Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:45, 21 February 2006

Introduction

This page is temporarily devoted to identifying and exposing a group of contributors whose actions persistently violate the spirit of Misplaced Pages. They consistute a federation dedicated to enforcing their own common POV. Their principal forum is the Christianity page but they also operate on related pages.

Their objectives appear to be the enforcement of a particular religious Point of View, but may be simply to waste the time of genuine contributors, or to annoy and frustrate them in the hope of producing an extreme reaction. It is also possible that these users are such zealous believers that they are genuinely unable to distinguish between their own religious ideas and NPOV.

In any case, if you are thinking of editing any pages where they operate you may wish to review the rest of this page before you start.

If having read this page you would like to provide information for inclusion on it, please add it to the discussion page (Case studies or insights into motivations particularly welcomed).

DWEECs

For convenience this group are collectively called DWEECs

The group discussed on this page is a federation of Devout, Western, Educated, Ecumenical, Christians (DWEECs). Their favourite technique is to give genuine contributers the run around, pretending to be objective and striving to be NPOV, while making a series of increasingly unsustainable demands (eg asking for citations, then more citations, better citations, later citations, and so on). Their objectives seem to be to keep the text sympathetic to their own common POV. Their contributions often descend into edit wars - which is why for example the article on Christianity is disfigured a number of NPOV warning banners and the page needs to be locked from time to time. Some of the more accomplished trolls can be identified only by reviewing their activities over a long time, as they take care to conform to the letter of the rules and to be extremely polite to theit victims.

The DWEECs are all Christian believers but they do not all belong to the same denomination. They all have a heavy (often explicit) bias towards ecumenicalism and towards conservative Western strands of belief. They will immediately change (usually by reverting) any contribution which does not conform to their collective POV. For example any contribution that can be interpreted as critical of Christianity (however well supported), any contribution that refers to schisms involving modern Churches, and any contribution that appear to show extinct sects or Eastern Churches as having better claims than their own Churches. They will often act in concert so as not to technically breach the 3R rule – acting much like a ready made band of meatpuppets.

Trolls

These users have been accused of being trolls. While this page is not making this claim, here is some information about trolls which will help you decide for yourself:

"Trolling is deliberate and intentional attempts to disrupt the usability of Misplaced Pages for its editors, administrators, developers, and other people who work to create content for and help run Misplaced Pages. Trolling is deliberate violation of the implicit rules of Internet social spaces. It is necessarily a value judgement made by one user about the value of another's contribution." From (WP:DNFT)

"Not all edit war trolls will choose subject matter that is obviously controversial. The defining characteristic of a troll in this case is not the content of the edit, but the behavior in discussing the edit, and the refusal to consider evidence and citations or to accept consensus or compromise." From (WP:DNFT)

"When you try to decide if someone is a troll, strive to assume they are not. Explain errors politely and reasonably; point them towards policies, the manual of style and relevant past discussions. Don't conclude they are a troll until they have shown complete inability or unwillingness to listen to reason or to moderate their position based upon the input of others."(WP:DNFT)

"Administrators are not empowered to block usernames for "trolling"." WP:DNFT

Advice to people mistaken for Trolls: "If people are saying you're a troll because you do X, don't do X."(WP:DNFT). Compelling evidence that the alleged trolls really are trolls is the persistent refusal to follow this guidance.

Trolls' characteristicae. Reproduced from More information about Trolls]

1) They have a lot of free time, they are mostly lonely people. 2) They often ingratiate themselves to a person or two on the group and use them to stay in the group. They may protest with these "friends" that their right to free speech is being curtailed. 3) They sometimes use "socketpuppets", i.e. fake identities that may be used to sustain, or to inflame the troll's position or theory or attack. At times the socket puppets' names are anagrams or similar to the troll name. Thus a troll may engage in artificial conversations with himself. However impersonating multiple people is frowned upon by the more able trolls and is considered the lowest of the possible troll tactics.

DWEECs - Modus Operandi

If an edit does not accord with the DWEEC's PoV they will find ways of subverting it. Depending on the circumstances they will use different techniques and it is noticeable that different trolls have their own personal favorites. None of these indivudual actions is in itself illegal or even suspicious. The giveaway is finding a series of increasingly implausible reasons for refusing to accept a change. The following techniques appear to be the most popular:

• DWEECs will ask for a citation, however little it is needed (for example however readily verifiable the point in question - by searching Google or even in Misplaced Pages itself)

• if a citation is provided the DWEECs will question it on any vaguely plausible grounds (eg the source is too obscure, known to be partisan, not an expert in this particular field, since discredited, now out-of-date, original research, and so on)

• if several points are made or if several citations are provided, DWEECs will invariably concentrate on the one they think the most vulnerable. By purporting to refuting that one they will take the opportunity to ignore all of the others. Even if only one small point is disputed, whole paragraphs will be reverted.

• DWEECs consistently apply a double standard - requiring impeccable citations for edits that do not accord with their views, but consistently declining to provide comparable citations themselves.

• DWEECs have been known to ask for evidence of something, then when it is provided, find a way to remove the evidence they have asked for, then start asking for evidence again.

• DWEECs will generally stick rigidly to the letter of the rules but consistently ignore the spirit. For example they will consistently be polite and remind the victim of the need to put the best possible interpretation on their own actions. But at the same time they will take every opportunity to misinterpret what is said, or find excuses for unfounded accusations. They will adhere rigidly to the 3 revert rule, but find ways to keep reverting without technically breaching the rule themselves - generally by acting in concert.

• if one member of the DWEECs sees a fellow DWEEC running out of amunition in a discussion, they will step in to help using an entirely new technique, effectively putting the victim back to square one and having to closely argue the case again. This can happen several times until the victim gives up.

• A favourite DWEEC technique is to throw in red herrings to distract from the central argument. On occasion this takes the form of a polite interchange between two DWEECs over a matter of no importance. Another favorite is to raise doubts about identities and sockpuppets without any evidence. DWEECs will make accusations, unsupported by evidence, that the contributor is a sock puppet and will try to induce them to prove that they are not (an impossible task).

• Some experienced DWEECs appear to have trainees. If an argument has been lost, then a trainee will suddeny pop up and revert the disputed text to what it was days, weeks or months before, and will keep doing so until the victim gives up and the master "vindicated".

• DWEECs will attack contributions that they do not like – however neutral – as being a POV.

• Generally as a last resort, DWEECs will claim that the article is too long as it stands and that this particular contribution is too detailed or that it would fit better elsewhere.

Evidence

Evidence that the DWEECs are not ordinary genuine users may be summarised as follows:

• consistent patterns of behaviour descibed above
• A consistent pattern of edit wars (always involving more than one DWEEC - always on the same side), leading to accusations of sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, disputed flags being posted, and the article page being locked.
• A history of non-Christians consistently feeling oppressed and voicing concerns about imbalance and bias by what they variously describe as a cabal, clique, group of Christians, federation, cosy club or confederation. This pattern started less than a year ago - around the time when most of the alleged DWEECs first appeared on the Christianity page. At the time of writing (February 2006) all long term non-Christian editors have given up any attempt to contribute. The only remaining self proclaimed non-Christians have either been editing for only a few days, or stand accused by the DWEECs of being sockpuppets.
• DWEECs have been trying to prevent any sort of questioning about their activities (eg deleting links to this page and deleting this page altogether)
• consistently applying double standards to any debate.
• describing themselves by expressions such as "brothers and sisters in Christ" and never disagreeing with each other on any matter of importance
• objecting to questions to which the answers are likely to compromise their activities
• a correlation between the appearance of material they do not like and the mysterious inexplicable vandalism of such material.
• consistently ignoring the advice "If people are saying you're a troll because you do X, don't do X." (not in itself evidence that they are trolls, but certainly evidence that they are not ordinary users)

DWEECs - Case Studies

Case Study 1: SOPHIA - February 2006

Sophie started contributing to Misplaced Pages on <> and first edited the Christianity page on <>. Her views (based on her own statements) appear to be those of a moderate humanist. She has never engaged in any controversial edits and always acted like a model newcomer. She never sided overtly with any user subsequently suspected of being a vandal, sockpuppet, or other malcontent, nor took part in any revertion war, nor took part on any voting. She operated from the same IP address as her husband, a user with a completely different edit profile. At the request of (AnnH) Sophia’s husband was investigated on suspicion of being a sockpuppet – an accusation which also appears to have had no foundation. This investigation revealed that Sophia and her husband (username “the Shriek”) used the same IP address. The default assumption, not supported by any further evidence, was that Sophia was a sockpuppet. Consequently, Sophie felt obliged to provide a full explanation of her circumstances. Here are a couple of extracts referring to contributors who have elsewhere been identified as DWEECs

"… By the way - I'm under the sock puppet cloud too for daring to question consensus - seems the only reason for anyone to disagree with the cozy christian mainstream view is if they're out to fiddle the system." SOPHIA 00:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

and later …

"Maybe I'm not too chuffed to find out that all the while I was editing in good faith there were suspicions about my integrity for the simple reason that I see things differently to you. I'm afraid I have taken this very personally as I've always tried to be moderate and as NPOV as I can - admitting when I've learned lessons and trying to bridge the gap of the more extreme views. Quite frankly I've got better things to do than waste my time with a load of people who can't be upfront and feel the need to check up behind your back if you differ." SOPHIA 01:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Key phrases here include “the cozy christian mainstream view”, “extreme views”, and “a load of people”. In the context the expression “load of people” can only refer to DWEECs.

As at the time of this entry, Sophia is the latest of long series of ordinary, serious, non-controversial contributors, clearly striving to be NPOV, to have been driven away by the DWEECs.

Case Study 2 - "Pesecution" March 2005 - January 2006

Interesting material over the last year - excellent case study but too much to summarise easily.

Some Past Victims

• Shorne (archive 2)
• Sparky (archive 2)
• Titanium Dragon (archive 3)
• Portress (archive 3)
• 67.177.36.200 19:31, 11 August 2005 (archive 5)
• Lucavix (archive 6) - spectacular example

lots more to follow

DWEECs - Objectives

The objectives are not immediate obvious, but appear to be to maintain text which accords with their common POV. Presumably they believe that such text will encourage innocent readers to adopt the same POV or at least accept is as NPOV. Some common themes are efforts to

• minimise factual information that devout Western believers are known not to like (eg mention of supposedly characteristicly Christian ideas and practices that can be shown to predate Christianity)
• maximise the role of Christians as innocent victims (eg as subjects of persecution)
• minimise the role of Christians as oppressors (eg as instigators of persecution, Inquisitions, witch trails, forced conversions, genocides)
• support ecumenical ideas (for example playing down schisms)
• minimise any consideration of denominations other than their own (Early sects, Ebionites, Gnostics, Orthodox Churches, Coptic Church, etc)

DWEECs - How to treat them

The generally acceppted advice on trolls is "do not feed the trolls". The idea is that if individual trolls do not get a reaction they will give up and go way.

This principal does not really work with a confederation such as the DWEECs. They enjoy effective "ownership" of the Christianity page and have maintained it in its present non NPOV state for many months.

If you are an ordinary contributor to Misplaced Pages and are thinking of contributing to the Christianity page you have essentially three choices:

• don't waste your time. Go elsewhere and spend your time more constructively on other pages
• Pitch in and try to improve the page - and experience the DWEEKs at first hand, an interesting if rather unsettling experience.
• take a look at the Christianity discussion page to see what you are up against before deciding what you want to do

If you do review the Christianity discussion pages you will notice that there are only two futures for normal contributors.

• option 1. Most very quickly get frustrated, give up and move on.
• option 2. A few get so frustrated by losing repeated edit wars with the DWEEC confederation that they start creating sockpuppets in a misguided attempt to balance the argument. In the circumstances, this is entirely understandable, but not recommended. For one thing it is agaist the rules. For another, the DWEECs are exceptionally keen sockpuppet hunters, and discovering users with the same IP address is their greatest joy. Not only does it appear to discredit the supposed sockpuppet but it also means that they can discount any arguments that he/she/they might have. (Take a look at the sad case of Giovani33 in January-February 2006).

Request

I would appreciate it if you would remove the DEEWC material. It really does more harm than good. There is no cabal, unless you want there to be. Tom Harrison 21:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)