Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:17, 28 November 2007

Recall question

Its pretty clear that its meaningless (if a person just refuses, changes their mind, or anything else), but if someone ran an RFA and stated something like "I bind myself to be open for recall, etc., as a condition of this RFA," would that be enforceable? Not terribly relevant to the case, but I'm curious to what extent the lack of enforceability goes to. Thanks. • Lawrence Cohen 23:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Doubtful. Recall has no basis in policy, it is entirely voluntary. Arbcom is not here to enforce agreements between users, or make sure people stick to their word.--Doc 23:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I know. I was just curious if anything like a completely binding statement by someone existed like that, on-wiki. Like, "If elected, I will stand for RFA, and if my certification is met but I refuse to accept it, or attempt to revoke this recall procedure later, I authorize the community ahead of time to proceed with a recall regardless, and waive any right to take this back later." But if not, then not. The way recall is done is certainly not enforceable, yes. • Lawrence Cohen 23:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say then that the ArbCom could "admonish" someone for not sticking to their word, but not take any formal action if someone reneges on their recall agreement. Cla68 (talk) 01:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Different recall question

I proposed desysopping Durova. Mackeson pointed out that Durova has announced that she will stand for RFA once this case closes. So I'd like to strike the proposal. Can I do that? (others have already commented) Jd2718 (talk) 02:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

It's unnecessary, the arbitrators are aware and will make their proposals on the Proposed Decision page accordingly. ⇒SWATJester 08:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Making Misplaced Pages Better

The ultimate fate of Durova an myself are trivial questions. The larger concern is how will Misplaced Pages handle cyberstalking and harassment. We have one group of editors who use this site for trolling. Another group has formed to hunt the trolls. Unfortunately, this leads to vigilante style justice, with mistakes like the one that happened with Durova and !!. Troll hunting also creates a caustic, non-collegial environment.

The most direct solution for this problem is to route persistent cyberstalking and harassment problems to the Foundation Office where they can be investigated and dealt with by volunteers under strict supervision of competent legal staff.

The advantages of this solution include:

1. No longer can a group of trolls reinforce and protect each other by stacking consensus. Office operates on the legal definition of what is allowed and what isn't. There's no voting.
2. Office investigations are private and legally compliant (amateur sleuthing may not be).
3. If harassment arises to the level of being a legal problem, Office is better prepared to deal with the appropriate authorities.
4. Amateur sleuths can instead focus their efforts on editorial problems, like conflict of interest, pseudoscience, fringe theories and POV pushing. These are important problems where we need to apply more effort as encyclopedia editors.
5. The secret mailing lists can be reconstituted under strict Office control for accountability.
6. Harassment reports filed with Office will be completely separate from editing disputes handled by Arbcom. I have personally experienced the very uneasy feeling of filing a harassment report with Arbcom, only to have that report used against me in another incident. That should never happen to anyone, ever.

That's my proposal. Hopefully we can all learn something from this dispute and make Misplaced Pages a better place. Let's not use Durova as a scapegoat for a problem that is much larger than her own activities. - Jehochman 03:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Jehochman, without any prejudice to this idea, may I suggest that you post this on the discussion page of WP:HARASS as well as here? More editors from the broad spectrum of the encyclopedia go to that page than frequent Arbcom pages; it will provide a wider opportunity for discussion. Risker (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, WP:HARASS covers a large variety of behaviors, many of which aren't the sort of thing that needs special Office attention. For example, WP:STALK has little to do with actual stalking. JavaTenor (talk) 04:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm merely jaded from seeing this proposed before, but it strikes me as something that would enable editors to escape the Committee's legitimate scrutiny of their actions by crying "harassment". Kirill 05:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Just redirect the secret mailing lists to output only to /dev/null and call it a day. Some harassement reports are a form of harassment, and do not merit super-secret-special handling. The office can't deal with the scope of the poisonous politics around here, and the mailing lists are as far as I can tell making things worse, not better. GRBerry 05:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Something that should be obvious

Spending a large percentage of your time on wikipedia hunting for trolls ans sockpuppets, is the ultimate act of feeding said trolls. Thats my thought for the day. Viridae 05:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Trolls are fed by reactions. If you spend your time hunting a troll, and you block them, then they can't troll. -- Ned Scott 08:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I wonder what we're supposed to do? Just let them evade their bans? Allow them to keep vandalising Misplaced Pages? Undelete articles they create while evading their bans, provided they assert that WP:CSD#G5 is really only a vendetta on the part of the deleting admin? Guy (Help!) 09:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Wrong. They will troll, they will continue to troll. The ultimate disruptive sockpupeteers have hundreds of socks to their name. You block one account they will spring back with another one and it will continue to happen. If an account is disruptive then block it. But spending hundreds of hours hunting them down is the ultimate reaction. Viridae 09:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

But, but, but..sadly...that still doesn't answer the question...shall we just let them take over? In other words...if some continue to troll and be disruptive, are we were supposed to just try and ignore it hoping it will go away? That works on one level, but there are simply plenty of really bored people with nothing better to do but be disruptive. They repeatedly return and no amount of ignoring them keeps them at bay. In the case of User:Cplot..it appears that an aggressive checkuser and sock investigation did finally get him to stop...at least if he/she has returned, he/she must be doing good work or we would have spotted him/her by now.--MONGO (talk) 09:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not advocating ignoring with it. I am advocating dealing with it in a level headed manner. Block dispruptive people, leave good contributors alone. Really quite simple. You will never root out all the disruptive ones in a place this size, so big sock hunts are an exercise in futility. But as they become apparent block them. Block them for disruption that the community can see and you will have no arguments. If a banned contibutor who has been banneed for disruption becomes a useful contributor, ignore them and do something useful. If they start being disruptive again then block them. So much time is wasted searching for a few throwaway sockpuppets - Durova is a laughing stock on certain external sites, the people that want wikipedia hurt the most are getting huge enjoyment out of her, both before this occurred and even more so now: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Durova&diff=prev&oldid=173495181. Revert Block Ignore works very well. Apply that across the project, getting rid of disruptive influences where they become apparent and leaving any good and good faith contributors alone and wikipedia will run more smoothly. Viridae 10:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Laughing stock on external sites that are sometimes also participated in by Misplaced Pages editors who only help feed the drama, no doubt. Sorry, no...there IS an overt effort to destroy this website and I don't need a banned editor posting such desires in his logo on an external site to know the obvious.--MONGO (talk) 10:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

On the last point I agree with you, and nothing is more destructive than poisoning the atmosphere liek Durova has done. Read Kelly Martin's comment on the RfC. She says it better than I can. Viridae 10:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason to crucify one person because they made one bad mistake. If you can find evidence of repeated bad mistakes, then that would be a different story. I am surprised Kelly would misunderstand why not all sockpuppet evidence isn't posted publically. Doing so only alerts those ban evaders as to what we saw as identifying characteristics...that it misfired so badly this time is evidence that we all make mistakes, not that sockcheckers make mistakes routinely.--MONGO (talk) 10:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there are quite a number of other mistakes that she has made that have been documented elsewhere. This is the one of the highest profile both because it was such an excellent contributor and because it was made on such flimsy evidence, that reeked of paranoia. It is this paranoia, this attitude of secrecy that is poisoning the atmosphere, not the !! block alone. The block is just a very public example of the poisonous atmosphere she is creating. Viridae 10:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I know what you're getting at, but I simply don't concur. Me thinks that a mountain is being made out of a molehill as far as paranoia and sockchecking goes...bearing in mind that I agree that this block on !! was based both on flimsy evidence and was a bad admin action. I'm certainly not sure how desysopping due to one bad block is going to be a net benefit to the project. Durova seems to have explained other blocks noted as improper quite well...--MONGO (talk) 11:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

MONGO, I don't misunderstand the merits of not discussing how one identifies security breaches. However, most of Misplaced Pages's trolls are not breaching security. The problem is that Misplaced Pages has adopted an attitude of trying to preemptively predict editors who are going to be disruptive. This is a fool's game, and plays directly into the goals of the troll. The fundamental error is the policy of blocking the socks of banned users when those socks are not being disruptive. That policy is misguided and should be discarded. The block of !! was not based on "flimsy evidence". It was completely random. Durova's evidence amounted to "!! is an unexpectedly productive and insightful editor", and that's certainly no excuse to sanction anyone. If anything, he should have received a barnstar. I can't help to think that the current Misplaced Pages community would have likely tagged Kat Walsh as a troll simply because she went to the trouble to thoroughly research Misplaced Pages's policies and practices before commencing to edit. (And this was after Wik, and Lir, and SOLLOG; it's not as if trolls are a new phenomenon on Misplaced Pages.) It perplexes me that people are so assiduously defending such counterproductive practices. As to destroying the website: Durova has done more on that count in the past month than Daniel Brandt has in the past four years. You grossly overstate the "danger" presented by these minor annoyances (which would be even more minor if they had been handled reasonably in the first place). Kelly Martin 15:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I simply cannot see how Durova has done more damage in the last month than Brandt has done in the last four years. I'll have to leave it at that since the rest of your comments is an opinion I neither agree or disagree with. Perhaps you have a valid point on the rest.--MONGO (talk) 19:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Durova herself has done miniscule damage in the scheme of things with this one bad block that drove a single valuable contributor off. But the secretive consortium of admins, arbitrators, and Foundation employees who have been collaborating in private towards the same goals is perhaps the worst thing that ever happened to this project. We're here to write an encyclopedia, and stalking productive contributors to the encyclopedia in good standing does nothing to help us reach this. --krimpet⟲ 07:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Saying that Durova has done worse than Daniel Brandt is waaaaay out of line. And really, who the heck invited Kelly Martin here? The last thing we need right now is someone ranting and raving like some attention whore. -- Ned Scott 07:14, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Very tactful post, I am sure that will help cool things down quickly. On a more serious note, the only reason vandals like this site is because it gets them attention. That's their reward. The best attention we can give them is by having specialized "sleuths", who in their relentless efforts to track the vandals take down good editors as collateral damage. That's exactly what they LOVE to see. That is why such efforts are misguided and should be stopped. --Reinoutr (talk) 08:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Ned, please do not refer to women as whores. Thanks, daveh4h 21:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I have warned that user for that horrible attack. He should refactor it and apologize to Kelly immediately. • Lawrence Cohen 21:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

While calling someone an attention whore might be inappropriate, it is in no way related to Kelly being a woman. My comment would have been made had it been a man, as "attention whore" is simply a phrase. So don't insult our intelligence by suggesting that I am somehow being sexiest or attacking someone because of their gender.

And I most certainly will not apologize to Kelly Martin, even if the comment itself was inappropriate, regardless of the gender thing, etc. -- Ned Scott 04:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that anyone who says Ned is somehow being sexiest is insulting our intelligence. sNkrSnee | ¿qué? 12:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The comparison to Brandt is certainly grossly off the mark but the rest of Kelly's reasoning is sound. Preemptive war doesn't work. If you've found an account that you're pretty sure is Willy on Wheels but that is editing productively, you should not block it. Watch it, privately inform other admins, but do not block because a) "pretty sure" isn't good enough if the account is productive, and b) improvements are improvements, regardless of who makes them. Net persons are not the same as real persons. Every time you start a handle, you reconstitute yourself in a way that you cannot in the wider world. If a troll has reconstituted herself as a productive and civil user, leave her be. If Brandt is quietly adding sourced content to Misplaced Pages under a pseudonym and you've figured it out, leave him be. At least on my last reading of it, none of this contradicts WP:BAN. Marskell (talk) 09:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikia

Wikia is a for-profit corporation that is a competitor to Misplaced Pages and by law must maximize its profits for its shareholders. Wikia is confused by the general public as a part of Misplaced Pages and is said to reduce contributions because people believe the two are connected. There is a conflict of interest in connections between Wikia and Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages is harmed by these secret mailing lists hosted on Wikia. Wikia is benefited to the extent that content and contributors migrate from Misplaced Pages to Wikia. WAS 4.250 (talk) 06:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see this. Some editors decided to have a by-invitation private mailing list and set it up on a hosting service. It wasn't an official list, so the wikimedia-lists service wouldn't have been available. Would it have made any difference if they had used Google Groups or something? Newyorkbrad (talk) 06:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Foundation people are on that list and that list is used to help manage Misplaced Pages. The Foundation and Misplaced Pages are supposed to be separate for the sake of legal liability. The issue of the mailing list was brought up by this arbcom hearing, but this issue like many other issues raised by this incident must be handled by means other than arbcom. Yes, they should move the lists. WAS 4.250 (talk) 08:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

No list exists to "help manage Misplaced Pages". The list exists for editors to discuss among themselves how better to handle on-wiki harassment. Nothing more, nothing less. Guy (Help!) 09:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

It would have been nice had they not fed confusion by using Wikia, but we can hardly sanction people for this. -Amarkov moo! 06:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Uh, what are you talking about? Wikia is not a competitor to Misplaced Pages, and to what shareholders are you speaking about? Wikia is for-profit so they can pay their hosting bills. -- Ned Scott 08:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

We have had content deleted from Misplaced Pages and moved to Wikia. Wikia claims to be "the rest of the library". There is overlap between data hosted by WikiMedia and data hosted by Wikia. Contributors also overlap. Remember Essjay? Wikia has shareholders. Jimbo is a shareholder for example. I have no reason to believe anything evil is going on, but it looks bad and hurts WikiMedia fundraising efforts. WAS 4.250 (talk) 08:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

How does it look bad, or even hurt fundraising efforts? The latter is a really confusing accusation, considering Wikia plasters "please donate to Misplaced Pages" all over their sites whenever we have a fundraiser. Just because someone is not 'non-profit' does not make them evil, and I've gotten very tired of people being down right ignorant about that fact. Misplaced Pages barely gets enough money to pay the bills, and Wikia would not likely be as lucky as Misplaced Pages is for donations. Wikia's only realistic option is to have ads.

As for articles that get used on Wikia that used to be on Misplaced Pages, incase you didn't know it, that is the entire reason Misplaced Pages was started. Yes, that's right, the reason that the project started was so that there would be an encyclopedia that anyone could re-use the content, free of charge. That's not competition, that's our mission. -- Ned Scott 09:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

How is Wikia involved in this at all? I have no connection whatsoever to Wikia. And so far as I know, neither does any other named party. Durova 10:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this is way too much of stretch. The mailinghost was hosted by Wikia. So are numerous other mailings lists. No big deal. --Reinoutr (talk) 10:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Others involved proposals

Durova claims that she extensively consulted with with a number of others and received numerous endorsements of her proposed block. Although these users did not perform the actual block themselves, they exhibited a clear lack of judgment. It stands to reason that sanctions applied to Durova might also be appropriate to apply to those who made her same mistake.

I have added these proposed remedies to the workshop. I would also request that these individuals be added as parties. --Alecmconroy (talk) 09:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Durova seriously misrepresented the content of the email, and perhaps she misunderstood and thus misrepresented what others thought of it. The email nowhere says she is planning a block much less an immediate indef block with no public evidence and an insistence that doubters go to arbcom; so even if people liked the email that doesn't mean they would have approved her subsequent behavior. For a list of people who approved her subsequent behavior, you need only look at the wikipedia page where she did this behavior and note who publicly agreed with her. There is your list of people with the poor judgement to accept an indef block based on no public evidence and no recent activity at wikipedia by the blocked person to warrant such a thing. WAS 4.250 (talk) 10:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, you're assuming that the email we've seen is the ONLY email on the subject. If that were the case, then yes, Durova would have misrepresented her position. But, she claimed to have discussed the proposed block in depth with a group of five "sleuths". Her responses were "positive to enthusiastic". This suggests that there was more substantial collaboration than just one email.

The people who endorsed an indef block without seeing the evidence are a totally different lot. Prior to seeing the evidence, I believe a "reasonable editor" could truly believe Durova did have evidence. The people whose judgment needs to be really closely looked at are the people who saw "the evidence" ahead of time and felt it justified an indefinite block. Those individuals, if they do exist, deserve just as much scrutiny as as Durova.

On the other hand, for the purposes of AGF, we do have to at least entertain the possibility that there was no such individual, and that Durova intentionally fabricated the story. If that were the case, I personally think it would be indef block time. But I absolutely don't think she's lying-- our wikipolitical differences aside, I actually respect and trust her-- she may have had flawed judgment but I've never once seen any sign of malice from her. --Alecmconroy (talk) 10:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Withholding evidence

Does Arbcom have the ability to compel Durova to reveal things to them or face consequences (e.g. the names of the people she has claimed endorsed her proposed block, etc)? —Random832 15:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Note that I can only see it becoming an issue in this particular case if they become subject to remedies (they can be "notified" by a general post to the email list, which several arbitrators have access to, and they can be discussed on here without naming them) - the question is rather whether there is even any point in proposing anything applying to them. —Random832 16:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I have been thinking on this, one cowardly individual frightened to come forward I can believe but five all with the same lack of courage, I don't buy it. So we have two options either Durova made the whole thing up and consulted no-one or she is taking the rap to keep the sleuthing society in action. Now if it is the latter to whom are they reporting and answerable and are they using Durova's "methods" of detection? Are as we speak dozens of new editors none of us have ever heard of, and who don't know the form for appeals etc. being banished. This is a ludicrous situation and we must have some answers. Someone knows the truth somewhere. Giano (talk) 16:47, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The word "cowardly" was unfortunately chosen, and I think if there was a sleuthing society continuing to make such blocks we would have heard about it. The question of who the five editors were who discussed the block with Durova, assuming they exist, is a fair one, but I see no way to compel Durova to answer the question. We can not issue subpoenas and jail people for contempt of court for refusing to answer our questions. The most you could do is to hold this unanswered question over Durova's head should she ever submit herself to RFA again. Thatcher131 17:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)