Herostratus - love me or leave me Options Rating

[GlassBeadGame]

He made a stupid and tasteless joke, and now he's paid the price. Can't see anything wrong with that.

That's because you don't have any of that zero tolerance.

[Somey]

aren't you the poster responsible for starting the irresponsible allegations of pedophilia based on a ridiculously obvious joke from Herostratus? even GlassBeadGame is repeating it still today (above)? absurd!

It's hardly "absurd," Mr. Milowent. At one point I considered apologizing to Mr. Herostratus on behalf of the website, but after some consideration of the matter (which took all of about 30 seconds) I decided an apology was not warranted. Why not, you ask? First, we all know that Wikipedians, as a general rule, have no appreciable sense of humor, so it makes little sense to assume that one would be "joking" in a case like that. Second, and more importantly, even if Mr. Herostratus is one of those rare exceptions - a Wikipedian with a sense of humor - the fact remains that no sane or responsible person would joke around on a public website about a subject such as pedophilia. Because, um, guess what? It's not funny!

...but since wikipedia review doesn't worry about blp violations at all...

Well, now you're just being silly. Unless you're trying to somehow convince us that innocently misreading a talk page entry by someone calling himself "Herostratus" (hint: not his real name) is some sort of "BLP violation," in which case you're just being, well, stupid.

Remember, The Wikipedia Review is not an encyclopedia. Moreover, if necessary we can move this thread to some other forum where Google and other search engines can't see it, which is something Wikipedia won't do for BLP's - even though they've had the technology for doing that all along.

[GlassBeadGame]

Before you condemn WR, get your own house in order, asshole.

aren't you the poster responsible for starting the irresponsible allegations of pedophilia based on a ridiculously obvious joke from Herostratus? even GlassBeadGame is repeating it still today (above)? absurd!

but since wikipedia review doesn't worry about blp violations at all, its not surprising that people would be accused of pedophilia based on evidence similar to oprah and the over 9000 penises claim.

Thank you Milowent for making a bold face liar out of Sue "Zero Tolerance" Gardner.

[Jon Awbrey]

I hope he makes a similar joke about having a bomb on an airplane the next time he flies. Then he will understand "zero tolerance."

Except on Transwiki Airlines, where certifiable dipshits have dipomatic immunity.

Jon

[CharlotteWebb]

aren't you the poster responsible for starting the irresponsible allegations of pedophilia based on a ridiculously obvious joke from Herostratus? even GlassBeadGame is repeating it still today (above)? absurd!

Try again with the adjectives inverted and you'll see how it looks from this perspective. This "joke" of his was (ridiculously) irresponsible and the conclusions to which it lent itself were obvious, hardly an accident on part of your resident "comedian".

[Somey]

Maybe we should merge the three current Herostratus-related threads into one big, impossible-to-follow thread...?

Just so as to cross the i's and dot the t's here (for the benefit of our less-directly involved readers), Mr. Herostratus seems to have come out of this recall vote without his admin rights, despite the fact that there were a significantly greater number of "support" votes than "oppose" votes. Apparently he had asked two other users, Tommy2010 (T-C-L-K-R-D) and Gwen Gale (T-C-L-K-R-D) , to form a "triumvirate" of sorts:

How this will be closed: According to the bureaucrats, they are not tasked with closing this type of RfA, or even allowed to (except in their capacity as regular editors). Therefore per various discussions and suggestions, I (Herostratus) will close the RfA myself, assisted by two editors I have asked who have been kind enough to agree to assist me. Thus the close will be made by a trio, with the majority prevailing. The editors I have selected are persons who, I believe, cannot be accused of being biased toward me personally or my situation generally. I hope and trust this is to everyone's satisfaction.

Tommy2010 and Herostratus both chose to treat the recall as an RfA in itself, meaning that it failed with less than an 80 percent "consensus" majority, while Gwen Gale chose to treat the recall as something requiring consensus to change, meaning it would have required an 80 percent "oppose" majority to remove Herostratus' admin rights.

It's interesting that the three of them didn't agree on this point in advance, but I suppose we can say that Herostratus (and Tommy2010) did everyone a favor by choosing to treat the process as an RfA, since this would make it easier to remove admins in future if this is used as a precedent. However, Wikipedians rarely (if ever) feel any need to rely on (or even refer to) precedent when it might mean that they could be thwarted in some way.

I have to admit that I myself read the above-quoted statement and assumed that the word "majority" meant that they were going to choose based on a simple majority of those voting, adjusting as necessary for, well, whatever it is they usually "adjust" for. In retrospect I probably wasn't paying sufficient attention to what was going on.

[CharlotteWebb]

Tommy2010 and Herostratus both chose to treat the recall as an RfA in itself, meaning that it failed with less than an 80 percent "consensus" majority, while Gwen Gale chose to treat the recall as something requiring consensus to change, meaning it would have required an 80 percent "oppose" majority to remove Herostratus' admin rights.

Eighty percent is pretty funny when granting said rights required only 73–79% support, depending on whether neutrals are part of the divisor or ignored completely.

Every recall process I've studied thus far has involved moving the goalposts while the ball is in flight. This is one reason I'd only support a universal de-adminning process which applies the same standards to everyone rather than a voluntary system which selects against those more interested in real "accountability" than playing silly buggers, while also disregarding the worst.

[Jon Awbrey]

So, did Parador or Patagonia win their socker match?

Jon

[Subtle Bee]

It's interesting that the three of them didn't agree on this point in advance, but I suppose we can say that Herostratus (and Tommy2010) did everyone a favor by choosing to treat the process as an RfA, since this would make it easier to remove admins in future if this is used as a precedent. However, Wikipedians rarely (if ever) feel any need to rely on (or even refer to) precedent when it might mean that they could be thwarted in some way.

I'm pretty sure WP excludes precedent on "principle", which is why every Arbcom ruling I've seen reads a lot like Bush V Gore. The fact that they didn't agree on even the basic understanding of what the hell it is they're doing here is completely unsurprising.

I have to admit that I myself read the above-quoted statement and assumed that the word "majority" meant that they were going to choose based on a simple majority of those voting, adjusting as necessary for, well, whatever it is they usually "adjust" for. In retrospect I probably wasn't paying sufficient attention to what was going on.

That is an interesting ambiguity, I myself glossed through it the other way.

[milowent]

Thank you Milowent for making a bold face liar out of Sue "Zero Tolerance" Gardner.

the official statement of a company becomes the reality in the weak-sauce "journalism" generally practiced these days. fox would rather report that pedophiles have found a home or whatever on wikipedia than actually explain the more complex reality.

if she says "Zero Tolerance" that's what will get reported again and again unless some horrible pedophile event is shown to occur.

[GlassBeadGame]

Thank you Milowent for making a bold face liar out of Sue "Zero Tolerance" Gardner.

the official statement of a company becomes the reality in the weak-sauce "journalism" generally practiced these days. fox would rather report that pedophiles have found a home or whatever on wikipedia than actually explain the more complex reality.

if she says "Zero Tolerance" that's what will get reported again and again unless some horrible pedophile event is shown to occur.

Unless Ms. Winter takes the trouble to check reality against the statement. She did something like this once, earning my respect regardless of her employer.

[Moulton]

I still don't know how to reliably distinguish a bald-faced liar from someone who is genuinely (but sincerely) self-deluded.

My experience with WikiCulture is that self-delusion is the norm there, and much more commonplace than intentional dissembling (where one utters a remark they know in their heart to be untrue).

In American (and British) culture (as distinguished from WikiCulture), it is permissible to utter a falsehood if the context is story-telling (clearly labeled as fiction) or jocular humor (where it is customary to laugh).

In my experience, WikiCulture does not embrace narrative fiction or jocular humor.

But it does embrace a curious culture of self-delusion, where the tools of accurate thought are not particularly welcome.