I just went over to Derktar's excellent 'timeline' [link removed, looks like the number goes to a totally different thread now, I guess because of all the thread wipes that were done, ugh - anyone remember what the title was?] ... and, BTW, loved the interview Somey, I must have skipped over that when it happened originally!

Kinda shame privatemusings seemed to flick pretty fast from you to moulton and the others tho, didn't really seem to give you much more of a chance to say anything more than introducing yourself, kinda distracts from the point that the point of the site *isn't* just "for banned editors"... I think that was probably the reason for a lot of the backlash there, reinforced prejudices, it was a bit "oh, here's Somey, and this is wikipedia review: *passes to the LOUDEST people they that aren't representative of everyone, whilst ignoring the quieter people who tend to post more calmer less vitriolic stuff.*" ---- Hate brings more hate, should have had an announcement here asking for opinions from everyone really and get more in it from the start, I realise they had 'other voices' at the end, but the whole thing shouldn't have been about "Who's the ANGRIEST?" Bleh, too late now tho.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:NotTheWikipediaWeekly/Episode_6


This stuff is funny, tho :


wikidefender.blogspot.com ↑ Giggle. I could quote it a LOT, but yeah, read if you haven't seen. At first I was reading it like I would one of blissyu2 or that other crazy, can't remember name, posted rather deranged oneliners with smileys a lot? And that one who kept making random legal threats in email and trying to get the FBI and military generals on me? But yeah, it's a fake. Sad that it's actually believable, though.

Apparently there was a thread on it too::
wikipediareview.com/?showtopic=17174





ANYWAY. I thought I'd google around cos a) it's kind of interesting to look back on it and b) always fun to read about 'what happened next' when I stopped getting personally involved in that drama...
Some people are just drawn into these obsessive behaviours and *do not have the ability to learn to change themselves*, literally, not the ability. See the same mental type in Baxter. It's not *really* their fault if they *can't* learn. And even, *don't want to* learn is also partly biological, hormones, tribal behaviour... At some point you have to say, yeah, people have free will... But so much is affected by external factors I'm not really sure where to draw the line.

Durova maybe deserves at least an honourary mention for the "citizen's militia"/gestapo-like behaviour. Like, an honourary trenchcoat/cape dagger like a secret society or jackboot or something.
• antisocialmedia.net/durovas-formerly-secret-evidence
• old.nabble.com/Missed-Opportunities-to-have-avoided-the-Durova-Case-td13965132.html



The big thing though, is: soon as one is knocked down, new ones rise, it's the problem of the format not the people. Concentrating on the people loses the important question of WHY it happens when humans gather in large groups, and even more importantly: how to prevent it and steer people towards acting more like humans act ideally rather than how they actually tend to. But how, that is the big question? [b]I was wondering what you lot thought specifically before asking anyone else, cos I'm sure it's been discussed to death already, but yeah. Why does everything always seem to fail every time someone tries to create something organised by people? It can't be rigid structures needed to 'enforce' people to act certain ways, because Wikipedia has that.

At least, enforced by human beings, we know that doesn't work. I think maybe the idea of making real names and stuff is actually the wrong way, maybe the whole problem with Wikipedia is that it's based *so much* on peoples' personalities, maybe something that is *more* anonymous is the solution?

But then part of the reason why Wikipedia has less problems than it does is because most people don't realise that the threat of bans etc are empty and unenforcable, it's a bit of a mind game like airport security etc. Grounded in human nature. And the social aspects of people decorating pages like peacocks and fluffing up their personal power/responsibilities is comparable to myspace/facebook, which actually gives people more of an attachment on what they do and keeps them coming back more than they might otherwise. I dunno.

(BTW some of your blog posts are really good I should try get more read!)

(BTW anyone find that compared to other forums WR is a bit hard to read on large screens like 1920x? The lines carry on forever, we prob should look at making it adjust (though not locked in, like with skin), I can only imagine how it must look on 30" 2560x screens, hmm)

(Moved this from the mod forum, posted April last year, never got any replies, I guess I was being a bit naive)

It seems to me the prevailing system is people who show up early get trusted and installed in leadership positions, and after that it takes a stick of dynamite to blast them out (Wikipedia included).

It happens because it's the path of least resistance. Once you have a few reliable administrators it's tempting to get in a rut, and let them become lifers, but there's a reason we have two year terms in government. I'm not saying the US House of Representatives is a perfect model for management of an online forum, but there has to be something better than the first dibs method.

The other thing is online people have such fragile egos, that even when they are appallingly bad at their job and everyone can see it, it's still traumatic for them to go from being "admin" to "member".

Why was that in the mods forum in the first place? Wouldn't discussing that sort of thing "in there" rather than "out here" feed the very phenomenon you were concerned about?

Because it was mods in particular who I was hoping would read and take notice, where I figured it'd probaby just be lost in the sea of other posts otherwise (but yeah, it was just ignored anyway).

Well (and apologies for hijacking a bit, but hopefully this will be the end of the hijack), there was a long tradition of not discussing things there unless it was about whether or not a particular mod action should be undertaken. Personally I was impressed when I first saw it, and noticed the sound of crickets.