Wikipedia bans agenda-driven editor, but punishes the messenger too
wikipedia.fivefilters.org
wikipedia.fivefilters.org
Not at all! The highest positions in terms of the user rights granted would be Admins and Bureaucrats. The elections for those are the RfA and RfB (requests for Adminship and Bureaucratship respectively).
And contrary to what you might think, anyone with an account is free to nominate themselves, or to chime in on someone else's nomination (to the point that the process can be really hard to go through, as your history will be combed through relentlessly by overzealous users).
Note that those are not traditional elections either, instead of a pure vote, the process is more of a structured discussion to establish a consensus.
Like all places on the internet that grant special roles and privileges, you'll find people hungry for power, but Wikipedia fares pretty well in this respect.
The fact is many admins active today were voted in around 2007-2008 when the standards were much more lax, and because the process is so hard to go through fewer admins are elected these days.
I'm just a normal user myself, and sadly I don't have any good answer to that, the best one can do is participate and try to change things for the better.
At the core of it, these are all just people gathering around a common goal.
In fact, my article remains roughly the same, but is only half of what I was trying to make it because of what they did to me. I’m a hugely experienced editor who was researching the topic openly and transparently but was accused of an agenda because I showed my sources in the talk page of the article.
I complained on ANI and asked for help, but it was shutdown and nobody has ever reviewed the abuse I suffered from the other parties. Those other parties actively canvased on another board, and didn’t bother communicating with me. Then one of the editors actively changed the archives of the talk page of the article I was working on to auto archive in a few days and once all my talk discussions rapidly expired restored the default archive timeframe. Totally got away with it too!
Don’t think for a moment that most admins know what they are doing. They can’t, the topics are too broad and the agendas can often be opaque.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?limit=50&title=Special%...
And I never claimed that all the people involved are Wikipedia admins. In fact, I specifically didn't say any names. You will also note that I didn't initiate the edit warring notification.
And yet I did.
And I never said I didn't complain on that other board. In fact, if I recall correctly (and on this point, my memory may not be 100% correct, but you have raised this...) it wasn't me who initiated the notice, but I did respond.
What is your point? You are the one telling me I never took it to ANI.
In the end, I was clearly not in my right mind. I started having suicidal thoughts, and I did indeed edit as an IP address but not to evade any blocks. I accept that this was not wise, but in my own defense, I was in a heightened state of anxiety and unwell. After the whole debacle, I left Wikipedia and never came back.
It is remarkable that I didn't mention who I was, yet you know specific revisions from an IP address. Who exactly are you?
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11795753
And mentioned it several times since.
Avoidance of repercussions for people in positions of authority because of tenure is a steep slippery slope to hell.
Edit: hold on a tick, I didn't mention the article, my username or the people involved. And yet you know the article and specific edits to an edit to a relatively obscure Wikipedia board from over 3 years ago. Who are you again?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block...
That's one, singular, not "admins", plural. And xe blocked you. Xe did not ban you. An "experienced editor" knows the difference. ("Bans are different from blocks" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Banning_policy)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminis...
All of the mistreatment that you allude to ("actively canvassed on another board", which was in fact the BLP noticeboard) was not by that administrator, and not by anyone who was an administrator. Indeed, one of the people who was a Wikipedia administrator opined somewhat differently.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Letsbef...
The story of chris_wot versus the Wikipedia administrators doesn't stand up upon investigation.
Tim Starling blocked my IP address for a year, on my request (to be clear, Tim is a friend).
You have no idea what you are talking about.
And the board I'm talking about was the Australian Wikipedian's Noticeboard.
And believe me, I'm an experienced editor. I created the [citation needed] tag, started the ANI noticeboard and did a thousand and one other things that you don't know about on Wikipedia.
This is my last comment, the trauma is too great for me (I nearly killed myself over this) and I don't want any more Wikidrama to spill over onto HN. I have just emailed the HN admins to let them know this.
You'd think you wouldn't get tangled up in a BLP debate like that. %-/
Well that's creepy and shady isn't it?
What's the actual hard decider? Like for page edits if there's a conflict it basically escalates up the hierarchy right? If there's no consensus what happens in this admin/bureaocrat thing? Who decides what constitutes consensus?
The main idea is that because it's not a formal vote, there's isn't supposed to be a hard threshold for passing. Now in practice >75% of support almost always shows strong consensus, and will result in the request being a clear-cut accept. Similarly, if you get 65% oppositions, chances are your request can be closed without further considerations.
But what's important to keep in mind is that commenters are expected to explain the reason for their position, it's not just a +1/-1 system. If several people raised an important issue or found some serious problem with the way you've contributed recently, that's more important than the raw numbers.
When there's no clear consensus, generally your request will be postponed for a couple day until issues are resolved, or eventually fail. (In close cases a public chat with the Bureaucrats — the people responsible for enforcing the decision of the community — sometimes takes place to clear things up, but it's unheard of for crats to go against the opinion of the community)
>Like for page edits if there's a conflict it basically escalates up the hierarchy right?
It's not supposed to, really. If there's a conflict, we would really like everyone involved to go calmly discuss it in the article's Talk page with the community.
No one owns an article, no one who follows the rules has more right to edit it than anyone else.
When that fails and people cannot cooperate at all, it sadly has to escalate and can end in bans for the involved users.
>Who decides what constitutes consensus?
In the end the definition of what constitutes consensus is defined by the community, and that includes anyone that feels like starting a discussion and challenging the status quo. Wikipedia has no firm rules, just guidelines and policies that people have and continue to argue about endlessly.
That's the whole problem with Wikipedia, isn't it? It's full of messy, complicated, imperfect people.
I've read a lot of talk pages. Mainly about articles that had been deleted, I admit. But anyway, "explain the reason for their position" seems to all-too-often devolve into legalistic debates over rules, procedures and so on. And "several people raised an important issue or found some serious problem with the way you've contributed recently" seems to mostly be about gang warfare, not about the merits.
So basically, people who don't play the game well, and don't go along, tend to get banned.
It'd be far better if those who disagree with the consensus could stand aside, and have their own dissenting fork.
For example, I used to edit articles about international law on Wikipedia. Most of the edits were accepted no problem, but there are some countries that tends to violate a lot of international law. Those countries also have a huge amount of supporters on Wikipedia. Supporters who aren't really interested in international law, but are very interested in improving their countries reputation online. Long arguments doesn't convince these editors at all and due to their sheer number can block any edit they don't like.
Finding other editors interested in international law to combat this is impossible for two reasons. First, not many people are interested in legal topics and second, conflicts are risky. If you go up against "the consensus" too many times, you'll be labelled a trouble-maker and will have a harder time arguing your points of view in the future.
The only real solution is to network as hell and try to make allies ("you scratch my back I scratch yours") on Wikipedia. But that takes years so the only people who do it are those who get paid for their time or those who are truly obsessed zealots.
The role of editors is emphatically NOT to write their objective, honest assessment of a subject. It is to find reputable sources, and state whatever opinions they express.
Sources type things down; You report their views.
The only point left to argue is what sources are reputable, which source to pick other which. Only that's a much more productive debate to have since there's often a lot of precedent (the same controversial sources tend to come up again in different arguments about different topics), there are pretty clear guidelines to fall back to, and since it's not about a very narrow topic it's easy to bring outside people to the discussion.
I can't claim that this will magically solve every content dispute, clearly not, but if you're stuck arguing opinions on niche topics it's a good first step!
Serious irresolvable conflicts are decided by the Arbitration Committee for the particular language edition of Wikipedia, and the committee's decisions are binding.
Each language editions of Wikipedia has its own slightly different take on how the Arbitration Committee is selected and how it makes decisions, but the general gist is that commissioners are highly active editors (not necessarily administrators) who are elected for a limited term by a vote of active editors.
It's one of the better pitches for representative democracy, - making rulers at least semi-accountable to people who care about the outcomes instead of the infighting. But I think Wikipedia's "nomination and consensus" approach largely destroys that benefit by primarily engaging the people who care most about the internal politics of the system.
Wikipedia has a major problem handling inflammatory subculture issues, because the ratio of highly-invested partisans to casual observers is so high, and the topic is too arcane for most administrators to even decide what constitutes a bare-bones neutral article. At best, you end up with something where every single claim is caveated with "side A says, side B says" and so the broad thrust of the thing is incomprehensible. At worst, you end up with something that looks neutral because it has a 'Controversy' section, and obviously everything outside of that is just a review of facts, except it isn't at all.
There are lots of politically charged instances of this, but a fairly tame one is the article for any smallish town or school district. They seem to be written almost exclusively by members of the local Chamber of Commerce or PTA and disaffected high schoolers, because no one else knows or cares about the topic enough to edit, and so the page for every small town I've ever lived in is laughably inconsistent with what any actual resident would recognize.
And of course all of that is prior to 'citogenesis'; I'm pretty sure I've found a couple of claims that exist only because someone put them on Wikipedia. If that's not a win for someone trying to spin an issue I don't know what is.
Edit: OK, "too much evidence of corruption" isn't fair. It's just too politically complicated. I came out of academia. There's pervasive criticism and disputation, and indeed that's fundamental, but everyone gets (ideally) a fair chance to publish their stuff. And then, peers either pay attention or don't. But then, I left academia mainly over pervasive politics, so maybe I'm just too impatient.
I'm sure there's some way to create an evaluation of of the network of editors. We'd see that there are sections of Wikipedia where the editors all overlap and sections with near-zero connections, and those different sections are almost different worlds.
And about areas with sane editors, it's arguable that the rot runs all the way to the top.
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/wikipedia-...
But in the case of Uber, the internal company politics don't really affect my ride from point A to point B. The editorial policy within Wikipedia however may have an impact on the content I read. Particular on politically sensitive topics, it is important to keep a critical mind and be aware of the intentions of the authors.
What you lose in efficiency (as they refamiliarize themselves) -- you more than gain in healthier politics, cross-organization cooperation and knowledge, and overall following of rule of law / documentation.
Another example friend lives in a small rural town. The county sheriffs department rotates deputies every two years. Because the deputy needs to be willing to arrest respected members of the community for drunk driving and not be taking bribes from the local meth dealer.
This is a healthy practice in larger organizations. Not only does it avoid the concretion of personal politics but it exposes managers to a breadth of experience, which is useful if they are promoted. It also ensures that the organization has stretched its adaptation muscles regularly, and is not brittle in the event of personnel turnover.
I saw functionally identical insurance companies with and without the practice. Those without were, every single time, more disfunctional and less likely to successfully deliver projects.
Best thing that happened to them was they let one of my utterly burned out coworker go, followed by exit of myself and another more sr engineer. Which forced them to hire three outsiders within a short span.
1. Lying about conducting background checks on drivers, some of whom committed violent crimes against women passengers,
2. Illegally obtaining a the medical history of a woman who was raped by her Uber driver in an attempt to discredit her claims against the company,
3. And coercing rape victims into arbitration clauses that mandate silence against the company.
Of course, men can be victims of sexual assault, but it's a crime that disproportionately affects women, and, perhaps, if Uber's internal culture wasn't so anti-woman it's possible they would have treated women customers better as well.
https://www.cnet.com/news/uber-faces-8-9m-fine-in-colorado-f...
http://fortune.com/2018/04/26/uber-rape-victims-arbitration/
Further, the desire to create a 'neutral' 'encyclopedia' online is presumably what drives the entire Wikipedia community. I'd wish for a Wikipedia that consistently allows all viewpoints to be given an opportunity to be presented on any given topic, but I have no faith that such a thing is possible given the pervasiveness of the idea of neutrality and the interests at work to preserve that myth.
You can recognize bias and try to avoid it, like Wikipedia, by requiring credible citations and having processes to avoid editorial bias from impacting the end result (which it obviously did, eventually, as we're reading about here). Like CNN, the WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg, WP, and many other sources of information (across the political spectrum) do every day.
Or you can go the route of Fox news, take a pronounced editorial bias that takes clear precedence over reporting facts. I would post video of Jeanine Pirro or Hannity, but it seems unecessarily crude.
It also ignores that the degree to which a sources "credibility" derives from your agreement with it, and therefore its political bias. When a source you agree with says something wrong, this is seen as an honest mistake, but when you disagree with them, it acts as a tarnish on their credibility forever more. Wikipedia editors can use "credibility" to prevent others from correcting their ommissions.
The only reason the posted article exists and that we are having this thread is that Wikipedia takes pains to be unbiased and has some expectations of being so by reputation.
>like CNN, WP, NYT
Um... really? Are you saying those three specifically aren’t putting out very biased results? You could be left of Marx and know that isn’t true for those three specifically. Esp CNN!
The only explanation here is a different topic, that you yourself are so biased that you think CNN is putting out good journalism.
ps: instead of downvoting, why don't you do something more effective, and post an example of biased reporting by CNN (and something that isn't a story about a biased article that resulted in reporters being disciplined or fired)
The news is almost all factual but is meant to swing a person's opinion in just about every way without actually citing false facts (unless the subject is WMDs in Iraq). It is probably the best TV news source we have in the US but it still sets a fairly low bar in terms of objectivity.
Oftentimes, just leaving out certain facts while including others can have just as much of an influence as citing false facts outright, especially when done repeatedly.
The Clinton campaign specifically asked the news media (including CNN, WP, NYT) to increase coverage of Trump (as well as Carson and Cruz). This is so that they'd either have someone easier to beat in the case of these 'pied piper' candidates, or pull a stronger opponent farther right come the general.
Nate Silver didn't know about this in March of 2016 when he wrote that article.
Don't like Trump? Thank Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and the media for playing along.
I don't understand what you mean by this. What exactly do you mean by nihilism in this context?
"Nobody can avoid being X, so therefore X is pervasive, and it is pointless to try to constrain X"
In this case, it's "everyone has bias, so being unbiased is possible, therefore all viewpoints are equally valid and should be presented as such".
You can substitute X with greed, violence, jealousy... any human failing, and it can be used as a method to justify poor behavior by appealing to epistemological or moral nihilism (all knowledge, morality). It's essentially the last refuge of people backed into a corner of epistemic closure and an attempt to avoid reconciling their worldview with reality but rejecting that there is any knowable basis for morality or truth.
Which is correct. There is no such thing as The Morality or The Truth or The Good. They are but figments of our imagination, byproducts of a mind that's evolved to generate patterns and see order in the chaos that is reality. Blame Plato's witchcraft.
That's not a nihilist. It's being defeatist. Giving up because you can't win is defeat. Giving up because there's really no point in the first place is nihilism.
When I go to an article about quantum mechanics, I don’t need a section on The Secret because it’s a “viewpoint” that exists. I want a curated experience, not the full hue and cry of the Internet. I also want to avoid undue bias, but that doesn’t mean a total abrogation or editorial policy.
For example, I have no doubt that the flat earth theory is incorrect, but it wouldn't bother me if it we're included in Wikipedia. How can anyone learn to think critically if certain ideas are forbidden? And once the idea that it's ok to forbid certain ideas takes hold, the list of forbidden ideas always expands. That is far more dangerous than allowing what seem to be obviously ridiculous ideas to be expressed.
The problem with editorial policy for a site like Wikipedia is who gets to decide what that policy is? Thus, we have the endless fights like this one. It's avoidable in theory, but "curation" is always in vogue -- so long as the curators think like us.
Sure, but it belongs in its own article (where it is found) not in the middle of the articles on Earth, geography, etc.
- if they are badly argued ideas they will stand in stark contrast to well supported ideas, naturally diffusing the benefit that conspiracy theories often gain from being "banned" in the style of "what they don't want you to know"-type arguments.
- The best way to critique an idea into the ground is to understand it better than its advocates.
- Even a bad idea can raise questions of good ideas, in the same vein as getting to the right answer through the wrong reasoning. Poking holes in our best ideas forces innovation.
- More awareness of the kind of ideas that exist in the world is, in my opinion, never a bad thing.
- An outlier opinion can still be right. Obviously theories like flat earth don't fall into this category, but quantum mechanics and heliocentrism once did.
So why entertain it? Because of some vague ideological opposition to curation? It seems to me, from experience at least, thst it usually has to do with a desire to use “universal acceptance” as an excuse to smuggle someone’s own pet crank idea into the mix. Creationists don’t seriously care about scientific inquiry or bias, they just started using those lines when legal bans on teaching evolution failed. Fascists and racists turned from trying to dominate society, to undermining it.
Once an idea has been thoroughly and comprehensively discredited it’s a waste of time at best, propaganda at worst. Yes, it can be challenging to deal with ideas on the borderline, and we should always try harder, but the solution isn’t intellectual nihilism. Ceasing to use any critical thinking because it might invite bias is a bad idea, and I think only really put forth by people who’s marginal ideas have no other hope of being heard.
After all, terrible ideas are documented, but there’s no moral, practical or intellectual reasons to document them everywhere.
If an idea is badly argued - it's not yet ready/mature enough to be described in encyclopaedia.
The best way to critique an idea into the ground needs to happen in the scientific discussion, and only the aftermath of that critique needs to be included in an encyclopaedia.
Poking holes in our best ideas - again, that's the scientific discussion happening on papers in response to other papers; this process is good and important, but it should happen in that medium, and kept out of Wikipedia.
More awareness of wrong ideas without appropriate disclaimers that they're wrong and why they're so leads to mass disinformation and is essentially harmful propaganda. There is a tradeoff between being authorative+truthful and all-encompassing; getting one of those requires to actively work against the other. As Wikipedia has chosen that it "wants" to work towards the first, so it's chosen not to be the place that will facilitate "more awareness of the kind of ideas that exist in the world" - this was a contentious issue some decades ago, resulting multiple other wiki-like resources with lower criteria for notability, achieving what you propose but sacrificing other things that are important for Wikipedia.
An outlier opinion can later be shown to be right - when that happens, an encyclopaedia like Wikipedia should describe it.
I don't doubt that a neutral article about anything is possible. The problem is removing from the loop those who care deeply about it.
...Assuming that is the goal instead of seeking out counter-narratives to fulfill confirmation bias and fuelling the outrage culture that has exploded in recent years (and which online newspapers have learned to feed into they way 24/7 news shows have been doing for years). The fact she summarized it as lies says a lot.
It is about Wales/Wikipedia demanding diffs to substantiate "outrageous" claims and ignoring the very diffs that are presented multiple times by multiple people. Then it is about punishing those who provided the diffs. It's about sickness not neutrality
:edit perhaps you are referring not to Wikipedia, but to the lack of a need for any curated "neutral" documentation available on the web.
Why would an organized group use one account to make thousands of edits in their own favour? That would make it really obvious it's coming from one source and make themselves far easier to spot.
The fact he's a conservative poster, with people on both sides showing highly-politicized tendencies (including his favourite targets for abuse who themselves are known for highly polarizing politics) my default response here it to be highly skeptical of claims that it is some organized grand scheme by some party, intel agency, or group of rich people to manipulate the world for the worse.
That secret "cabal" behind everything bit is a cliche pattern in political conspiracy theories.
There have been plenty of individual Wikipedia editors with an inhuman-amount of work they contributed. You find prolific contributors like that in open-source projects all the time too.
"Cabal" is a strawman. Think "PR office with outsourced help" for one much more mundane hypothesis that fits the available facts.
Except in Wikipedia's case, it's been shown, on numerous occasions, that such a thing _does_ exist. Backdoor channels, IRC, mailing lists, where a small in-crowd of Administrators regularly ask for "backup" when they're about to do something, shall we say "contentious", and make clear that certain topics are only to be discussed there, where there are no logs, rather on other moderated forums.
As a Canadian I find Wikipedia very US-biased. Such topics as the Alaskan panhandle or Machias Island or anything the US views as right from its viewpoint.
However, when you approach a topic having to do with everyday politics, the neutral point of view is nothing but a dream. A noble dream, but a dream nonetheless. There would be facts omitted, there would be facts presented in a distorted fashion, there would be biased sources quoted, there would be claims that the source does not support, there would be unsourced claims, there would be biased and agenda-driven language. There be dragons.
And that is just from well-meaning (and probably even supporting the NPOV dream if asked) volunteers, I am not even talking about paid and conflict-of-interest (i.e. editing page about oneself or one's boss) editors which exist too. Such is human nature. It is possible to fight it, and sometimes it is possible to win, but it is hard, annoying, exhausting and demands a lot of time. So, a lot of people don't have time or desire to get into this. Which means, be careful with Wikipedia pages that are about current politics.
There's cliques, arcane rules, and always always an agenda. It would make for a fascinating study on human behavior and how it relates to politics in the real world. Wikipedia internal politics are a scary beast fraught with peril. And the actual content suffers horribly.
I find it useful for browsing on subjects that interest me but I don't tend to use it for subjects that are too controversial. At least superficially. And yet given what I know about the biases of Internet denizens I have to wonder how much of what I expose myself to is accurate and not the result of some weird personal biases.
I also consider the citations listed in the footnotes which gives me a bit more confidence than none, I suppose.
Plus if it's about idk, community votes, those are easily cheated on with bots, farms and/or brigades.
But of course, you'd need consensus labels, but at least that seems more feasible than consensus articles.
So could that ever happen in Wikipedia as it stands?
As it is now, there's pressure to merge forks, right?
And indeed, I see that Larry Sanger has been championing a blockchain-based alternative, Everipedia.[1] Wikipedia calls it "commercial".[2] And I see that its business model relies so far on ads and sponsorship notices.
However, I gather that they didn't just clone existing Wikipedia content. But accounts are invite-only, and I don't do either Telegram or Reddit. I wonder why they didn't use Wikipedia content. Maybe they don't want to use Creative Commons licensing.
Edit: Damn, Telegram wants a mobile number, which Mirimir doesn't have. So is there another way to get an invitation to Everipedia?
Smaller wikis sometimes have been successfully forked though. And true: Spanish Wikipedia DID pull it off, I guess due to being early. :-)
Would not work.
There are a lot of alternative wikis. Almost any forum or web has one (and they are like a deserted city). Most of them (if not all) would fall into two types: The private wikis restricted to a small topic and paid by the owner of the brand; and the wikis covering any topic and supported by volunteers
The first group are created to keep control over a product (films, music, superheros) and promote a fanbase. This is supported by the owner of the brand normally. If done by fans will be quickly closed if damages the image of the product in any way, so is free to say anything only if this helps to sell the product.
The second ones are created normally as a parody of wikipedia. Treating all topics for comedic effect and shock value. A new something-pedia would be instantly classified as parody and ravaged by trolls, or would be jailed inside the boundaries of some very specialised topic.
Philip Cross cannot be said to be an agenda driven editor; people checked all the evidence (One person went so far as to hand-check and score large samples of his edits; a hellish job!). The facts just weren't there to support that assertion.
KalHolmann was ultimately NOT the messenger here, and was also not the person who brought the arbitration case. In fact, when KalHolmann was explicitly invited to help sort things out, they couldn't back out fast enough. What little KalHolmann did do brought more heat than light to the situation.
Correct, and if I recall correctly, former threads discussing pages on that website had highlighted that. It does not seem to be the be the case in this thread.
Philip Cross edits in different areas, e.g. jazz and film. He's highly prolific. He needn't have an agenda in all areas to be called an agenda-driven editor in other areas. And the fact that he's made over a 100,000 edits means someone who approaches an examination of his edits by looking at a small random sample of his total output (as the editor you mention did) is not likely to come up with anything useful (I think this was pointed out to him). So to say "the facts just weren't there to support that assertion" is not really true. We've documented his editing in three articles now:
* https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/
* https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/agenda.html
* https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/evidence/
Readers can make up their own minds.
> KalHolmann was ultimately NOT the messenger here, and was also not the person who brought the arbitration case.
Who was the messenger, then? As far as we're aware, he was the Wikipedia editor who attempted to notify the community to the problems when the story emerged. Only to be shut down by admin Guy - who, it should be mentioned, appears to be an acquaintance of yours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JzG/Archive_155#meat...
> In fact, when KalHolmann was explicitly invited to help sort things out, they couldn't back out fast enough. What little KalHolmann did do brought more heat than light to the situation.
He withdrew because of the way he was treated by Wikipedia admins, including Guy (your friend/acquaintance), and the arbitrators who started censoring his contributions. Anyone can read his contribution to the case here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=845422299&oldid=84... and the edit history which shows editing of his contributions (mostly permanently deleted now by the arbitrators): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitra...
> Fivefilters.org is very good at cherry-picking; they are quite ...selective... with the truth.
You've not really demonstrated that with your contributions here.
* A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109849
* Update: The agenda-driven edits of Philip Cross and Wikipedia's response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17169786
As you observed: after reading your first story, I managed to convince JzG to at least consider changing tack wrt Kalholmann. Which they did!
Unfortunately Kalholmann was a very bad choice for a champion. In fact, they decided to post Personally Identifying Information right in full view of the arbitration committee; even after being advised not to! (this behavior is at best unethical, arguably illegal, but definitely against the rules!)
In practice, the ironic fact is that JzG turned out to be more effective for your cause than Kalholmann!
I guess I'm just surprised that you're still sticking with your old story, even despite the added clarity of 20/20 hindsight.
You appear to be rather prone to cherry-picking. I'm not sure whether this is by accident or on purpose. (I'm also not sure if it matters; either way it causes harm!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking
Care to provide some evidence?
Worth pointing out that Philip Cross never claimed to be using a pseudonym. In fact he claimed the opposite, right on Wikipedia: stating that he wasn't using a pseudonym. He linked his Twitter account to his Wikipedia account. None of this was exposed due to sleuthing/doxxing - it was simply what he himself stated. So there was understandably a lot of confusion around posting personally identifiable information (ie. his name) when he himself claims on Wikipedia that that is what he's called and he's not operating under a pseudonym.
Also, did you see Guy/JzG's own doxxing effort? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests... (he outed someone and another admin had to revision delete his outing). Curious that you don't consider that a big offense, but are happy to accuse Kal Holmann of something without providing any links.
> In practice, the ironic fact is that JzG turned out to be more effective for your cause than Kalholmann!
It's hilarious that you're still attempting to defend JzG. How can we know he was more effective? We can't see how this would have turned out had JzG not interfered. So why speculate? But there's plenty he did wrong, and faced no consequences for, which we are attempting to highlight.
> I guess I'm just surprised that you're still sticking with your old story, even despite the added clarity of 20/20 hindsight.
You've done little to bring clarity here.
In the mean time Kalholmann was your best friend ever... and somehow every time they tried something, they got themselves in more trouble and ultimately got sanctioned by the arbitration committee. (also as reported by you)
Yup, right, clearly your narrative makes perfect sense here. Good job, well done. ;-)
( Just because someone doesn't immediately prostrate themselves and profess their undying loyalty to your cause, that doesn't mean they can't effectively be your friend-du-jour. Vice versa, just because someone does say they support you doesn't mean they're automatically competent and able to help.)
We never said JzG had it in for us. We highlighted problems with his conduct in relation to the case. And what we consider the double standards of the arbitration committee when it came to certain parts of their decision.
> In the mean time Kalholmann was your best friend ever... and somehow every time they tried something, they got themselves in more trouble and ultimately got sanctioned by the arbitration committee. (also as reported by you)
Your comment here suggests that you think the arbitration committee can do no wrong. We're highlighting what we think is unfair treatment in this case (with supporting evidence). The fact that the story got voted to the front page of Hacker News shows that many others find it convincing too. The many comments here also show that people have had their own experiences of unfair treatment participating in Wikipedia.
> ( Just because someone doesn't immediately prostrate themselves and profess their undying loyalty to your cause, that doesn't mean they can't effectively be your friend-du-jour. Vice versa, just because someone does say they support you doesn't mean they're automatically competent and able to help.)
You're stating the obvious here, but we don't need to talk about hypotheticals. We can examine the conduct of everyone involved. We've tried to support our position by showing evidence of what we consider is unfair treatment. I haven't been convinced otherwise by your contributions, but maybe others will be.
Not picking any particular side, but there seems to have been some real life disagreement that is playing out on Wikipedia.
[1] http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/11/neil_clark.html
[2] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-c...
[3] http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-sign-of-times-vici...
I’m not certain we have heard the full story on this.
One thing I will say: I often regret creating the admin’s noticeboard. It helped centralise control and the incidents offshoot is a cesspool of conflict. It often is not managed well at all.
0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_no...
> He is without question a controversial figure, and not in a good way
That is, without any need for further context, a statement of bias, and if the user Guy is espousing such views of relevant subjects here they absolutely shouldn't be involved in decision-making of any kind on this topic. This follow-up statement is worse again:
> ... and allow PC to definitively clear his name
Presumption of innocence is one thing, but presumption of a future outcome of arbitration is quite another.
It's pretty clear where Guy stands on this from the outset, and it's not good.
Whether this applies to Galloway is a matter of popular opinion. Look at Assange. First he was hailed as a hero in the West; now he's looked at as a Russian agent.
Edit: Unless I missed a multiple negative.
Of course not. I'm just saying that judgement of whether it is in "a good way" or "not a good way" will always be subjective, and representative of a biased viewpoint. Noone is completely unbiased but espousing such a viewpoint publically on a thread about arbitration isn't in keeping with responsibilities of Wikipedia's admins.
> Whether this applies to Galloway is a matter of popular opinion.
The popularity of the opinion should not be a qualifier for it to make up a part of a Wikipedia aministrator's discourse on non-biased arbitration.
Mr. Galloway has a long history of loud oppositional politics and tribal attacks on his opponents. There are politicians I profoundly disagree with and yet respect for their service and their conduct; George Galloway is not one of them.
Neutrality between fact and proven falsehood isn't neutrality but pandering. Noting when discussing Mr. Galloway that his conduct has repeatedly fallen far from truth and decency is a reasonable and well-referenced baseline. We wouldn't require an admin on a page discussing the physical structure of the earth to recuse themselves because they had expressed a public opinion that it wasn't flat and carried on the back of a turtle, would we?
... and it's mostly irrelevant. A good Homo wikipediens, like a good judge or journalist or scientist, may well have his biases and private opinions, but is supposed to be able to put those initial biases and private opinions aside, impartially delve into the sources, and write a neutral, well-researched article about a subject.
« being attacked by RT and George Galloway is a reasonably reliable indicator that you are doing something right »
Ok this just further proves my point. If you're justifying your actions based on the identity of individuals who criticise them (particularly individuals you've already previously stated your own negative views on), then that's the very definition of bias.
If you need to do this to defend your position, personalising and individualising it rather than sticking to objective statements, there's a problem and you are not a neutral party.
(Ironically: in small wikis you actually need to have centralised places like this, else no community can form. :-/ )
https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/994264792062885895?s=...
I really hope this is not based in some right vs left wing political drama and is legitimately about abusive behaviour.
Listening to the BBC show (as I'm not very familiar with this story), it sounds like it's a lot of one and a little of the other https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csws6q
Other news sources, like Fox, don't even bother.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19iht-wiki.1.7...
Now the internet today seems to be mostly ads, corporate corruption, government censorship, and political outrage. It's a shame. I don't enjoy the internet half as much anymore. Maybe it's more my age or that I'm used to the technology now, but it really feels like we lost something innocent and special about the early days of the internet.
Actually I miss the web from 1999-2004 for the exact same reasons you do, and 2008 was already way downhill for me. But when I think about it a bit more carefully... How old was I at the time? 14-19... An age where almost everything is exciting and new: music, parties, friends, philosophy, technology you name it. I can easily apply this sentiment to most categories of interest during this time period.
I wonder if in 15 years from now, the people around 30 will rumble about how wonderful it was back then, when it was all the rage to be on Instagram etc. and how easy it was to connect to people, and how quickly you could organize events via social media.
The fact that it's in San Francisco is icing on the cake.
No more biased edits from the accused, and no more witch-hunting from the whistleblower.
Relevant quotes from article:
Philip Cross is indefinitely topic banned from edits relating to post-1978
British politics, broadly construed. This restriction may be first appealed
after six months have elapsed, and every six months thereafter
KalHolmann is indefinitely restricted from linking to or speculating about
the off-wiki behavior or identity of other editors. This restriction may be
first appealed after six months have elapsed, and every six months thereafter
I think the issue raised is the definition of Holmann's actions as whistleblowing or witchhunting.
If it's the latter, that would seem to imply he shouldn't have engaged in that witchhunt, in which case the ban on Philip Cross would definitely not have come to pass. Are you saying this should be the case?
If it's the former (whistleblowing), it can't be defined as witchhunting and you must agree Holmann should not be restricted.
You can only agree with one of the above and remain logically consistent.
> I request that Philip Cross be topic banned from editing George Galloway and the other "goons" with whom he is at war—Matthew Gordon Banks, Craig Murray, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Tim Hayward (academic), Piers Robinson, and Media Lens— all of whose Wikipedia pages Cross has frequently edited. KalHolmann (talk) 21:04, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
Five minutes after posting that, your acquintance Wikipedia admin Guy rejected it, as he'd done the previous attempt (also within minutes).
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminis...
As it turns out, two months later, the arbitration committee essentially ruled agreeing with his initial request (and in fact broadening the ban to all of post-1978 British politics).
So your claim that he was "producing more heat than light" is nonsensical.
One of KalHolmann's key actions in response was to seek to be removed from the case entirely! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests...
Do you deny that this happened? Would you put forward the position that KalHolmann changed his mind later? Or (checking the record) do you see that mostly other people took over and examined the case instead?
(+edit): Ah, here's the first statement by KalHolmann on 26 may, which is a bit more ambiguous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitra...
It could just be that KalHolmann isn't sure of their footing: It's still not the most brilliant of openings in building a case against Philip Cross of course. I was disappointed.
In light of that, Kal Holmann's statement which you linked above makes perfect sense. He was dragged into an arbitration dispute by a Wikipedia admin (Guy/JzG) who you seem very keen to defend, and then posted a statement denying the accusations levelled against him. Wikipedia arbitrators end up punishing Kal but say not a word about Guy/JzG's actions.
JzG changed tack because I poked them and pointed them at your story.
JzG went back to admin's noticeboard to gather further input, and people confirmed that an Arbcom case would indeed have merit.
At that point, the Arbcom case became inevitable.
Now, as an honorable human being, you can't go and start something, and then when it happens turn around and get cold feet.
I'm a bit disappointed in KalHolmann because they ran away when things Got Interesting.
I'm also disappointed in you because your stories turned out to actually not be as well researched as they seemed at first blush.
I now regret my own part in this :-/
Not true. The community is more than able to reach a decision without arbitrators. As was done when they voted to topic ban him from George Galloway.
> JzG changed tack because I poked them and pointed them at your story.
That doesn't excuse or explain his shutting down of Kal Holmann's initial report of conflict of interest - there was plenty in there deserving of discussion whether one looked at our story or not. And part of Guy/JzG's 'changing tack' was to misrepresent the issue by making it out to be a dispute mainly between Philip Cross and George Galloway, confusing other editors in the process. Something that the arbitrators also failed to comment on in their decision, but appeared to be aware of because they re-titled his arbitration case from "George Galloway" to "BLP issues on British politics articles" and later expanded the scope of the ban even more to "post-1978 British politics". Quite a jump from Guy's preferred focus of just Geroge Galloway.
> Now, as an honorable human being, you can't go and start something, and then when it happens turn around and get cold feet.
You're not making sense. Earlier you wrote "KalHolmann...was also not the person who brought the arbitration case." So why are you now saying he started it and then got cold feet?
The fact is he didn't start it. Guy/JzG requested it and dragged him into it with false accusations. I started to participate in the evidence phase of the arbitration case myself and was alarmed at the way the arbitrators were treating Kal so I withdrew too. The rest of the evidence we published on our own site. I won't rehash what I've already said in my other replies to you here regarding this, they're easy enought to find. You seem determined to misrepresent this story without providing any useful evidence. Bit rich to be accusing us of "cherry picking".
On the one hand, JzG is obviously not your yes-man; this particular person has a mind of their own and presented the case from their own perspective. That said -on balance- their behavior came out in your favor. (as is abundantly clear now that we have 20/20 hindsight)
Kalholmann was given every opportunity to set/correct the record from their own perspective, but they just didn't take it. Hence my dissapointment.
You and I are working with the same set of evidence. I guess the main difference (if even that) is that I'm not just reading the partial account on your site, but I am also reading directly from the primary source including the bits that your team have left out.
Obviously our interpretation differs. ;-)
I guess only you yourself can know whether you are deliberately spinning things; or whether you are genuinely personally convinced by the narrative that you present.
You miss the point. You wrote "if Philip Cross's alleged conflict of interest were to be examined and dealt with, ultimately it would need to be looked at by the arbitration committee." I was pointing out that that is not in fact true. The Wikipedia community can make decisions without referring everything to the arbitration committee. I wasn't expressing an opinion about whether this case should or should not have gone to the committee.
Edit: It's just in my browser of choice that it appears as grey on white. It looks much better on Chrome.
I don't think I need to explain why some website might not display correctly with it, even if most website are displaying correctly. But I haven't look why this one in particular is not working.
Edit: It's also possible that we tweaked the CSS it generated, which might have caused this, so I'd rather not blame it on their theme before I test it.
Also on Edge I see the same white background as on IE, but I'm on Windows 10 1703, if it's a version dépendent bug.
Typora's themes use CSS3 variables which aren't supported in IE and weren't supported in Edge until more recently. I tried on Edge 42 (EdgeHTML 17) when I said the background colour displayed correctly. Perhaps you're using an older version of Edge (the version is displayed at the bottom of the settings panel).
In any case, I've added CSS to set the background colour without using CSS variables. It now shows correctly for me in IE 11 too.
Thanks for letting us know.