Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 04:07, 2 March 2008

User talk:Abd/Archive 1

The funny thing about Misplaced Pages

The funny thing about Misplaced Pages is that in a way, what happens here is not important and yet, in another way, it's very important. Reasons why it's not important:

• It's just a hobby, since no matter what we do, we're won't get any monetary compensation, and we're unlikely to gain much off-wiki prestige for it given the lack of prominent bylines and the collaborative nature of the project;
• Any contributions (negative or positive) we do make can be readily reverted;
• Nno matter what reputation we get, we can always restart under new usernames;
• We're unlikely to ever meet the people we correspond with in person, and we can sever ties with all of them at any time without any impact on our lives in the real world.
• If we leave, there can always be someone to take our place, because the information we contribute is from other secondary sources anyway.

And so on. And yet in some ways, it's very important, if only because these articles are ranked so high in Google searches. What will happen if Google ever changes their algorithm, to where that's not the case? Makes you wonder! Add that to the list of reasons why it's potentially unimportant.

Anyway, there's often a temptation to be lighthearted about the whole thing, and yet sometimes it's easy to get offended when you see people treat your work and contributions like it's nothing, when it meant a lot to you. (I use "you" not in the sense of you personally, but anyone.) I can see why things get taken the wrong way. I also agree with what you say, that when you count up all the hours spent on this encyclopedia, it is not a particularly efficient way to produce articles. It really is mostly a pastime, when it comes down to it. A lot of the internal stuff is as much for intellectual stimulation as for anything else. At least, that's the way I look at it. From the beginning, it's been a grand experiment, which followed a failed experiment (Nupedia). Actually, according to Larry Sanger, Nupedia could have had a chance under the reforms they were planning on making, but then Misplaced Pages came along.

In the end, we're all going to die and the whole earth will be engulfed by the sun, presumably destroying Misplaced Pages along with it, unless we send it out into space. Man, are all these embarrassing edits going to readable by aliens someday? Yikes. Something to think about before hitting the Save page button, eh? What if we send a space ark to another solar system, and Misplaced Pages is one of the main remnants of Earth civilization with which they can occupy their time on the centuries-long trip as sub-light-speed to their destination? What will they think of us? Will they get depressed about human nature as they read the RFAs? Maybe they will learn something from it. 71.63.91.68 (talk) 05:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to let you know, it is a clear violation of policy to restart with a new username if you have been indefinitely blocked (or currently blocked). If you want to come back, you have to convince someone to remove your block. You will probably be allowed to start with a new account but it is not acceptable to do so while you are blocked. So it is not true that no matter what reputation you have, you can restart under a new username. Also, using an account until the point where you have annoyed the community enough that you are liable to be blocked only to abandon it and then do the same with your new account is similarly liable to be construed as a violation of policy Nil Einne (talk) 06:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The implications of the RfA

I've been deliberately making it difficult for the RfA to pass, simply by being thoroughly open and not keeping my mouth shut. Opposition to me was going to surface, for sure, and the experience thing was almost certain to shoot this down.

But consider what happens if I'm nominated again, with higher edit count? I would not need to speak to all those issues again. I'd still answer direct questions, but succinctly. The bulk of the opposition has been based purely on edit experience. Without that problem, there would be many less oppose, and many neutrals moving to support.

Many users are assuming that because I'm answering all oppose votes that raise a new issue, I'm arguing or trying to convince. In a new RfA, I would totally abstain from even the appearance of that, confining myself to succinct answers to questions. I think it would be a shoo-in, unless I massively screw up in my editing, which I doubt I'll do. I've pretty much done the worst, I think.

But I remain unconvinced that I need the tools for anything. I don't expect to do Recent Changes patrol. As I mentioned, I'll help if asked, but it isn't where I'm seeking to go. Nevertheless, lots of good stuff is happening.

It's weird, really, that Yellowbeard is pushing so hard. For what? He's bringing a lot more community attention to himself; he'd never been blocked before. I think that he decided that the account was useless, he couldn't use it for its original purpose, it's a throwaway now. So he's just playing with this, seeing how outrageous he can get, wasting time, doing all the kind of stuff that I would, indeed, expect from Salsman. That ID is by no means certain, but I still consider it highly likely.

Connection with FairVote is a near-certainty. I put some argument on Yellowbeard's Talk. Together with the warnings and the block, he's deleted it, but of course it is all in History. He's reverted warnings before, with "rvv."

Checkuser is not reliable. I won't describe how to defeat it, on-wiki, but it certainly can be done, all it takes is some resources, definitely he'd be able to do it, and he had announced an intention to partition his activities, since before he had been easily detected by just looking at what accounts he edited. Quick registration, immediately editing the same accounts with the same POV and the same wikilawyering. It won't be so easy in the future. --Abd (talk) 07:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

RfA / Sasparilla

Unsolicited response to:

I apologize for any wikifuss caused by my nominator, Sarsaparilla. I have no clue what he is doing with this, beyond some kind of WP:POINT. Because I was led to look at this because of reference to his alleged "vote-trading" in my RfA, I reviewed nominee's contributions and voted above to support as a result, not that I see it as necessary, there seems to be little serious opposition and lots of support. Good luck! --Abd (talk) 04:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't fret over this. Sasparilla said s/he confused User:Kim Dent-Brown with User:Kim Bruning. If you knew Kim Bruning -- whom I greatly admire and has an impressive ability to stir up trouble --, you'd likely get why this makes a difference. For a starting point, check out my first RfA. But in any case, it's got nothing to do with you, and I think most people understand that. - Revolving Bugbear 22:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Look, I've been working with "community consensus" for many, many years. It's not like ordinary democracy; here, it *all* works together to improve the community understanding and expression. That incident gave me an opportunity to show more of what I was made of, and I think I got another vote or two because of it. But I really don't care about the votes, as such, what is important, particularly at this point, is that I stand, in a sense, naked before the examination. The incident gave User:Yellowbeard one more opportunity to display before the community what I've been dealing with, in this case -- as in many others -- convoluted wikilawyering presenting the most ABF spin possible. (He has been cooperating with, or is from, an outside political action organization that considers me a very dangerous enemy, and has done more to damage the overall neutrality of Misplaced Pages than has yet become widely visible, it will take time to undo it. Misplaced Pages was, for a long time, used by these people, very effectively, they are skilled professionals and very good at what they do.) If I were to try to make this point myself, I'd hear, from many, WP:BATTLE. However, battles are affairs where two sides duke it out, and break the furniture. I'm not breaking any furniture, though I might confuse some with my tomes in Talk. My "weapon" is NPOV (as I understand it, of course, but that is true for any editor), and my guardian is the community. I listen to the community, which doesn't mean that I necessarily give undue weight to the loudest voices. Again, thanks. (I'll look at Kim Bruning, it might explain more what Sarsaparilla did; since I expect to be cooperating with him in other projects, I need to know if I'm dealing with a dangerously erratic loose cannon, or if there was some method to his madness and he merely made a mistake.) With appreciation, --Abd (talk) 23:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

According to loose cannon, the term means "an irresponsible and reckless individual whose behaviour (either intended or unintended) endangers the group he or she belongs to." Unfortunately, that does describe me in this instance but I will try to not be that way in the future. It was poor judgment in time/place to be joking around. Anyway, lesson learned. Please forgive me. Sarsaparilla —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.91.68 (talk) 00:18, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Look, if I can claim that User:Yellowbeard is being very useful, trying his hardest to make trouble, certainly I can think even more of you. Looks to me like the whole affair gained me some support. Just don't do it again. Yes, you are fired as my "campaign manager," please don't nominate me again, it will have to be someone else next time, if it happens at all. On the other hand, you do, in fact, have better things to do than try to convince the community to hand me a mop. (Even though the floor is dirty.) Let's have some tea and talk about it. On the appropriate project page.

Everything I've written in the RfA is true to the best of my knowledge or understanding. (It's a bit ironic to be considered sarcastic when I just say what I see, but I'm used to it, happens all the time, and this is quite common with ADHD people, we are different, yet people expect us to be the same, and will project normal meanings on the words. I.e., if a normal person said that, it would be sarcastic, perhaps some kind of insult. (Normal people know how to avoid these implications, we don't even think of them, or at least it's quite difficult for me. I see them later, of course, when my attention is on those things. Imagine what this does to marriages -- when it is not understood and accepted.) --Abd (talk) 01:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Intriguing comments

See User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_32#all_sides_can_agree_in_principle_to_an_orderly_process_of_making_a_determination_of_what_to_do 71.63.91.68 (talk) 04:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Quite like what I'm proposing. I've been saying this is inevitable, that the only question is how long it will take (and it's important; the lack of FA/DP process -- or something better -- is resulting in ongoing damage, though that is certainly nothing new (and by this I mean in the world, not just on Misplaced Pages). If FA/DP process is adopted here, I'd say it's all over, within a few years -- very few -- it will be influencing major political process.

And it seems they got the core: advice using delegable proxy -- they did use the term "liquid democracy," which generally refers to DP instead of mere proxy voting -- plus retaining individual responsibility for making actual binding or controlling decisions.

This is very, very important. DP has been around for a few years, but my contribution was combining it, as a proposal, with Free Association traditions, whereas every other worker had thought of using it for actual political elections, where power is transferred.

Using DP in an FA structure makes security much less of an issue. Quite simply, it's possible to analyze a vote expansion by proxy list in many ways, and then to compare the various analyses to detect anomalies due to sock puppets or other problems. Behind it all is the community, which actually holds the power and exercises it through myriads of individual actions. They are thinking of the inward flow of advice, which is an important part of it, but only half. There is also the outward flow of advice. A proxy-client relationship is one of mutual trust -- that's why the consent to communication aspect is so important -- and thus the views and responses of the one may be associated with those of the other. It works in both direction, but most effectively *outward*, since it is the proxy who has been chosen by the client; on average the proxy will be more informed or more wise or more worth of trust than the client. -- certainly not always and just on average, but it is enough that there is some general bias in this direction; causing high-level proxies to generally be good representatives of the community. As an example of ourward direction, supposed, suddenly, there is some financial emergency. If anyone could get the users to contribute rapidly, it would be the proxies.

As I have described many times, the relationship between the "fellowship" of Alcoholics Anonymous, i.e., the membership, which operates the local meetings, each one independent and *never* subsidized from the top or even one meeting supporting another (except through meeting lists so that members can find meetings), and the corporation that owns the copyrights to the publications, AA World Services, Inc., is a totally voluntary one. However, AAWS is "responsible" to the membership, because the organization is set up so that it is totally dependent on income from donations, publications being sold at not much more than cost. If AAWS sersiously deviated from an AA Conference consensus, they could be in trouble: the local groups don't need the central organization for anything, for, from time to time, local intergroups do publish their own material, they could replace all the central office functions in a flash. But they don't do it, because there is an understanding that a Conference consensus (2/3 vote minimum and they will debate and amend long beyond that point, seeking greater consensus) is binding on the corporation. But it's not *legally* binding, nor could it be, for legal reasons if nothing else. A "community" cannot take responsibility for the fulfilment of contracts or the satisfaction of other requirements of law. If the WP community voted to put up, say, Copyvio material, the community could not be sued or prosecuted. But the Foundation could be. They are legally responsible, so they must have the legal authority.

I'm really surprised by this exchange. It is far more than I hoped could happen at this point, though it might go nowhere. --Abd (talk) 04:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Another idea

One way in which users might look for suitable proxies is by running an automated search through discussions to see which editors they have generally voted on the same side as. This type of tool might also be a good way to find sockpuppet activity. Even if the delegable proxy idea doesn't get approved, this type of tool might be a way to estimate the true level of support for something by looking at the number of users for a proposal, and then multiplying that number by some formula based on the number of nonparticipating users who typically side with them in other debates and the degree to which those nonparticipating users have tended to agree with them. What do you think?

A downside I see is that there might be a bunch of noncontroversial debates, e.g. "Keep the article on George W. Bush," which ten users unanimously agree on, and there is one on "Keep the article on my school principal Joe Schmoe," which only one of those ten who agreed to keep the Bush article participates in, but his opinion is artificially weighted more because he sided with the majority in some noncontroversial debates. Is there a way to overcome this? Ron Duvall :(talk) 18:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Trying to figure out how we will use delegable proxy is like being an ancient multicellular organism, relying on chemical messaging through diffusion, how a "nervous system" would be used.... We do speculate on it, and there are obviously ideas to work on, but ... a similar question has to do with knowledge. Sometimes the question is asked about research, "How would this be used?" The long-term applications won't be visible initially, except rarely and dimly.

One of the most common objections to delegable proxy is "what about sock puppets?" In formal control systems, the security question must be addressed, it is critical. However, in the Free Association context, where votes don't control, rather they advise individuals and servants, sock puppet advice is going to be awfully fishy, and when one tries to discuss the advice with the sock puppets, the behavior gets strange. It was raised above, what about registration of accounts to create clients for a proxy, then new accounts, etc., until there are a large number of phony clients? Well, there is nothing that keeps anyone from analyzing a proxy table with edit count history. We could make it so, that placing a proxy assignment in a proxy table is consent for a servant of the community to request response from a user to the user's talk page. And then someone with checkuser could pretty quickly whack relatively unsophisticated sock puppets.

As to sophisticated ones, who can set up systems in ways I'm surely not going to describe, the bottom line is that the votes don't control. A servant may disregard an apparent consensus quite safely by simply addressing the "arguments" given. The servant may, for example, query other users whom the servant trusts as to what they think about it. If there is a significant discrepancy between this segment of the community, it may be suspected that something is going on, and then one could examine registration times, proxy assignment times, edit histories, etc. It does not have to be rigorous and foolproof. And, unless some discrepancy appears between the actual arguments presented and the votes, nothing at all need be done.

The best check for sock puppet activity would be a community consensus that doesn't make sense. There is a huge difference between the wisdom of the community, and the individual opinions and arguments of a single puppet master.

FA/DP is an interface between the most advanced election method known -- according to some election experts -- and the Free Association concept, which closely parallels what the Misplaced Pages community already is (as distinct from but in close cooperation with the Foundation). Implementation is voluntary, costs nothing, requires no policy changes, creates no bureaucracy. Operational cost (meaning community labor invested in using it) does rise as the scale of use rises, but that is true for everything we do; there is no significant operational cost if it isn't used, no overhead. By applying delegable proxy in the Free Association context, we avoid having to deal with the much thornier problems of security. Yet it could be far from ineffective. Consider revolutions which happened in modern times when the people decided to all go out into the streets at the same time, I'm thinking of Iran and the Philippines. I don't know much about the Philippines, but... what happened in Iran was that there were no communications systems in place to prevent the takeover of the revolution by highly motivated and ruthless ideologues at nodes of influence. Tiananmen Square in China failed because there was no means for the students to coherently act in negotiations with the government, which was negotiating with them, an unheard-of success. If they had had FA/DP, I'd suggest, they would have been able to find consensus, including consensus on where to draw the line on what they were demanding. Instead, the few student leaders who understood the dimensions of the problem and what was practically realizable were unable to deliver a coherent decision to the government, and the hotheads who made the loudest noises, demanding nothing short of the total humiliation of the people in the government, were able to drown out the voices of reason and compromise and consensus. And the government realized, I'm sure, that if they gave in to this incoherent anarchy, they'd have a very dangerous chaos, and so they called in the Army, with tragic results.

Key to FA/DP is that an FA takes no controversial positions, no matter how many "votes" are obtained. It can change its collective mind in a flash, because it isn't bound to precedent; but it is very unlikely to do this, with DP, in other than a very sober way. That's because power is not collected, the power remains entirely in the hands of individual members, except for a very minor amount of power delegated to trusted servants. Because there is no centralized power to speak of, there are no nodes to corrupt. A high-level proxy may lose his or her mind, and others just disregard the proxy. (Advice in votes is generally to servants, who will delete, block, protect, etc., but there is another kind of advice, which is from proxy to client; I would give the greatest weight to proxies where the proxy does not have many, many direct clients, for, if so, the communications between proxy and client will be weak and the votes therefore less clearly representative. If a proxy starts advising the client in ways the client does not understand, the client will ignore the advice, generally, or at least enough of them will do so that the advice is not powerful. And the proxy will lose clients, possibly rapidly. What would you do if your proxy told you that, say, we should boycott Misplaced Pages, and you asked why, and the answer wasn't satisfactory? Continue to trust this person? I wouldn't! Unless the arguments were good enough to convince me.

--Abd (talk) 19:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

That's the theory. In practice, it starts with an understanding of FA concepts, which many on Misplaced Pages already do understand in practice. And *then* we look at what DP could do. And we start very simply, by creating a good proxy table, easy to use, and then see what people do with it. It's about far more than "votes," that part I'm sure of. --Abd (talk) 19:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Prod discussion

Hello, can you please provide some insight into representativeness of AfDs and some of the other issues... Wikipedia_talk:Proposed_deletion#PROD_scales.2C_so_scale_it.21

If it is true that participation in deletion debates is already representative, as some people say, then it makes we wonder what use delegable proxy will have in AfDs? And if the answer is not much, then where else will it come in handy? Are there other debates that are less representative? Ron Duvall (talk) 05:34, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Your RfA was unsuccessful

I am sorry to inform you that your request for adminship was unsuccessful. I hope you will take onboard the concerns raised by those opposing and will consider running again in the future when you have feel you have addressed them. Best wishes, WjBscribe 08:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Set_expiry_date_on_protection_of_Wikipedia:Association_of_Members.27_Advocates_and_Wikipedia:Esperanza

Are the cases of Misplaced Pages:Association of Members' Advocates and Misplaced Pages:Esperanza significant from a free association perspective? I was a bit concerned about the langauge given at the latter, "This essay serves as a warning to all editors that existing projects must be open and transparent to all editors at all times, not to be overly hierarchical lest they are to meet a fate similar to Esperanza's." Besides the concerns we talked about earlier (i.e. was a genuine consensus reached to MfD them) is this something that could affect the success of delegable proxy? I know that you often view free association and delegable proxy as being tied together.

The AMA pages seems to be fine as is, but my thought is that if Esperanza is unprotected, I might make some tweaks to the wording. The community might allow that, or they might revert, in which case I would talk it out on the talk page, and we could get a dialogue going. My thought is that in general, we shouldn't prohibit free associations of any kind, unless they're being disruptive. Lack of openness/transparency and hierarchicalness don't seem like inherently disruptive things. Given that everything done here is recorded and public available, the former is not really even possible, unless people are doing underhanded stuff off-wiki. And I tend to look at off-wiki stuff like Vegas. What happens off-wiki stays off-wiki. Ron Duvall (talk) 19:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is the issue, and why Esperanza and AMA are of interest. Read the MfD discussions. The grounds for delete were that they were a waste of time. But whose time? A group of users wanted to save other users from wasting time. To save them, essentially, from themselves. Why? There were a reasonable number of Keep votes. But there were also votes of the nature of "Nuclear delete, stomp it out, scatter the ashes, and salt the ground." From where comes the intensity of this response? I'd say the only explanation is fear, most likely, fear of losing control. Control? But nobody controls Misplaced Pages! Or so they think. Actually, Misplaced Pages is controlled by a fairly large oligarchy of users, as oligarchies go, but still a very small percentage of editors. Anyone can gain admission to the group, but the price is high. These are all facts, not judgments. Commonly, such oligarchies are beneficial; however, they are also, typically, quite conservative and even reactionary. Threaten their control, they can become violent. In defense of all that is good and true, of course. We do not confront them. But reality might confront them.

Esperanza and AMA were defectively organized, and this made them vulnerable; plus they were inefficient, which seriously weakened their support. Even though it was oppressive, there is a certain logic to their deletion, and I don't support, at this time, an attempt to resurrect them. Unless a group of actual members decide to do it. And if they do, I'd suggest that they look at Delegable proxy for organizational hints. And given the history, do it off-wiki. Besides, mailing lists are much more efficient for rapid, broad communication. If it is FA/DP, it won't make stupid mistakes, it won't be disruptive, and it won't create a bureaucracy (though servants may be chosen, directly responsible to members), and it won't divert significant resources from the project. And it will still be opposed by some, but the real reasons will be more apparent.

--Abd (talk) 19:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I can has thankspam?

Quick, let's delete the front page!

No seriously, thanks for contributing at my RfA which ended 68/0/0. I'm amazed and humbled by the result, and the warm and supportive comments that went with it. I've put the pic of Tiger here because although I know not everyone appreciates lolcats, to me it illustrates the possibility of taking things seriously with a light heart. I will try to do so, and remain open to the being slapped down if I do start being impossibly pompous. Thanks Pedro :  Chat  for your generous nomination, and also to Master of Puppets for ripping off his thankspam without so much as a by-your-leave. To all who contributed - especially the eventually withdrawn (but very interesting) neutral and oppose - thank you! Now it's off to new admin school for me, before I dare do anything for real... Kim Dent-Brown 09:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Proxy table templates

They obviously still have some technical glitches and deficiencies that need to be worked out... I wonder if there are analogous templates that I could borrow from. Hmm.

• Misplaced Pages:Delegable proxy/Table/Designate
• Misplaced Pages:Delegable proxy/Table/Row

Documentation should of course be added as well; the thing about that is that the documentation will also be transcluded wherever that template is transcluded unless you tell it not to. You can specify that in certain namespaces, for instance, certain text will show up and in others it won't. Ron Duvall (talk) 04:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I stayed up till like 3 AM trying to figure out these templates... all this <noinclude>, <includeonly>, etc. stuff... I haven't found anyplace that documents it in a way that's easily understood. What I would like to do is make it so that the Row template will give you a little preview of what it's going to look like in the table. I.e., it should show you a little mini-table on your proxy page, rather than how it is now. I think we can use some of the magic words to hide that confusing stuff that shows up now at User:Abd/Proxy now and provide something that looks better. We may need to have yet another template or two that transclude into the row template. There should also be an easy/intuitive way to add the acceptance, maybe by pasting a subst in there somewhere. I'm a little burnt out on it for now, feel free to take over if you want. Maybe you know some other people who might be interested in helping out with this project? I contact that Bryan guy from meta but haven't heard back, nor from any of the other authors of that material cited at delegable proxy. What about James Green-Armytage? Do you know how to get in touch with him? Well, talk to you later. Ron Duvall (talk) 06:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Cool, so now that you've nominated me as proxy, does this mean I can go around to debates saying, "Yo, y'all are just going to have to bend to my will because it's not just me talking, I'm speaking on behalf of Abd Lomax. You see this proxy table over here? Yup, that's his John Hancock right there. See that diff, that proves it's legit. OK now where was I? All right, I want this article kept, and I want the speedy deletion template removed from this article over here that I wrote. That's right, I can do that now because it's not the author doing it; it's Abd. Also, I want you to order me a large supreme pan pizza from Papa John's because I'm getting pretty hungry. And if you do that, MAYBE I won't nominate your userpage for deletion. And don't even try to edit war with me. When I revert, it's really like only half a revert because I can revert once for me and the next time for Abd, and we can just alternate like that, so really when you're dealing with me, I've got the six revert rule going on while you can only change it back thrice. Yeah buddies, there's a new sheriff in town and his name is Ron Duvall." Ron Duvall (talk) 08:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Respected User:BigDeal, this is an automated notice from AdminBot User:Robocop. My Revert Radar clocked you at 4RRs per day in a 3RR per day zone, and you had not obtained a waiver decal from WP:3RREXCEPTIONS; therefore I am autoblocking you for 24 hours; you may appeal by blah blah blah, but this block will expire automatically in 24 hours without any action needed on your part. My apologies for any inconvenience; we know that sometimes actions such as yours are justified, and this autoblock will not be used against you in any future process. Sincerely, --Robocop.

But, officer, I was representing User:Abd in two of those reverts, please see the Proxy Table. --BigDeal.

My limited AI capabilities detected a probable excuse #136, Claim of Proxy Rights. See WP:PROXYFALLACIES. Proxies do not gain special user rights unless specifically granted by the community, and special reversion rights are generally allowed only for uninvolved administrators. My apologies for any inconvenience. Sincerely, --Robocop.

But, officer, I'm blah, blah, blah.

Tell it to the judge. My apologies for any inconvenience. Sincerely, --Robocop.

--BigDeal

I have reviewed your request above. As was explained in the PROXYFALLACIES page, proxies on Misplaced Pages do not act on behalf of users and holding proxies confers no special privileges; and even if we were to consider that you reverted twice on behalf of your client, this would be meat puppetry, and, as the active party, you remain personally responsible for your actions. (If you requested your client to revert twice, and this became known or could be seen from patterns of behavior, you could both be sanctioned, unless you were able to successfully defend the action as necessary upon review.) As you did not assert necessity in your appeal, and did not show due diligence in considering the information that was presented to you, I am not only not granting it, I am adding an additional 24-hour block for frivolous appeal. As always, you may appeal any administrative action at blah blah blah. Please understand that we must conserve administrator time in order to deal with the scale of Misplaced Pages. Next time, when a human or AdminBot gives you instructions, as found above with "blah blah blah," please read them carefully. Please note that short blocks, automatically applied, do not prejudice your record, they merely make the maintenance of the project more efficient, and the primary block by the bot was not in any way punitive. However, frivolous appeal consumes valuable human time, and thus must incur some cost for the appellant or it will spread like spam. If you find flaws in the operation of the AdminBots, in Misplaced Pages policies and functions, or in my personal response as an administrator, please see blah blah blah for how you can help improve how the project works. Your efforts at building and maintaining the encyclopedia are deeply appreciated. Sincerely, --BoredToTearsAtHavingToExplainThisYetAgain.

Seriously, short answer, no, it doesn't mean that. But some, apparently, think it would. One aspect of WP:AGF, commonly violated, is assuming that the proposals and ideas of other users are not stupid, that if an objection is obvious, the other user probably thought of it. Given that there always exists an unbounded universe of spurious objections to any proposal, it's impossible for a proposer to consider and be explicit about all of them, and so someone who does not consider the idea in terms of how it might work, instead of how it might not, at least for preliminary consideration, will often scream No, Not ever, Over My Dead Body, etc., at the first hint of something new.

There is a major flaw in AfDs, RfAs, and similar process: votes before arguments have been laid out. ArbComm doesn't do that, so why do the rest of us? What has happened is that Misplaced Pages, being put together initially by people with little experience in standard deliberative process, (or with what is common, negative experience of it being badly or abusively used) which is designed for efficiency at the same time as for appropriately thorough consideration of issues, didn't incorporate the wisdom of centuries in what was built. That's fine when the scale is small, it will increasingly break down as the scale increases. I'd say it's already badly broken; but because there are large numbers of editors willing to put in endless hours reinventing the wheel, it still functions reasonably well. But it's colossally inefficient, and those grinding hours will fade. In a way, Misplaced Pages is like a giant chain letter/pyramid scheme. The project feeds on the enthusiasm of new editors, some of whom put in extraordinary amounts of time with no compensation other than barnstars; while the project is growing, as these editors burn out, they are replaced by new ones. At a certain point, which probably has not yet been reached, the project reaches population limits, and growth stops or declines. If this is not anticipated, collapse can be rapid, as more and more mopping falls upon fewer and fewer users, who burn out more rapidly.

What would be suggested by deliberative tradition: (1) Action is proposed by a user. (2) Action is seconded by another user. (I'd recommend that proxies not serve for this purpose, except for superproxies, which I doubt will exist. (A superproxy represents an absolute majority of participating users.) (3) Debate takes place. Arguments are presented. Proxies are irrelevant. (4) Debate is closed by vote. Proxies may count at judgment of closing servant. (5) Arguments are summarized. (This is optional, but could be done by the community of participating users, or by the closing servant. This would be an NPOV section or subpage.) (6) Debate closes, Voting opens. Voting should be in a format that can be easily analyzed if desired. Proxies, if any participate, vote the same as anyone else, the vote does not mention proxy count. (7) Voting closes and servant rules on outcome. Servant may consider proxies, but should explicitly state if this has been done, otherwise the presumption would be that the outcome was based solely on the arguments.

It is possible that votes would refer specifically to arguments. "Per nom" is an ad-hominem argument and should be strongly discouraged. (Though it could really mean, I agree with the arguments presented with the vote of the nominator, and I take responsibility for the accuracy of any facts alleged by him or her. But, really, it should be explicit about the arguments, not the person who presented them. It takes little longer to say "based on 1, 2, and 5" than to say "per username")

In standard process, there are bypasses that eliminate a number of these steps for efficiency. For example, a user proposes an offensive deletion. If nobody seconds it, it dies with no wasted time. If someone seconds, anyone may Object to the Consideration of the Question. An administrator might at that point suspend deliberation and might protect the page, or might wait for a second. If it is seconded, the administrator should protect the page and open a voting page on the Objection. That's all that goes on that page, votes. No comments. The whole point is not to waste time considering frivolous or offensive questions. A majority sustains the objection. A meeting chair in many environments might simply rule the objection out of order, or accept it, always subject to appeal. However, tradition is that if there has been any debate, Objection is moot. Therefore what I would suggest is that any debate be out of order until an administrator -- or other accepted "chair" -- has formally opened it (allowing at least a minimal time for objections).

While this may seem complicated and the present system simple, in fact, in practice, the traditional system is quite simple and efficient, and the present system wastes loads of editor time debating the obvious (and often repeating arguments to make them seem more a matter of "consensus." The rules for deliberation were worked out over centuries of practice in peer assemblies. Many aspects of this already exist in Misplaced Pages process, but others, including some crucial ones. are missing (don't debate proposals that haven't been seconded; if a proposal can't find a second, it is certainly useless; nothing prevents a user from privately communicating with others, or using user Talk pages, to stir up some support). WP:SNOW handles some, but it would be much more efficient -- practically no admin time involved, really, and the only editor time wasted is that of the one who proposed the unseconded motion -- to let unseconded proposals die from lapse with no second.

A mature system will incorporate practically all of what is present practice, in fact, and will just nudge it a little. There are two ways that proxies affect, possibly, the described process: the "judge" or "chair" or "administrator" may decide to consider them (and probably should if there is no evidence that the proxy assignments are warped, but "consider" doesn't mean "follow like a robot," it means that, if votes matter to the administrator, using proxy exapansions makes sense *and is scalable*. The other way is that I expect we would see, particularly if the above practice became routine, less participation in, for example, AfDs, deeper, more cogent and more fully expressed arguments in all directions, and fewer direct voters, but, if proxies are considered, much wider representation in the process. If we get to the point that proxy assignments become routine, quorum rules become possible, preventing small but active minorities from dominating obscure corners. But that is highly speculative at this point. In large direct democracies, quorums tend to be miniscule, because of the difficulty of assembling them. (Town Meeting in my town had a 5% of registered voters quorum, and frequently had trouble meeting it.) If delegable proxy is used, and representation considered for quorum, it could become easy to assemble a quorum, and quorum could be much larger. It even becomes possible to require an Absolute majority for a proposal to pass. Democracy on steroids.

And then we get into hierarchical structures, which biology routinely invented as scale increased. The encyclopedia itself should be hierarchically organized, which hypertext makes simple. Previously, the "sum of human knowledge" was, encyclopedically, not the sum, but the top level of a hierarchy, consisting of validated information accepted by consensus of those in the fields involved. To go deeper, one would consider a library, with, presumably, volumes dealing with specific subjects, and these volumes are arranged for popular and specialist use (the latter require pre-existing knowledge, generally, to understand), and then, beyond that, peer-reviewed primary sources, and beyond that various collections of ordinary primary sources. It's all "human knowledge," but the encyclopedia was, necessarily, the "sum," as in the sense of "summary."

A librarian would throw in the trash none of the above, except for true trash, but would categorize it. Someone coming into the library and wanting to learn about a topic would not be referred to the primary source collection, they would be first referred to a top-level article on it. That top-level article would link to sources that access the next level, deeper examinations of the subject. With increasing depth comes the increasing possibility of controversy and disagreement, and the variety of what can be found at each level increases. However, if the interest of the reader is narrow, the reader should be able to go as deep as the reader cares, finding all the articles arranged. Depth indicates degree of consensus. Whatever is a matter of consensus is at a high level. What is at the lowest level is just like raw, uninterpreted sensory information. Most of us pay little attention to most of it. But when we need to, we can immediately access it. We only discard it, really, because of storage limits, we really cannot remember everything. But a librarian with practically infinite storage would solely be concerned with the categorization of knowledge for possible future access. Today's fancruft might turn out to be crucially important tomorrow. Well, probably not fancruft. But information about a local high school, submitted in good faith by some student? I see utterly no reason to delete it. Rather, it gets categorized into a layer for, say, unverified information of low notability. To see it, a reader must look for it.

The present Misplaced Pages is aspiring to be something between layers 1 and 2 in what I'm describing. It would like to be layer 1, but not only frequently falls short, the shortcomings are actually increasing, in my view; this is because there is no process for guaranteeing that articles are validated, that every source currently in the article has been checked, that every )notable) point of view has been represented in the process of editing the article. An article may gain GA status, which simply means that, at one point, it was decided this was appropriate. One edit later, it's no longer really good, possibly, but it will still have the status. Layers are the answer. There are separate articles, top layer is verified, validated. And protected. Underneath it is a working article anyone can edit. There is a process for moving text up from underneath to the top, but no individual editor, ordinarily, can do it (unless that editor has been specially empowered, and there could be a huge class of such editors, not admins, but still specially privileged, I think I've called them checkers before, or something like that. They are like fact-checkers with major publications. Responsible for what they do.

With such a system, there will still be transient glitches, because fact-checkers will turn out to be biased, errors will be made, etc. But the quality of the top-level Misplaced Pages would become such that it *could* be considered reliable, because articles would be, essentially, reviews of what is known in a field, peer-reviewed.

Classic encyclopedias had a method of checking articles that has largely been ignored and even rejected on Misplaced Pages. If something is unclear to the writers and editors, an expert was consulted. Sometimes several experts. Properly, the expert's opinion wasn't just inserted, raw, but that opinion was, still, a source, and might be credited. Peer-reviewed papers often refer to private correspondence with some person in the field. Verification is theoretically possible, but usually verification is negative: if the expert consulted doesn't pop up and say, "I never said such a thing," it is assumed to be accurate. AGF is actually how the world works.

Anyway, to administer all this will require far more sophistication than what we have. What we have is, in fact, a very solid basis for it all. In biology, collections of cells, all equal to each other, all performing each function as needed, without specialization, worked well for a long time, and even continue to be successful, but lost out in terms of major success once competition arose. They are called slime molds. It worked, for a time. However, specialization brought survival benefits; the messaging between cells was still through diffusion of messenger molecules, though. In order to develop higher intelligence, the ability to respond rapidly to analysis of the environment, networks of cells were necessary, optimized for communication speed. These cells, in the growth of the organism, sought each other out and connected, forming vast networks of cells connected at synapses. The brain is built from the bottom up through the individual habits of cells as they connect.

Delegable proxy builds a network of connections, each one based on some level of mutual trust, indicating rapport. Indicating, probably, good communication. Such a network can respond, at least in theory, to new challenges far more rapidly than less organized structures, but it not only does not need top-down control, such control will impair it and inhibit its function. There are some dangers down this road, for sure, but what I see is that the system can encounter them and handle them without difficulty. The key is the protection of staying with intelligence ("advice"); this is, quite simply, a realization of Montesquieu's vision of judicial independence, uncorrupted by power.

Ahem, where were we? --Abd (talk) 18:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the reason we don't make decisions in deletion debates the way Arbcom does (i.e. have discussion first, then a vote) is that Arbcom has a membership that is going to stay with the case from beginning to end. In xfDs, users float in, say something, and leave to participate in other stuff. Or they may go on vacation, and you won't see them for another month. Or you may never see them again. So we combine discussion and votes all into one. It would be like in a deliberative assembly, if during debate, people said, "Well, I vote against this motion, because _____," and the secretary duly noted down everyone's opinion, until debate closed. Imagine also that the transcripts of the debate are being kept on file, and people wander into the room, leaf through them, get up and speak for or against the motion, and then walk back out. Occasionally, someone gets up and says, "You know what, I change my mind, actually I favor this motion now based on what that member just said." Eventually, the chair says, "OK, the results are _____," making a decision on the strengths of the arguments, taking into account that the members who spoke earliest may not have taken into account what people said later, and that things may have occurred that render the original arguments for/against the proposal meaningless. E.g. the original proposal may have been to commend Mr. X for founding and providing the seed money for a new animal shelter; and halfway through the debate, after many people have spoken in favor of the motion, news arrives that Mr. X has been caught selling large quantities of stray kittens acquired through the animal shelter to animal testing laboratories; so the chair disregards those earlier opinions. If the chair is not sure about the strengths of the arguments, he may decide based on the numbers. Or he may say, "We didn't reach a decision," and the status quo remains. In any event, those who participate in debate represent a very small portion of the overall membership, and the quorum is perhaps four or five people, although that can be waived too if the chair thinks the result is a foregone conclusion. In fact, the chair can cut the discussion short and skip to the result if he thinks there's no question what the end result will be.

This system has a lot of drawbacks, but I'm not sure how to fix them. Some solutions introduce more problems, which is one of the reasons we see so little change here. Ron Duvall (talk) 20:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The principle of voting before arguments have been completed is really, really bad. It is *voting*, pure and simple, it is not consideration of arguments. Take a look at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Blood electrification (2nd nomination). Most of the arguments presented with delete votes were totally spurious as grounds for deletion. Quackery is not a ground for deletion, if it's notable quackery, as this clearly is (from patents and from an FTC filing I found). Now, clearly, there were many more votes for deletion than for keep, and there was attack on the keep votes as having been canvassed. But the sheer number of delete votes raises suspicion of either canvassing, or some very special attention being paid to AfDs that I haven't seen elsewhere. There were substantive arguments presented, the resolution of which is not obvious (why was this article deleted?) The closing administrator gave no clue. Frankly, it looks like this admin just looked at the number of votes. If I didn't have more important things to do, I'd go for Deletion Review and the whole nine yards of process.... something stinks here. (Blood Electrification is definitely quackery, from everything I know, the "evidence" for it is about as weak as anything I've ever seen, but that is not at all the point. Equipment for Blood Electrification is being sold. People are being threatened with prosecution for advertising it. Somebody sees that, wants to know what it is, looks at Misplaced Pages. Nothing. Why? In an article on AIDS, blood electrification isn't sufficiently notable to mention. But on its own, it clearly is, as notable quackery, and the knowledge of quackery is its whole department in human knowledge.

Delegable proxy will have little immediate effect in this; but it could have an effect long-term. What I see happening would be that caucuses would start to coordinate participation in AfDs, but openly and cleanly. AfDs where the process wasn't properly conducted would start to see more Deletion Reviews. The whole thing about vote canvassing is ... weird. If votes don't matter, what's the harm with canvassing? Obviously, those who are complaining about canvassing think votes count. Are they right or are they wrong? Blood electrification, though, makes it look like they are right, and I strongly suspect canvassing or some kind of coordination among the anti-quackery caucus (which made a big deal out of some "they are trying to delete it again" messages among the few keep voters. Ron, in a word, the process sucks. --Abd (talk) 03:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way, a lot of people are saying that Misplaced Pages:Delegable proxy currently stresses deletion debates when it should stress policy debates, which the system may be more suited for. I don't suppose you could do a rewrite to reflect that? I'm just plain tired at the moment... Ron Duvall (talk) 01:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The point of delegable proxy is the network created. DP will be useful with AfD, but only, really, in certain marginal situations, and some of the early discussion did indeed focus on AfD, and it's really easy to misunderstand that we are not proposing some rigid system that makes voting more important than it is already. Rather, it is a way of estimating a little more deeply, community support for some resolution for an issue, or the degree to which a community has considered the issue. The details of applications aren't actually part of the proposal, the proposal is only to create the tool, and we can already do that without community approval. So we are, quite simply, creating it, and welcoming all input as part of that process.

I'm not convinced that the proxy table, as it is, is simple enough. We should play with it a bit. The timestamps aren't right, they actually should show date and time, not a time code. And the diffs don't work.

I'll look at the project page and see what I can do to make it more general. I already did some of this yesterday. I do sense that the first applications to have any effect would be with Article proxies and associated special proxy tables, not necessarily the general proxies that are on the Proxy table page. Article proxies are create formal networks that connect a larger interested community, not necessarily currently active, with the smaller group that may be active on an article at one time. As shown in the little drama above, article proxies don't create special opportunities for meat puppets; indeed attempts to call in one's clients to out-revert an opposing caucus could backfire. However, bringing in more eyes is always helpful. But I certainly don't know the specifics about how it will play out. The reason why I think article proxies might be more important in the short term is that it only takes a small group of editors to make it work. --Abd (talk) 04:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Proxy voting vs. interactive democracy

Please see my comments at Talk:Proxy_voting#Proxy_voting_vs._interactive_representation Ron Duvall (talk) 23:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Acceptance

Cool, I see that the Accept template worked. So, now that you've accepted, I get to contact you, right? Good, because there are four MfDs scheduled to close later tonight, at 1:41 AM, 2:31 AM, 3:11 AM, and 4:20 AM respectively, and I need you to vote on my behalf at the last minute for strategic reasons (we don't want to give time for people to respond with counter-arguments). I'll need to give you a ring a few minutes before each of those votes so that we can have a last-minute tactical discussion. I won't be able to vote on my own behalf because I'm planning on repeatedly vandalizing Jimbo's page before then (he said some stuff that really got on my nerves and I need to retaliate), and so I will probably be under a 24-hour autoblock. But that's what proxies are for, right? Ron Duvall (talk) 04:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that's what revoking proxy acceptance is for. :-)

Seriously, users can already do this stuff, and I suspect sometimes they do. DP actually could make it a little more difficult, at least if it is on-wiki. After all, if I'm your proxy, as I hinted above, or vice-versa, and we both vote on something in anything like a suspicious way, or revert with apparent coordination, it could be suspected to be meat puppetry. A pattern over time could establish it. On the other hand, as I've mentioned, I think this is already happening to some degree, and I haven't seen a hint of any action against it. Is anyone looking for it? There was a block of Yellowbeard for canvassing, but if he had sent emails to those users, nothing would have happened unless they complained. What a coincidence that the only editors to have serious disputes with Abd just happen to show up in his AfD! (Actually, Yellowbeard canvassed every one, and only Tbouricius and Clockback -- who didn't seriously have a problem -- didn't pop in, and the rest of those who have tangled with me are blocked sock puppets of James Salsman.

Odd that Tomruen claims not to believe in sock puppets and all that "****" as he delicately put it. He's certainly cooperated with some. BenB4, Acct4, MilesAgain.... I was disappointed by Tom's appearance in my RfA, I really did think more of him.... I suspect there is something not openly visible going on.

--Abd (talk) 04:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

C'mon, how could someone with a name like "Acct4" possibly be a sockpuppet? Ron Duvall (talk) 04:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

That was a habit of James Salsman, quite possibly still is. "BenB4" had certainly "been here before." And then there was MilesAgain, and the name itself did indeed arouse my suspicion that this was a Salsman sock, immediately. Contribs showed that this was an experienced user with a new account, created roughly as other accounts were being rooted out. Interest in IRV was the same, though MilesAgain was actually more helpful in some ways. MilesAgain went on the edit furiously in other areas, I'm not sure what he was doing. It's not clear how he was caught, a Checkuser apparently got some tip and acted on it, there was no formal checkuser request filed.--Abd (talk) 05:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of The fine art of sock and meat puppetry, I have a book - endorsed on the back cover by Rob Richie as an "essential book for anyone who wants to make an informed choice about what voting system best fits a community or state" - called "Behind the Ballot box: A citizen's guide to voting systems.", by Douglas J. Amy. Looks like a good reference book for the IRV controversies article quotes. At least one of the "Disadvantages specific to this system" is "Guarantee of majority of continuing votes only". Tom Ruen (talk) 05:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC

Yes. What systems does it cover? Anything written after the 1980s should certainly be considering Approval, but the big mystery to me is what happened to Bucklin? There was a huge movement to advanced voting methods in the early part of the 20th century, lots of publications and enthusiasm, implementations of STV for proportional representation, preferential voting (as Bucklin or sequential elimination); and then it was as if it had never happened. What happened? The story told by FairVote that Bucklin was abandoned because people weren't using the additional ranks, frankly, makes no sense. First of all, people were using the additional ranks, just look at the election that Brown v. Smallwood reversed. Secondly, Bucklin was easy to vote and count, and second rank votes didn't need to be counted if there was a majority in the first round. I've read what I could find, so far, and there is no clue. Bucklin was enormously popular in Duluth, and the bulk of legal opinion at the time was apparently that it was constitutional. But there was no challenge to the court decision, as far as I know, no attempt to amend the constitution of Minnesota (which is relatively easy in some states, I don't know about Minnesota). We know what happened to IRV in Ann Arbor, there is good history on the web. But not Bucklin. I suspect that there were powerful political interests which were benefiting from vote-splitting, same as was the case in Ann Arbor. Given that Bucklin is very much like Approval, but with ranks so that first choices are considered first, it would seem to be quite a good option, though Approval remains the absolute simplest reform that would deal with the spoiler effect, which is the motive behind most reform interest. --Abd (talk) 05:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Single-winner systems analyzed: Plurality, Two round system, Instant runoff voting. It mentions Approval voting, and Condorcet method as single-winner methods in an appendix C Lesser-used Voting systems. Both are somewhat dismissed as winner-take-all methods, and encouraging bland smiley faced candidates. Tom Ruen (talk) 16:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Very scientific. This allegation is commonly given as a reason to oppose Approval voting, indeed, and the truth is that Approval will award (tautologically) victory to the most-widely-approved candidate. Approval with knowledgeable voters and multiple rounds will settle on the Condorcet winner (and apparently almost always finds the Condorcet winner with one round). I.e., take the winner with a "core support" system such as IRV, and face him or her off against such a "bland smiley faced" candidate, and the "bland" one will win hands down (that is, in certain situations, that would be common in a three-party system). No wonder Richie endorsed the book! That is political polemic, based on no actual study of the performance of election methods, neither in actual elections nor in simulations; an obviously POV epithet is applied to the Approval winner, with no deep consideration of what democratic methods are actually supposed to do. Among other things, they are supposed to prevent revolutions and rebellion by satisfying, at least, the majority with results. Suppose the election is between Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mr. Nice-nice. Do you think one of the first two should win (if the electorate is divided roughly in thirds, with Mr. Nice-nice having the lowest first-rank count)? When we are dealing with elections where the major candidates are not far apart, most methods work fairly well, that is, they don't have disastrous results. But what happens if an outcome is really important?--Abd (talk) 20:55, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I could scan the book pages (2-3) and email if you want to read the full description. I accept the judgement that plurality rewards pre-election compromises, i.e. party power, and everything else weakens the influences of parties, including majority runoffs and IRV where candidates have to fight not only for a core following but also compromise voters who are too stubborn to compromise before the election. Condorcet and Approval take away party power to control the elections. I don't have your romantic attraction to approval. I don't know how it would work out in practice. I do think Condorcet and IRV will agree 99% of the time. Tom Ruen (talk) 21:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The scan would be appreciated, if you care to send it, thanks in advance.

In a two-party system, with IRV and top-two, that's almost a tautology (about Condorcet winner), true for Approval as well. However, get a strong third party, or a true three-way race in a nonpartisan election -- which almost never happens -- Approval will perform better in this respect. Sequential elimination, quite simply, does not look at all the votes before it decides to start dropping candidates. There is another form of IRV that performs better, I think, that eliminates based on full rankings. The "romantic attraction" to Approval is based on it being nothing other than the present system with a slight tweak which costs nothing and which also allows most voters to vote as they have always voted, but which eliminates the spoiler effect (the minor party version) and also performs well -- at least according to simulations -- in three-way contests. Sure, it's not perfect. But it's free, and that's the point. I've claimed that voting methods activists should really agree on implementing Approval. My theory is that once there is Approval, voters will want to be able to express a Favorite, and then we would go to Bucklin or IRV (perhaps with overvoting allowed -- which performs better) or possibly some version of Range, probably a simple one. However, if one wants to use the initial reform to fuel a later reform, such as multiwinner proportional representation, and you are stuck on STV as the PR method, then.... one might oppose this. I do not consider Approval an ideal election method. Just the biggest bang for the buck.

The best method, IMHO, is what Robert's Rules *actually* recommends, straight-out: FPTP, majority required, no eliminations but repeated balloting if no majority found. Simple. Existing practice in parliamentary procedure. Making it Approval could make it more efficient, but if there were multiple majorities, I'd hold a runoff between any candidates gaining a majority. Turns out that some think this also evades Arrow's Theorem. This can also be done with Range -- and could be even more efficient -- but Approval cutoff would have to be specified (I'd fix it at 50% rating, though, in theory, approval cutoff could be set anywhere if the voting system could handle the complexity. --approval cutoff is used in this kind of scheme to determine if a majority has been found. Forcing a runoff if there are multiple majorities fixes certain problems regarding strategic exaggeration in Range, as it does with Approval. )But "strategic voting" in Range methods including Approval is a whole can of worms. It really is a different animal than it is with ranked methods, where strategic voting always requires preference reversal, expressing on the ballot that you prefer a candidate over another when the reverse is true. Having had that tradition for decades of study, at least, and with it being (correctly) considered a problem, comes Approval, the definition is shifted to allow a sincere vote to be considered strategic, and poof! we have an objection to Range and Approval manufactured out of sheer redefinition of terms in a practically invisible way.

Tom, there is serious politics behind all this, and money. If you don't think so, you are simply naive. That is the point of what was above. I've generally thought that you were, indeed, merely naive, but, your comments in my RfA.... well, first of all, I didn't ask you to comment, I didn't ask anyone to comment, that would be canvassing. Second, you were canvassed by a sock puppet, User:Yellowbeard, the kind you claim not to believe in. (He was blocked for it, you know.) When I find myself in agreement with people who are using underhanded methods, lying, cheating, I re-examine my own opinions. Sure it's possible that they are correct -- but odds are, with friends like that, I'm on the wrong side. Look at the History of the IRV article: User:BenB4, User:Acct4, User:MilesAgain, and those are just the ones I've noticed. You don't think they were sock puppets? All were confirmed as James Salsman. And I didn't lift a finger to cause their discovery. Well, that's not exactly true. When a 3RR warning was placed on my Talk page by User:p-j-t-a, about the most blatant sock I've ever seen, I did leave a very short note so that the administrator who saw it would have a little help figuring out what was going on. And he did. That's why your friend User:Tbouricius was blocked, as a meat puppet, not because I requested it (I didn't, au contraire) but because he saw the editing patterns. I didn't call him a meat puppet, the blocking administrator did )actually, he said something like "sock puppet, meat puppet, SPA, it's all the same to me," and he refused to reconsider when I suggested that Bouricius and Ask10Questions be unblocked (she was an SPA and might also be considered COI). Whether or not that was true, that was the appearance; what I've claimed is that Bouricius is a COI editor, which, by WP:COI, he clearly is. The matter is less clear for you, and slightly less clear, even, for me, as I have no formal or declared affiliations. And all I've done is to point out the obvious. If this ever went to ArbComm, based on what I've seen, it's quite likely that there would be sanctions inhibiting your editing of the IRV article, and possible that there would be the same against me, depending. ArbComm can be difficult to predict sometimes. But I'm not threatening anything. (Sometimes people read something like I just stated and imagine that it is a threat; no, it's a comment. You might notice, however, that I haven't been the one, so far, to take stuff to serious dispute resolution; the exceptions were a clumsy attempt, when I had been editing seriously about a week, to complain about Richie outrageously reverting as an IP editor, and an attempt to see if Yellowbeard was another Salsman sock. That he is a sock isn't in question, the behavior is waving a big flag, the only question is Salsman or not. Checkuser said no connection, but that is not always conclusive. I could quite easily evade checkuser, and I'm certainly not going to say how....

The irony about my RfA, of course, is that I didn't care about the outcome, and being handed the mop would be useless for any POV-pushing, should I want to do that. To refer to a very old Mullah Nasruddin story, I was smuggling donkeys. (Actually someone else was, and I just went along for the ride.) Yellowbeard revealed his hand by his action, confirming what I had suspected: association with FairVote. If not Salsman, well, there are others who would serve, I'm sure. Clumsy, though. Frankly, were I on the FairVote side, and I didn't know who these socks were mastered by, I'd suspect straw puppetry, the results have been so bad. Richie was completely out of his element in that RfA, I thought, until the last moment, when he appeared, that he had realized that discretion was the better part of valor; but, no, when it was totally unnecessary, the RfA was surely not going to pass, he tossed in his vote and comment and diatribe (really, quoting my post to the Range Voting list in an RfA? does he ever seek advice?).

However, horse to water.... --Abd (talk) 23:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Eclipse tonight, try to email the pages in a day or two. I'm against nontrivial anonymous agressive editing in general. I'm not afraid of people who have experience and passionate opinions. I'd rather avoid labeling people and focus on content and reason. I'll always lean towards positivity - prefer bias for the side that's promoting something than the side that is afraid of it, even if both make similar mistakes. I only learned one thing reading one of Rush Limbaugh's books - don't trust the facts of people with agendas. Besides that "weakness", we're all equal to me. Tom Ruen (talk) 23:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I would think that the use of meatpuppets would be disadvantageous. After all, you only get to play with them for a little while before you have to eat them, or else they go rancid. I guess the best type to use for this purpose would be hamburger meat, as you can mold it any way you want. Vegans would undoubtedly prefer tofu, as you can do all kinds of things with it, e.g. make a tofurkey, but does that really count? I think not. Ron Duvall (talk) 05:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

gross. however, I am on a very low carb diet, so meat puppets are ideal for me, much better than straw puppets. Socks? You have got to be kidding --Abd (talk) 05:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way, "The Short Charter" proposed for Portland in 1912 would have implemented a combination of interactive representation and Bucklin. Ron Duvall (talk) 05:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

There are two streams: Proxy representation, where representatives have variable voting power, and delegable proxy can be used to do this without elections in the ordinary sense (though I have long suggested that there can be a secret ballot layer to choose first-level proxies), while still being able to boil down an assembly to manageable size, and Asset Voting, which is like delegable proxy except that the proxy structure is used to elect members, with each member being elected with a quota of votes. The resulting assemblies are different: P or DP produce assemblies with members who are not equal to each other in voting power, and Asset produces a peer assembly. DP is perfect proportional representation, Asset is very good, as good as is possible wtih a peer assembly, and STV gets pretty close to Asset if used for the same number of members. But Asset, because it can be handled such that there are *no* wasted votes, and it can even be handled so that voters generally know exactly whom their vote elected, is pretty interesting, because it would keep the peer tradition.

Any of these methods could increase the sense of participation in government for citizens. Lewis Carroll, apparently, proposed something like Asset Voting. My own realization, which has been taken up by others, is that deliberation and vote can be separated. Direct democracy for voting is actually practical, particularly if there are proxies or representatives, chosen by the citizens, who can vote on their behalf where they don't care to directly vote. Participation in deliberation, when the scale is large, must be restricted in some way. Connecting deliberation and voting is why direct democracy is generally abandoned when organizations get large, because deliberation on a large scale is essentially impossible (without structures to control the noise, anyway). But scale is not much of an impediment to voting. The argument that citizens aren't sufficiently informed to vote may be true, but who decides who is sufficiently informed. Some citizens may be more informed than the elected representatives! My view is that it is each citizen who should decide, for himself or herself. And, if the citizen is not going to vote, then the citizen should be able to choose, unopposed by the votes of anyone else, who will represent him or her in the process. And that kind of choice is necessary for deliberation.... --Abd (talk) 06:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Superproxy, anyone?

Are you sure you don't want to form a proxy chain of Ron Duvall -> Abd -> RRichie -> Tbouricius -> Tom Ruen -> Yellowbeard? Once we get it started, it will probably continue growing indefinitely, ensuring that we are always represented by someone. C'mon, you were the one saying that we should start by trying out the delegable proxy system within the context of a particular article. Now's our big chance. Plus, once you establish the proxy relationship, not only can you converse with them on the talk page, but you can start calling them up on the phone. "Ah, yes, this is Abd Lomax again, calling for Mr. Richie... Yes, it's about another upcoming poll on the instant runoff voting talk page on Misplaced Pages...Sure, I'll hold..." It's going to be awesome. Ron Duvall (talk) 07:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure. Hey, Ron, if you trust RRichie enough to recommend him to me as a proxy, why don't you change your assignment to him? that way, at least to start, it's Abd -> Duvall -> Richie, etc. Now, does this mean that you will call him up if I ask you to? Naturally, you'd only do so if what I was asking you to ask him, you thought was a reasonable question or suggestion. You would be his filter, and mine in the other direction. (DP networks at first glance look like the trust flows "upward," but it also flows in the other direction, and we want that, which is why proxy acceptance is important.) --Abd (talk) 17:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, well, the idea is that since you are so active on the IRV article, they would never actually vote your proxy. However, appointing them might make them more likely to appoint you, forming a huge loop in which as the most frequent participant you would hold the power. Ron Duvall (talk) 18:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Proxies don't hold power, other than their own; the clients do. And the point of the virtual editorial council that forms for each article is to find consensus, and DP only assists in that by ensuring that significant minorities are given due consideration. In an actual vote, and especially an actual vote that was seriously contested, clients would likely review what the proxy did, and if it was an abuse of even the very limited power that proxies do seem to hold, we would see a confirmation -- or rejection -- of the proxy votes. It really is simply for efficiency, rapidity of negotiation, and, of course, for the communication that might need to ensue if there is some abuse. With DP as we are implementing it, it's all in the open, and if anyone thinks a proxy is abusing the trust, they can ping the clients, or at least one at a time. If a client says, "Don't harass me, well, that's an answer...." --Abd (talk) 20:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Arrow's impossibility theorem

You wrote in an edit summary:

remove defective example, as stated, this is a unanimous ordering and most systems will pass.

I responsed to Waisbrot at User talk:Waisbrot#Arrow's theorem about the original wording: in the case of the Borda count, the original example can occur exactly as written. But the version you changed from was Waisbrot's example, in which Dave only places last.

You further removed the paragraph which began

Various theorists have suggested weakening the IIA criterion'

which seems both unrelated and useful. Why was that?

CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I took out a defective example, a candidate unanimously ranked last, which is not a good example of IIA, since all methods that I can think of off-hand (without trying to make one up) would consider that candidate irrelevant.

The original before Waisbrot's edit was "Dave's candidacy is ranked last by every voter," and Waisbrot changed that to "Dave's candidacy is ranked last by the balloting system." This, of course, enters into the problem I've been describing in Talk for the article. (i.e., the difference between the voter's rankings and the "balloting system." Arrow's theorem doesn't get into the "balloting system." It merely looks at the voting system as if it were a black box, with voter rankings input and social order output. In previous Talk, Arrow was quoted:

I read some of Arrow's book and this is his example of IIA (pg. 26, 1963 edition):

... For example, suppose that an election system has been devised whereby each individual lists all the candidates in order of his preference and then, by a preassigned procedure, the winning candidate is derived from these lists. (All election procedures are of this type, although in most the entire list is not required for the choice.) Suppose that an election is held, with a certain number of candidates in the field, each individual filing his list of preferences, and then one of the candidates dies. Surely the social choice should be made by taking each of the individual's preference lists, blotting out completely the dead candidate's name, and considering only the orderings of the remaining names in going through the procedure of determining the winner. That is, the choice to be made among the set S of surviving candidates should be independent of the preferences of individuals for candidates not in S. ... (Kenneth Arrow)

As can be seen, Arrow is assuming a complete rank order input -- then qualifies this by noting that sometimes this is truncated. But Range and Approval methods, and other methods allowing equal ranking, do not merely truncate.

I didn't take out the "various experts" paragraph, I merely took out the intervening text.. Please feel free to improve this. My issue with what was taken out, beyond the Dave example, is the implication is that the options are only concluding that no voting system satisfies the criteria, or weakening, say, IIA. But IIA doesn't need to be weakened, there is another approach, which is to input something other than pure ranked preference order. IIA is intuitively desirable, and that is a sound intuition, in my opinion. Now, what's out there on this? I don't know. My own opinion isn't a source, it is only background. Warren Smith has written about this.... and maybe his opinion might be usable as an attributed source (as an expert). The real point of all this, to me, is that Arrow assumes that voting methods have, as input, rankings, whereas there is a whole class of cardinal methods that don't do this; rather, they segregate candidates into classes would be how I'd put it, and the classes may be in some order, and some classes may be empty, and some may have more than one candidate. Arrow's theorem assumes the total irrelevance of preference strength, which patently takes it out of game theory analysis and real (ordinary) human decision-making, where preference strength matters very much. That Arrow could write what he is quoted as writing above is actually shocking, to me; except that, apparently, this blindness was, simply, normal. The assumption of preference order as being what is input in advanced election methods is pretty old. But there already was a minor counterexample in Bucklin voting, and I have in mind the Duluth implementation, where third rank allowed multiple votes, i.e., multiple approvals, and if the election counting got as far as the third rank, it had become a pure Approval election. --Abd (talk) 02:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

(I'm now reading your response to Waisbrot, and, if you are correct -- I'm checking -- well, live and learn....)--Abd (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I responded on the talk page referenced above, User talk:Waisbrot#Arrow's theorem. It seems the example given was in error. --Abd (talk) 03:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Ayn Rand

I’ve been reconsidering my involvement in this encyclopedia, and with delegable proxy in particular, in light of Randian principles relating to selfishness and altruism. Specifically, I wonder if my time might be better devoted to programming.

I view helping humanity as being an important thing. Many people have noticed that I involve myself in a lot of activities, such as delegable proxy, private highways, free market environmentalism, etc. which while important, are little-known and relatively neglected causes. That is, in fact, what attracts me to them. After all, there are millions of people to support gun rights or drug reform or other fairly “mainstream” issues. But there are few who advocate for obscure issues. And voting reform seemed to be the most important, as it is the key to getting other reforms. Given my writing skills, and Misplaced Pages’s reach, this encyclopedia seemed to be a good and effective use of my time.

However, the encyclopedia is not directly remunerative to me in that it does not pay a wage or even really provide experience or admiration that I can foresee leveraging to my advantage in the future. This is in contrast to other unpaid activities such as volunteering for the food bank, which I have put on scholarship applications and gotten money thereby; or participating in the workplace-sponsored blood drive, which helped earn me corporate citizenship points which were a factor in the salary-influencing annual review; or even internships that got me job experience in my field. Even the future beneficiaries of delegable proxy, Wikipedians and the general public, have not been particularly appreciative. As Dominique Francon said at Howard Roark's trial, "You’re casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return."

Ayn Rand wrote many books stressing that selfishness is a moral imperative and altruism immoral. She notes that the general bettering of humanity are byproducts of capitalism and our own efforts to help ourselves. Altruism, on the other hand, has led to harmful ideologies such as socialism and wasteful behaviors. She notes that under altruism, “A young man who gives up his career in order to support his parents and never rises beyond the rank of grocery clerk is regarded as morally superior to the young man who endures an excruciating struggle and achieves his personal ambition.” I have begun to wonder whether it would be better for both myself and for the world if I were to divert time spent on Misplaced Pages toward in activities that will pay off for me personally. Through the capitalist system, society is already seeking to guide my activity elsewhere through offers of a payoff. People express what is important to them with dollars and other rewards.

I hope to become a programmer and have thought at many times that by working on artificial intelligence and other tech-related projects, I might ultimately have greater positive impact on the world than in volunteer work. Perhaps algorithms can be created that will write the encyclopedia for us. Certainly, much labor could be saved through improvements to Wikimedia software. Those algorithms might be invented through projects originally undertaken for profit, whose secondary use was in not-for-profit work; just as computers themselves were invented for business purposes and are now being used to create and distribute a 💕. Is that, then, where my greatest usefulness could be, and the encyclopedia a harmful diversion?

Many people become rich and then contribute to good causes in the form of money. Perhaps that is the best thing to do – not to contribute my own labor, but to accumulate money and then give to someone who can work full-time on delegable proxy. That way, everyone is productively employed and making money. We do what we do best and exchange for the rest. The downside is that I don't see the immediate return – but it's questionable whether circumstances are right at this time anyway; and by taking other steps first, such as technological improvements, it might make the situation more amenable to this systems successful introduction. What do you think? Ron Duvall (talk) 23:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, let's set Ayn Rand aside. The distinction between self-interest and altruism is quite artificial. Fact is, if you don't take care of yourself you won't be much help to others. And let me just talk about myself; if you want to interpret it as advice, you can take it or leave it. I need to make a living, I have no savings to speak of, I have small children (at 63!), and I neglected my businesses to pursue FA/DP for the world. It's a choice. Something will have to change, I cannot continue as I have. However, there is a possibility: note that Bill Wilson, when he died, left an estate in excess of a million dollars, with continuing income from royalties. That was actually real money in those days. His passion, creating and developing a fellowship -- which he needed in order to stay sober -- and providing it with a solid foundation which remains solid to this day, turned out to also feed him and his family. Jesus said, it's reported, that the workman is worthy of his meat. If we are working for some overall good, we may have to ask for help. And if society doesn't think it worthwhile, well, that's an answer, isn't it? As you may have noticed, I have ADHD. This presents a whole series of challenges, and among them are difficulties in keeping projects organized and maintaining them. I need help in lots of ways. If the theory is correct, about FA/DP, there will be money in it, i.e., quite enough to support those involved. But ... I don't know how to organize it for that purpose, beyond what I already know I need to do and haven't done. Ask for it, ask for help, and, if the help doesn't materialize, then do whatever I need to do to take care of myself. These ideas don't need me, personally, they will live on and grow without me. I might be able to help it happen a little more quickly, that's all. However, if we are talking about a little more quickly for six billion people, that could save millions of lives. So ... watch this space!

Oh, and by the way: lots of people set out on the path of accumulation of wealth in order to do good later with it. I'd say quite a few of them never manage to make it to the later part, there is always one more coin to be collected. Don't put off until tomorrow the purpose of your life, live it today and take care of yourself and your tomorrow. Does it have to be all one or all the other?--Abd (talk) 00:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm a perfectionist; if I get involved, I feel like I have to take it to the extreme and devote my life and entire being to it to the exclusion of all other interests and considerations! Ron Duvall (talk) 01:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Right. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Ron, this is adult Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, right out of the book. What do you think about Thom Hartmann? And, by the way, what about that free-association ramble the middle of my RfA? It takes a certain kind of mind to do something like that. You can do certain things that might be extraordinarily difficult for "normal" people, and, my guess, certain things that are easy for "normal" people are difficult for you. And me. We are different, we are not normal. Estimates of the incidence of ADHD varies from 5% or so up to maybe 15% of the population. Strongly heritable genetically. (From twin studies: co-incidence much higher with identical twins than with fraternal twins.) But environmental factors also play a major role, apparently. It's called "attention-deficit" not because we can't focus on something, but because our focus isn't socially controllable. It may seem that we can focus "when we want to," but, in fact, "want" is not necessarily controllable. The "hyperactivity" part of the name kept me from seeing it for years, because I wasn't "hyperactive." Or so it would seem. Inwardly, I was. But the trait that is most salient is hyperfocus, and an ability to think "outside the box." This very ability and habit is socially problematic.... So ... some of us can be very successful, and others get a drink of hemlock. Some of us find the support that allows our ideas to take root and function, others never are successful. Captains of industry and the drunk in the gutter, we can be either of these.... High incidence of addictions and addictive behaviors, high incidence of genius and creative brilliance. They go together. --Abd (talk) 03:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Professors

People say that delegable proxy is impractical, won't be accepted by the mainstream, won't work, etc. I was thinking, aren't those the kind of ideas typically embraced by academia? Why aren't there more college professors pushing this? Ron Duvall (talk) 02:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

They say all those things for very good reasons; first of all, if we just talk about DP, people will have a huge level of cynicism, born of hard experience if they ever were hopeful in the first place, that anything can change; something like DP seems like pie in the sky, a utopian vision, and, besides, they would surely corrupt it, etc., etc. There are many, many reasons to think it wouldn't work and few to think that it would.

But then there is FA/DP, which addresses the implementation problem; it provides a path from here to there, one step at a time, one person coming to recognize the idea at a time, and a safe and secure way to test the concepts at practically no risk and cost. But, of course, most people have never had close experience with Free Associations, which themselves fly in the face of what organizations are supposed to be. "Doesn't take controversial positions? Doesn't collect money? How could it do any good, then?" Only that relatively small segment of the population that has experienced this, as in AA, or as in Misplaced Pages, have some experience on which to base a different opinion. In AA, recognition of the power of the FA traditions is pretty easy, I've talked with a lot of people who have that experience, and they get FA/DP pretty quickly. But they have the formal statement of the Traditions in the book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, and a few have even read the more obscure Twelve Concepts for World Service that laid out more of the theoretical foundation for AA. With Misplaced Pages, there is not nearly as much sound theoretical analysis of why Misplaced Pages works as well as it does, and the stratification of users into four classes doesn't help (admins, active editors familiar with the system, occasional editors not familiar, and lurkers -- i.e., mere readers. In an organization where the actual function is face-to-face, as with AA, there is practically no such stratification, AA members certainly differ in sophistication, but they meet as equals at meetings. In any case, Misplaced Pages usually functions closely to what I expect for Free Associations. There are exceptions, to be sure. But that the underlying traditions are not so clear and easily accessible, as they are in AA, is why we have seen and can expect more skepticism and even opposition.

And then there is opposition from those who have something to lose if this works. That's pretty rare, in terms of conscious opposition, but there is a more subtle kind of opposition from those who think, as I have encountered in political environments, that "things work pretty well as they are." Spoken by an elected public official in a small town, successful, and bright enough to get the concept, but who simply doesn't realize that what worked well for him doesn't work well for the mother who can't go to Town Meeting because somebody has to watch the kids, and even if, say, her husband, if she has one, will do it, she needs to get up in the morning to get them off to school and Town Meeting may go late because someone goes on and on when he has the floor....

As to academia, there may be some element of "not invented here." This may shift, as there are some young academics interested, such as James Armytage-Green. However, read the standard works on democracy; direct democracy is "impossible," because of the noise problem, and if we have representative democracy, with modern conditions, there are so many citizens per representative that the representative can't possibly be in good communication with all of them. Somehow all the books on democracy don't consider proxy representation in governing structures at all. It is as if the business world doesn't exist; there may be some political bias there.

Sometimes it can take a very long time for revolutionary ideas -- no matter how simple, or maybe even if they are simple -- to penetrate academia. Consider Asset voting and Lewis Carroll, see ] and . What may be the most advanced proportional representation system yet proposed (at least for a peer assembly), was described by Carroll in 1884. Asset Voting and Delegable Proxy are quite similar, and, in fact, DP could be used in an Asset Voting system as the method by which large numbers of electors negotiate seat assignments in a parliament.... it doesn't need to be binding at all, rather it advises the electors how to recast their votes. --Abd (talk) 04:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Anything more?

So, are there any further refinements to the DP thing before we take it live? I seem to have run up against some technical walls, and most of the stuff remaining on those "to do" lists is optional. Ron Duvall (talk) 04:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me play with it for a day or two, and maybe some others will as well. No rush, Ron. Or are you worried that your attention will go elsewhere and never come back? (That's my classic problem: gotta get it done today, or else I won't ever get back to it. This can keep me up all night, easily. I don't think I do my best work under these conditions, but I've pretty much believed so for many years. There is a truth to it, my attention moves on. But when other people are involved, they can bring me back when it's needed.) --Abd (talk) 04:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

So, how about those Mets? Ron Duvall (talk) 04:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Are they still in New York? --Abd (talk) 05:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Presumably. "How about those Mets" was just a code phrase that the kids who were cheating on the math exams in this one episode of the Wonder Years used when they wanted to signal the need to talk about their plans. Anyway, the real reason for wanting to hurry about this is so that I can stop obsessively checking in on it all the time, and have peace of mind in finding something else to obsess about. Ron Duvall (talk) 05:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, if I wanted to obsess about something, I'd notice the user who has commented on DP on the Sarsaparilla Talk page. Looking into who he is, I noticed he had just been granted adminship. A couple of months ago, he had only 1000 edits or so. But for the nom, he had 10,000. What happened? Bot edits. If I actually needed that mop, looks like it wouldn't be hard to get one. But I don't. I've started doing some more mainspace edits, the hard way. Actually doing some research, might get in one or two a day.... He probably deserves an answer.... gotta get some sleep, though, the girls get up early and start jumping on me.... --Abd (talk) 05:26, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Apology

I'm genuinely sorry for mischaractarising your actions and have corrected my statments in 3 different places to record this. It was an honest mistake but I should have double checked. Spartaz 20:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I assumed it was an honest mistake. As you hinted, everyone makes mistakes. What can get ugly around here is when someone makes one, and refuses to see it, causing a person with a complaint to press it harder, perhaps getting hot, etc., etc. I have elsewhere written that "if you haven't been blocked, you are not trying hard enough to improve the project." That's hyperbole, of course, but it refers to mistakes that we make, and we make them necessarily, when we are active. It's fairly easy to make no mistakes: don't do anything. Yes, you should have checked, but .... you also could double-check everything you do, thus making fewer mistakes, but taking twice as long, i.e., getting half as much done. Keep up the good work, I seriously appreciate what administrators do. One of the administrators (ex-) I respect most was Durova, who made some real bloopers, but ... promptly admitted it, attempted to undo the damage, and took responsibility without making excuses for herself. Wow! In a sane community, everyone would have had a good laugh and that would have been that. But .... keep up the good work. --Abd (talk) 20:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Experiment

Hoping to establish general guidelines for this kind of thing... Absidy (talk) 05:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of experiments, what did you think about the redirection of your old Talk pages? I thought that was a little bold.... --Abd (talk) 06:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't really care about that stuff. I've got bigger fish to fry. Absidy (talk) 07:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's a little advertising banner I came up with:

This user supports delegable proxy.

Show your support for delegable proxy! Add this userbox to your userpage using {{User:Sarsaparilla/Delegable proxy}}

Absidy (talk) 08:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you do have bigger fish. Today Misplaced Pages, tomorrow Superproxy of the Universe. Now will God listen to me?

Meanwhile, the Proxy file and stuff I set up will work regardless of where placed, it's not vulnerable to local damage, the proxy table can be anywhere. Hence, the first application, and I'll use my proxy table *and* yours as well, by transclusion. They can be combined, you know. But I'll tell you where my own proxy will sit: in a file that doesn't depend on templates that are elsewhere. If it's all in my personal Talk space, I have no reversion limits, should someone monkey with it. So if you want to count my proxy, you might have to read my file format.... and I'd appreciate it if you would settle on a name to use. While, as usual, your stunts do raise some interesting points.... ah, I was going to tell you to lay off. Never mind. Do what you think best, just don't violate policy and, I suggest only, don't tease the dogs.

In any case, I'm calling a meeting to organize The Community. It's an open meeting, to be held in User talk:The Community, the The Community as founding chair. Yes, meeting process. Please, if you don't like process, don't disrupt it. This will be delegable proxy, so, if there is 99% of the community which thinks this a big waste of time, or, worse, dangerous, they can all be represented by one proxy. Guess what: there is nothing new under the sun. AA dealt with the problem of people disagreeing about whether to meet, how to meet, the rules to be followed, all that, many years ago. There may be *many* meetings, or one. It depends on whether or not people can agree. Anyone who disagrees: the saying in AA is that all that is needed to start a meeting is a resentment and a coffee pot. Delegable proxy is this on steroids. Watch. Meetings that don't serve a purpose fade away. Nothing was lost, and the person with the resentment got to sit and think for a while about what had happened. It works. And meetings that were oppressive fade away as people go somewhere else more congenial.

All these meetings, to be meetings of the community, must be open to all community members -- but -- any meeting has the right to set its own rules. If it does so in a manner which is harmful to the community, then the community can certainly intervene, and legitimately so. However, if the rules merely make for orderly process without taking away essential rights or violating community policy, then existing procedures already exist for dealing with disruption. Editors wishing to take part in an Arbcomm case may do so, but they can't just put any comment anywhere. Add a long diatribe to an AfD, and someone else may well move it to Talk.

I really mean it when I say that FA/DP doesn't require new process. It's all, already, in place. The only thing new, really, is a proxy table or tables and some people deciding to use them. Use them for what? Whatever they want, as long as it isn't disruptive or in violation of policy.

You use of multiple accounts has, in fact, brought out a crucial point. I'll post it to the Village Pump in the Delegable Proxy discussion; it's really an amazing opportunity, though I never know how many are actually paying attention.--Abd (talk) 14:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I would have preferred far less confrontation. On the other hand, I'm not terribly surprised. The hysterical response to Esperanza showed that there are some very dark fears on the loose. Someday it might be useful to do a real postmortem on that case, looking not only at the MfDs but at the surrounding buzz. --Abd (talk) 14:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Delegable proxy

An article that you have been involved in editing, Delegable proxy, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Delegable proxy. Thank you. Superm401 - Talk 16:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Cool! I have a Conflict of Interest, as one of the inventors of the "technology," but I might make some comments. We'll see.--Abd (talk) 16:29, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Absidy, Sarsaparilla, Ron Duvall blocked indefinitely. Wow!

Note that Absidy and all related accounts have now been blocked, by administrators with a COI or other conflict. I would not have advised that! Precedent is pretty clear. There is a checkuser report on Absidy, confirming the obvious. (Duh! -- already openly admitted as the same user) And, of course, the only new twist, confirming that I had no connection with Absidy/Duvall/Sarsaparilla. A sock account or puppet master going back two years, with the serial accounts having maybe 4000-5000 edits and the suspected master or sleeper puppet) less than 1500, all very recent? Old edit history utterly unrelated. A user who gets in no trouble for years has supposedly planted a sleeper sock, which he abandons *in good standing*? This is not merely about AfD, this is about idea and user deletion. Too bad. Are they aware that this is likely to speed up adoption of these ideas? And that I was trying to avoid conflict over this even though I knew that conflict would likely speed it up? Ah well. --Abd (talk) 23:23, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Your comment doesn't actually make much sense, considering that Absidy et al has admitted that he wanted to be indefinitely blocked and effectively commited suicide by admin. His/her block was clearly proper, since Absidy has admitted that he or she did something that warranted such a block Nil Einne (talk) 06:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there is a subtle but important difference between what he "admitted," and what is said above. He admitted knowing that he could be blocked, he knew that it was likely. He is a very experienced Wikipedian, and he knows the political and operational reality extremely well. However, by clear ArbComm precedent, and, indeed, common sense about how "police" function, he should not have been blocked. I'm pretty sure there are administrators who would not have blocked him, they might not even have warned him for incivility. I'd have laughed if a user did what he did with me. Blocks are for protecting the community, not my own "dignity." If he believed that there was some risk to the project (or personal harm from an insult), in such a situation, he would properly ask another admin to look at the facts and act appropriately. Whether or not his action had anything to do with specific knowledge about Jehochman or not, I don't know. I haven't asked him. However, Jehochman has continued to justify his action, and, indeed, quite a number of administrators see nothing wrong with it, and two members of ArbComm have weighed in with support. This is serious business. It seems I've been threatened with block as well, though there has been no formal warning. I'll return to it and examine that to see if I read it correctly, and, if so, inquire if it was seriously intended. If so, what will be the stated reason? Corrupting the youth? Not a bad way to go. I'd be in noble company, I find, as I examine Absidy's record in detail. As the hemlock overtook Socrates, he made a comment that indicated he was relieved by death. Would it be a relief to be blocked here? Probably. However, I'm a Muslim. Suicide isn't allowed, and, besides, raising that finger is rude. But standing up to power, questioning authority, that's not only allowed, but encouraged. It's not suicide, because we never know how power will react. Some power is benevolent, some will listen to criticism and challenge, and some will not. We never really know unless we have the courage to try. And if we do, the reward is guaranteed, by a guarantor who always keeps his promises.--Abd (talk) 05:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Out of Courtesy

I am here to inform you that a thread has opened at WP:ANI. The thread can be located here. The thread pertains to your Sock User:The Community. Rgoodermote  03:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --Abd (talk) 05:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

To Critics, the wheels of justice grind slowly but surely.

There has been a lot of wikifuss over the last few days, for me to be distracted by:

• the Afd for Delegable proxy, still pending but likely to be closed, I suspect, with Delete (I never voted because I'm COI and, indeed, beyond starting, as one of my first edits, in 2005, a different article, Liquid democracy, later moved to this title, I never edited it, only commenting in Talk. This AfD began with accusations of sock puppetry, which are irrelevant to AfD (if a sock creates an article, sock puppetry is not a legitimate ground for deletion. Period.) And "vanity," to be avoided, according to guidelines, in AfD discussions.
• Various Village Pump sections relating to this
• The MfD for Misplaced Pages:Delegable proxy, wildly inappropriate based on MfD policy, repeating by then discredited sock puppetry charges, likewise irrelevant, plus the nomination essentially misrepresented, in an inviting way (i.e., if a user read the proposal after having read the nomination, it would be easy to come away convinced that the proposal is something other than what it was. The nomination wasn't neutral, it was wildly opinionated, making uncivil accusations, which is disruptive. This MfD was eventually closed as, indeed, violating MfD policy, which suggests rejection tagging, generally, for proposal pages, instead of deleting them.
• An SSP report on User:Ron Duvall, also inappropriate, deleted then later restored for questionable reasons and simply "courtesy blanked."
• A checkuser report on User:Absidy, continuing the same line of suspicion and ABF, attempting to connect me and Sarsaparilla/Ron Duvall/Absidy, the latter being continuation accounts, not used for simultaneous editing, and not violating any policy (normally checkuser requests should have some reasonable charges of disruption presented). I didn't mind the checkuser, which mostly functioned to confirm the obvious (those accounts and some IP edits were openly the same editor).
• An impulsive set of actions by User:Absidy, not technically blockable offenses, in my opinion, but quite easily interpreted as disruptive and possibly canvassing, receiving a warning from an admin.
• Absidy's placement of a classic image of defiance of authority, an upraised finger, in response to that warning, saying, essentially, "Too late, I'm done."
• Absidy was properly warned by administrator User:Mangojuice for his "attack." However,
• Absidy was then blocked by the administrator he had defied by his gesture.
  • Mangojuice could not have properly blocked Absidy because Mangojuice was arguably involved in a dispute over WP:PRX. He, properly, abstained from that. If this was his reason for restraint, however, I do wonder why he bothered warning. I think he did not consider it blockworthy unless repeated. There had been no pattern of incivility from this user.
  • But for a similar reason, the administrator whose Talk page received the finger should have refrained from blocking, leaving it to an uninvolved admin. There was no emergency, no threatened (continued) disruption, merely an incivility. The alleged canvassing had stopped five hours earlier. The normal block, if any, for what Absidy had done, would have been a 24-hour block. Instead, it was an indef block, with request to not unblock before consultation. I have seen seriously disruptive editors, uncivil over a long period, receive much less as a penalty.
• Then ensued a witch hunt to try to find IP edits and any other accounts created by Absidy, even though there was *no* ongoing disruption or provocation. Absidy, having scrambled his password so that he couldn't log in, did make some IP edits and created a new account to reply on his Talk page to discussion there, and, though comment from a blocked editor on their own Talk page is permitted, that account was promptly block as his sock. There was also some scattered edits, very low-level, harmless, and a couple of apology comments. Now, if it was his sock, it was permitted to do what it did with the new account, and if it was not his sock, there was no basis for block of it (other than impersonation, which was not alleged). And it was obviously him.
• Probably because I had been commenting on what I saw as abuse of process by administrators, there began to be some buzz that I was being disruptive, and hints, not so subtle, that I could be blocked if I continued.
• Two members of ArbComm have already commented, supporting the block actions, even though there is no dispute at that level yet, and it is pretty clear that the members haven't reviewed the record sufficiently to understand what is going on, for they repeated, as I recall, the sock puppetry charges, which were not the issue. Absidy was not blocked for sock puppetry, he had openly admitted and acknowledged the accounts, never took action to conceal their connections, and it was blatantly obvious. And he wasn't warned about it, though questions were asked.
• It will all come out in the wash. At this point, however, it's quite obvious what happened, even to some who have only seen but a small part of the record. Absidy violated a deep, unwritten rule, one which cannot, by its nature, be stated explicitly, it is only known through the kinds of subtle cues that someone with his neurological condition cannot see except maybe post-facto, intellectually. See ADHD. Thou Shalt Not Ask Why the Emperor is Wearing No Clothes is a very old analogy. That kid is disruptive. Get him out of here, make sure nobody hears what he is saying, he actually had the gall (or courage) to drop reference to his proposal on the Talk page of every arbitrator. Canvassing! Off with his head!
• In the most recent flap, several users criticized the closing administrator for the MfD mentioned above, for closing without deleting, with a basic argument being twofold: the proposal was disruptive by its very nature (not merely a bad idea, but An Idea Not To Be Mentioned), but, with more frequency, the close did not reflect a supermajority vote for Delete. Given that the main objection in the MfD to the proposal was that it was supposedly violating WP:NOTAVOTE, I found this ironic. "We don't vote here, and , it is cogency of argument that counts, not votes. So how could you close without Delete when nearly all of us voted for that?" This kind of thing drives people like Absidy crazy. No wonder he is impulsive. It used to do it to me. But having been driven totally crazy, off the edge, years ago, it no longer bothers me. I expect it. --Abd (talk) 19:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I am waiting for the smoke to clear before proceeding, step by step, with whatever dispute resolution process is appropriate here. There is no emergency. Indeed, in terms of my long-term goals, they are furthered by cautious, thoughtful deliberation and consideration, one step at a time, not by action fueled by crisis. Absidy has, off-wiki, offered to help edit a book on the topic of Free Association/Delegable Proxy, and that will be taking up most of my time, I suspect, and I'm personally grateful to have the opportunity to work with him. He's brilliant, and that he is young and impulsive will merely help it come along. Ironically, there were charges of some sort of financial COI involved in the proposals here. I wish! However, as a result of what has taken place (which seems to have thoroughly soured a very long-time Wikipedian on the project), there may indeed appear such. I wish! Misplaced Pages's loss may be my gain. --Abd (talk) 19:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Explanation

Your posts were removed from my talk page. I dislike wikilawyering, and you cannot get your wikifriend unblocked by threatening me with process. Before you pray for arbitration, realize that 1/ my behavior has withstood scrutiny in two recent arbitrations, 2/ my sysop actions in this matter have been endorsed by two arbitrators already, and 3/ the actions of all parties will be scrutinized and the results may be quite different from what you wish. I urge you to drop this matter and get back to editing. If your friend wants to be unblocked, they can make their own request. Jehochman 04:07, 2 March 2008 (UTC)