere and do something else unless the volunteer at issue is unquestionably causing severe problems.

[everyking]

...no project with responsible governance would put up with it for nearly so long.

I agree that the ArbCom, which is currently Wikipedia's only final "governance" body outside of the administrator corps, isn't strict enough when it comes to dealing with long-term, active editors/admins who are causing problems.There are probably a number of reasons for this.

From what I've read, many volunteer projects have a hard time dealing with problematic volunteer participants. The thing is, a volunteer project, well, relies on volunteers to spend their time helping with whatever the project's goal is. So, the project has a hard time telling these volunteers to go somewhere and do something else unless the volunteer at issue is unquestionably causing severe problems.

In theory, it's not such a bad idea; in the same way, a particularly productive employee in the workplace might be treated with greater leniency in various matters. The problem on Wikipedia is that serious content creators are afforded no such leniency and may be subject to official harassment and abuse by administrators who produce little to nothing of value. Wikipedia relies on the latter as much as dogs rely on ticks, yet the ArbCom treats them like precious treasures.

[trenton]

What's often bugged me about Betacommand is that it always seems a common theme: his high speed image enforcement ruffles feathers, leads to complaints which are met with rudeness and incivility. OK, but once all the shouting and yelling is done on ANI, it boils down to: Betacommand was right, the image enforcement needs to occur, but BC is just downright rude to people.

nonsense. This isn't about image enforcement, it's about Betacommand running tasks/bots that are poorly thought out and cause a mess. It's about him running a bot that removes misspelled categories when some people would rather correct the misspelling instead; it's about him using a bot to attack and spam another user's talk page; it's about him deciding that all links to USAID were spam and had to be removed; It's about him spamming a noticeboard about potential username violations;

All that was asked of him was to run his ideas through with other people to catch possible side effects... to which he said screw off.

"Image enforcement" is a red herring.

[Lar]

...no project with responsible governance would put up with it for nearly so long.

I agree that the ArbCom, which is currently Wikipedia's only final "governance" body outside of the administrator corps, isn't strict enough when it comes to dealing with long-term, active editors/admins who are causing problems.There are probably a number of reasons for this.

From what I've read, many volunteer projects have a hard time dealing with problematic volunteer participants. The thing is, a volunteer project, well, relies on volunteers to spend their time helping with whatever the project's goal is. So, the project has a hard time telling these volunteers to go somewhere and do something else unless the volunteer at issue is unquestionably causing severe problems.

Yes. (see [[meatball:VestedContributor]] (I should get a keyboard macro for that)

Also, there seems to be rather a lot of payback going round these days... every incident seems to be a way for someone to get some payback in... look at all the players in the FT2 matter just now, and especially who were among those leading the charge. This is not exactly new news... but those here who are thinking they have found a new messiah might want to make sure that it isn't just a faction shift or payback...

Factions shift, alliances change, players come and go, but the factionalism itself doesn't seem to be going down.

[Sarcasticidealist]

From what I've read, many volunteer projects have a hard time dealing with problematic volunteer participants.

Steve's first rule of non-profit governance is that the most insane person always wins, since she/he's willing to continue pressing a point long after everyone else has gone back to their day jobs/families/hobbies. I've spent time in non-profits being that most insane person, which worked very well for me, and I've spent time in non-profit not being the most insane person, which I found enormously frustrating.

[Cla68]

From what I've read, many volunteer projects have a hard time dealing with problematic volunteer participants.

Steve's first rule of non-profit governance is that the most insane person always wins, since she/he's willing to continue pressing a point long after everyone else has gone back to their day jobs/families/hobbies. I've spent time in non-profits being that most insane person, which worked very well for me, and I've spent time in non-profit not being the most insane person, which I found enormously frustrating.

I've witnessed the same thing recently in the local parent-teacher organization (PTO) for the school my kids attend. The current PTO president seems to get on everyone's nerves, but she puts a lot more time into the organization than everyone else does so they really don't have a choice to but to step back and let her run with it.

[EricBarbour]

From what I've read, many volunteer projects have a hard time dealing with problematic volunteer participants.

Steve's first rule of non-profit governance is that the most insane person always wins, since she/he's willing to continue pressing a point long after everyone else has gone back to their day jobs/families/hobbies.

My experience with nonprofit radio stations exactly mirrors this.

In every case, a "cabalist" personality would end up running the place, after protracted political battles with the station's original founding staff (if he didn't found the station himself, as in KPFZ's case). Once his political position is solid, the cabal leader permanently installs his handpicked cronies into programming on all the best time slots, forcing out anyone they didn't like--usually for being "too conservative" politically, or having music tastes that didn't coincide with their aging-hippie-folkie aesthetic.

You want stories that sound amazingly like Wikipedia's drama? Here:

You would not have believed the toxic atmosphere at miserable little KNAU, back in 1979. It was a 10-watt campus FM station with a junky old transmitter, mostly run to provide mass-media majors with broadcast experience--but only 8-5 on weekdays. After 5 pm and on weekends, it became the private fiefdom of the station manager, a 60s burnout who was excessively fond of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead etc. His buddies, also 60s stoners (amazingly and strangely, not a single one of whom was a university employee, faculty member, OR student), played nothing but creaky 60s music, all night and all weekend. To those people, Frank Zappa was "weird" and "radical" and "futuristic". Imagine what they thought of the Clash or the Ramones.

The student body had gotten sick of this and the communications department received hundreds of complaints about the "non-relevant" programming, being not in the community interest. So the advisors went looking for students who had record collections or could make up more topical programming.

They contacted me--because I was one of perhaps two students on that entire campus who owned a lot of punk and new wave records, exactly what the students wanted to hear at the time. They basically begged me to do a one-hour prerecorded show every week. I did it for about 6 weeks--and eventually found out that the program director and his cronies were trying to sabotage my work. They would crank up the level until the transmitter was clipping badly, then go to the faculty advisor and claim that I was turning in tapes that sounded like that.....I gave up, after too many unfounded accusations of incompetence from old hippies. It was simple, and they all told me as much, to my face: they didn't like my music and they didn't like me, and they wanted me gone. (I heard that two years later, all of THEM were tossed out, and the station went off the air for many years.)

The guy who runs KPFZ in my town is a little more openminded, but still an old hippie stoner. You dare not suggest that he give up the 9-11pm slot he owns, every day. Because that's when he runs the thousands of hours of tedious new-age spiritual enlightenment lectures he collected over the years in Berkeley--usually (poorly) taped off the air from KPFA and other campus stations in the bay area. It's mostly utter crap, but he's the station founder and VP of the foundation, so nobody challenges him. It's been said many, many times since the station went on the air in 2001, if not for his show and for some other stuff his close friends do on-air, KPFZ would have a much larger listenership today. As it sits, KPFZ is so disliked and has such poor ratings, it doesn't even appear in the radio ratings book. Local people make jokes about the "idiot hippie station".

Then we have the assholes who ran KUNM back in the 90s. I won't share all of it with you, because it's such a bizarre and disgusting story, even I, the professional cynic, had trouble believing it. But I kept hearing it from UNM people for years, so there HAD to be a shred of truth. It involved things like blackmailing a well-respected journalism professor, by secretly videotaping his dalliance with a hooker (paid for with station funds, by the station manager). She posed as a student and repeatedly forced herself on him......

NOW do you see why I'm so disgusted with the way Wikipedia is run? Seen too much of it. And unlike these little nonprofit radio stations, Wikipedia has global reach and considerable clout.

[Kato]

Also, there seems to be rather a lot of payback going round these days... every incident seems to be a way for someone to get some payback in... look at all the players in the FT2 matter just now, and especially who were among those leading the charge. This is not exactly new news... but those here who are thinking they have found a new messiah might want to make sure that it isn't just a faction shift or payback...

Factions shift, alliances change, players come and go, but the factionalism itself doesn't seem to be going down.

Indeed.

The Power-Players are still at large - still playing the game - still shifting allegiances - still seeking revenge for some perceived slight in the past - still sticking in knives through the backs of anyone who gets in their way.

Don't get fooled again.

[Moulton]

Unpopularity

In any community, there will be popular practices and unpopular ones.

Rarely are the best practices one and the same as the most popular practices.

There is a process for developing and establishing organizational best practices. Among all the proponents of the idea of Ethical Best Practices, none are more distinguished or more prominent in the field than Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline: The Theory and Practice of the Learning Organization.

While Senge's works are not unpopular among successful learning organizations, his ideas appear to be singularly unpopular among the core cabal of Wikipedia. The ruling cabal appears to be allergic to Senge's ideas, and unhappy with anyone who has the temerity to introduce his recommended Best Ethical Practices into the Wikisphere.

[Bottled_Spider]

Erm ............

Trick!

The following conditions laid out by Kato in his Wikipedia Flashmob game have just been met in this case :

You can still win secondary prizes for a "trick". If you see this first you can call it if you wish:
1. Jehochman
2. ElonkaD
3. Durova

No Full House yet, but in addition to the above the following members of the Peanut Gallery have graced us with their presence :

Scott Macdonald / Doc Glasgow
SlimVirgin
Privatemusings

Early days, eh?!

[Kato]

Erm ............

Trick!

The following conditions laid out by Kato in his Wikipedia Flashmob game have just been met in this case :

You can still win secondary prizes for a "trick". If you see this first you can call it if you wish:
1. Jehochman
2. ElonkaD
3. Durova

No Full House yet, but in addition to the above the following members of the Peanut Gallery have graced us with their presence :

Scott Macdonald / Doc Glasgow
SlimVirgin
Privatemusings

Early days, eh?!

Good work Spider!

A free bowl of Wotsit Nibnobs is on its way. Plus, I believe Somey can provide a commemorative avatar to add to your winnings.

[Bottled_Spider]

Good work Spider!

A free bowl of Wotsit Nibnobs is on its way. Plus, I believe Somey can provide a commemorative avatar to add to your winnings.

And people always said I would never amount to anything. But this award isn't just for me. No. I'd like to thank Giano, whose increasingly demented yet strangely fascinating antics are the basis of all the fun, and bad snuff-story writer & all-round arse Phil Sandifer without whom, etc. Thank you. Thank you all.

[Kelly Martin]

From what I've read, many volunteer projects have a hard time dealing with problematic volunteer participants.

Steve's first rule of non-profit governance is that the most insane person always wins, since she/he's willing to continue pressing a point long after everyone else has gone back to their day jobs/families/hobbies. I've spent time in non-profits being that most insane person, which worked very well for me, and I've spent time in non-profit not being the most insane person, which I found enormously frustrating.

I've witnessed the same thing recently in the local parent-teacher organization (PTO) for the school my kids attend. The current PTO president seems to get on everyone's nerves, but she puts a lot more time into the organization than everyone else does so they really don't have a choice to but to step back and let her run with it.

I've seen the same problem in amateur radio organizations.