User talk:James dalton bell

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Meatpuppets and sockpuppets,

I suggest you read this essay. It may be very enlightening.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 11:55, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think it's particularly 'enlightening' at all! First, the essay implies that a person may be inclined to view a number of edits as coming from 'the same person'. I view that implication as an example of a 'straw-man argument': A person builds up an (intentionally weak or flawed) argument, solely for the purposes of knocking it down. That's not particularly enlightening, except that it reveals that people generally have more luck knocking down a position if they've built it up, specially, just for that purpose.

I view the matter more as an example of a commonality of self-selection: Consider that if you're at the top of El Capitan (natural rock pillar), you will find (generally) two types of people: 1. Very rich people who can (and do) hire a helicopter to fly there.

2. Very capable, enthusiastic, and competent rock climbers.

In other words, you don't find there many people who are both poor and handicapped, merely because of where you happen to be. (and, if you're actually there, chances are that you, too, are either rich or a very good rock climber. Wikipedia is, quite likely, a 'magnet' for 'control freaks'. (and others, obviously.) I've read comments that some editors make tens of thousands of edits. While I could say, "Get a life!", I don't view such enthusiasm as INHERENTLY bad, wrong, or a problem. But, I think there may very well be an ASSOCIATION between OCD-type (Obsessive-compulsive disorder) editing, and 'control-freak' behavior.

There are other clues that must be considered. A person who is acting out a 'control-freak' fantasy, wants to control as much as possible. Apparently, WP has made it quite easy to 'revert' to a previous edit. That ability is not NECESSARILY bad (against vandals), but it implicitly encourages a kind of 'all or nothing' reaction: If a 'control-freak' wishes to manipulate, as much (and as many) as possible, it's far easier to simply 'revert' ALL of an edit, rather than (carefully and selectively) remove ONLY as much of a 'problem' as actually exists. Ever heard an old saying, "When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems as if they were nails." One of the most 'inefficient' routes, from the standpoint of a 'control-freak', is to actually stick around and dispute the propriety of the original edit, and the characteristics of the 'control-freak's actions.

A 'control-freak' gets his jollies, most readily, by UNdoing what others have done. (The 'control-freak' feels, explicitly or implicitly, that he doesn't have to 'justify' the status of the article BEFORE his victim's edit!). If the 'control freak' must actually distinguish between 'proper' posting and 'improper' posting sections, he becomes far less 'efficient' at manipulating others. (He must spend far more 'valuable' (in his not-so-humble opinion) time READING, and distinguishing, rather than merely reverting! Consider a hypothetical 'war' between a person who is making a 'house of cards', and another person who views it as his task to impede the first: The latter person needs merely show up for a second or two, every few minutes, and knock down the 'house of cards'. Minutes or hours of work is gone, in a moment! VERY 'efficient', from the standpoint of the 'control freak', but not for his victim.

Worse, if the 'control freak' must first obtain a CONSENSUS (something which WP ostensibly requires) he is powerfully impeded from excercising his 'control-freak' tendencies. (I am not considering, here, raw 'vandalism', of course: Very arguably, it SHOULD be easy to completely revert actual, genuine 'vandalism'.) It is not surprising, therefore, that 'control-freaks' are far more likely to simply revert ALL of an edit, QUICKLY, preventing consensus, and refusing to justify it in any actual discussion.

Thus, I notice that (in, so far, every case), every 'drive-by deletion' to which I have been a victim involves a person who REVERTS ALL of my edits (Check!), and not merely a portion of them (Check!) and who does so VERY quickly (Check!), who prevents any sort of consensus from forming (Check!), and who doesn't bother to stick around to debate the propriety of the original posting, or the 'freak's' abrupt erasures (Check!).

Aha! Things are getting quite clear, at least from the standpoint of the 'control-freak' in question. But why should a flock of others try criticize the victim, and NOT the 'control freak'? Is it because I think 'they're the same person'? ('Straw-man argument') Noooo! Consider another saying, "Birds of a feather flock together". If there were only a single 'control-freak' in the world, nobody else would have any motivation to assist him, or to help victimize his victims. But there are many 'control-freaks', and each understands that if ONE 'control freak' gets impeded, prohibited, or criticized, or exposed, the next one COULD BE THEM! After all, I have objected to Dodo: 1. Reverting ALL of an edit. 2. Preventing consensus (when vandalism is not alleged against me). 3. Reverting EXTREMELY rapidly (hours). 4. Refuses to discuss allegations of impropriety of HIS ('control-freak's') action, insisting that the original poster is the whole problem.

So, I see no reason to hypothesize that 'all these people must be the same one!'. They may be, however, driven by the same general motivations! That's why, not surprisingly, nobody has bothered to address my repeated criticisms of the MANNER in which Dodo acted! Consider: A truly unbiased person might, HYPOTHETICALLY, say something like, "Bell, your posts did appear to violate some rules, but Dodo was also wrong to revert ALL of them, VERY quickly, PREVENTING ANY sort of consensus to develop, and to refuse to address what he [Dodo] did wrong." Yet, such a comment was never seen in response to ANYTHING I said! But why not? One was that few truly UNBIASED persons will post! People are busy, these days! They HAVE A LIFE! It's so much easier to NOT participate in discussions-within-discussions. It's so much easier to ignore, click away, and let 'everybody else' deal with 'it'. It takes a rather powerfully-motivated person to want to take the time and effort even to simply comment!

The people who did communicate with me (after Dodo ran off) were obviously far more powerfully-motivated than the 'average' WP user! What was the source of their motivations? One strong possibility is that they saw 'one of their own' (Dodo) catching flak for doing what (I have come to realize) Dodo does, on a very regular basis. (And, they know that THEY, too, either do what Dodo does, or perhaps they'd like to have the time to be able to do so!. 'This can't be allowed to happen!', they might say! 'What if I had to DISTINGUISH between 'proper' and 'improper' edit content, rather than mechanistically simply 'revert' the whole edit?'. Or, 'What if I had to actually ALLOW consensus to develop?!? I'd have to come back 3-4 times before I could delete that guy's stuff! Horrors!'. You can easily see how terrified such people would be! Their whole life of 'control-freakdom' would come crashing down around them.

So, is my commentary really unfair? I've tried not to set up a 'straw man', the way the person who wrote the essary (you referred to) did. But, I have tried to illustrate that due to the nature of the 'world' WP is, control-freaks become self-selected, and they are simply the ones who 'show up', and are the ones who are most motivated to post. They are, too, the ones who are disinclined to criticize people like Dodo, for fear that somebody they too will be 'under the gun' for THEIR edits/reversions! So what do they do? That's right, they show up, like a bunch of lemmings (penguins? dodos?).

Many years ago (20+) I had an idea: One of the problems which COULD infect police departments is that people who become police tend to be those self-selected people who wish to manipulate other persons. (I am not saying that ALL of them are like that!). Over time, police develop an environment where 'them v. us', 'the thin blue line', etc, rules the day. Suppose, instead of allowing this to happen, police were 'drafted'. I'm not saying anybody would be FORCED to be a policeman. (I am a libertarian, of course). Rather, I speculated that perhaps 'they' should semi-randomly select a list of people (at, say, age 22), perhaps twice as many as ultimately will be needed. Then, pay and benefits will be raised to whatever amount is necessary to get, say, one half of the selectees to actually select the offer and become cops. Very few people could simply decide (years earlier), " I want to control people and become a cop!", because people's presence on the list will be virtually random. (Perhaps some requirements for education, etc would be required.) The cross-section of cops would more-or-less reflect society, and NOT the 1/2 of 1 percent of Nazi-type 'control freaks'.

Put simply, if you allow people to 'volunteer themselves' into a position of (abusible) authority over others, who do you expect will eventually be selected? That's right, the control-freaks!

I recommend that you go back and figure out why the 'control-freaks' felt the need to speak up, in favor of Dodo. I think I already know the answer to that.James dalton bell (talk) 02:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Fortunately, I notice that WP has an article specifically on the subject of the 'Straw-Man argument'. It illustrates quite well why the essay you referred me to was weak and defective.James dalton bell (talk) 03:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Not really. You are saying that everyone who disagrees with you is a meatpuppet of the admin Gogo. Slight difference, but the point remains. It is not our behavior that is wrong, it is yours.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 03:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Oooh, "You're wrong! You're wrong! You're wrong!". Why am I not impressed by your 'debate skills'.

First, until 3 weeks ago, I had never heard the term, "meat puppet". Perhaps you're trying to make the term mean exactly what you want it to mean, no more and no less. (Shades of Alice in Wonderland, I suppose.) I will have to find the definition of that term. But I view it as a problem when self-selected, biased individuals (even if there is no actual coordination involved) seem to coordinate their postings. Dodo ran away, that's a fact. He didn't address my actual criticisms of his actions: he simply threw a few templates, as if that was the end of the argument. (But, those templates were not merely mis-applied, they also did not address the entire subjects of the dispute.) Dodo couldn't be bothered to address them, and for a 'good' (at least, for him!) reason: If Dodo had to actually discuss his misconduct, and debate the propriety not merely of the original post, but also his own misdeeds, then Dodo would be so busy he couldn't continue his 'drive-by reversions' of peoples' articles. Dodo was unwilling to explain why he deleted all of my edits, repeatedly. He was unwilling to explain why he didn't wait for consensus. Etc.

And, it is a fact that 'nobody' addressed Dodo's (at least arguable) misconduct, even if (hypothetically) they also objected to something I did, too. Why should that be? There's an 'excellent' reason: I think the kind of people who did post (self-selected, of course, one would expect) may very well have felt they were defending 'one of their own'. I repeat my point that if I had time (and access to reversion/deletion statistics) it would probably be obvious that those persons who felt the need to speak up generally engaged in a pattern of activity similar to that of Dodo: Revert, Revert, Revert! And, not to bother with any 'consensus'. ("We don't need no stinkin' consensus!"). Such persons would be fearful of 'outing' Dodo's pattern of action, and similarly fearful of someday being hit with similar criticism. Am I wrong? I invite somebody else to study their statistics, and explain why there's no 'pattern' there.

James dalton bell (talk) 03:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

If that is your unblock request, put it between {{unblock| and }}.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 02:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been loosely following this situation and I have one small suggestion. STOP SHOUTING EVERY OTHER WORD. Its irrating and annoying, and is considered bad form. We are a collaborative social project. We set our own social norms by concensus. You aren't interested in concensus, you want your own way or nothing. You've been informed on how to improve your edits to make them acceptable to the community. If you don't like it, go elsewhere. Heironymous Rowe (talk) 02:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that "[you] set our own social norms by concensus [sic]". ([you], meaning the community, not Heironymous). I agree that there appears to be such a rule, or your claimed practice, but in my experience 'consensus' is honored far more in the breach than the actual observance. Indeed, one of my repeated criticisms against Dodo was the fact that he certainly didn't wait for any sort of 'consensus' to develop, and in fact he directly prevented such a consensus simply by reverting in minutes or hours, rather than allowing that consensus to develop. I think, instead, the 'consensus' claim is primarily used in order to attack, rather then to defend. In one posting, for example, Dodo actually claimed that I hadn't obtained a 'consensus' that would allow me to make an edit! (I have never seen any other person make such a weird claim, but on the other hand I haven't seen anybody criticize Dodo for that obvious gaffe.) I viewed that comment as borderline-nuts, and I have seen no indication that any other poster has taken the reasonable position that: Dodo has, himself, repeatedly violated the rules that WP is claimed to be operating under.

Do I believe that the average WP user goose-steps? No, I think it's much more likely (see above)that posters tend to be self-motivated, and 'control-freaks' are powerfully-motivated to maintain an actual practice which is very different than is claimed by 'rule' or ostensible practice. If I had more time, I'd see if I could see statistics on the persons who have posted here: How many edits? How many reverts? Etc. I feel certain a pattern is present.

James dalton bell (talk) 03:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You are again reading selective parts of this debacle, in favor or your side. I am glad that you understand what consensus is.. in a basic sense, but you are still wrong. Consensus already exists for Gogo's edits. This consensus exists in our rules, our policy; specifically: WP:No original research, WP:Reliable sources and WP:Verifiability. You cannot just choose to follow one, you must follow all. The plain fact of the matter is that your edits violate two of these policies. The first and the second. Gogo already has consensus to remove your edits, as they violate those two policies.. possibly more. And no, consensus on a single article talk page cannot over-ride policy. You must start a discussion to change policy, if you want to change policy, on the relevant project space.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 03:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Concensus building isn't done by having unacceptable edits remain on the article page. Concensus is gained on the Article Talk Page. You discuss your edits, you attempt to sway the other editors, if it gains the concensus viewpoint, it can be added. Did you try that? Your seeking to join this community, learn its norms and stop trying to force yours upon it and your life here may be possible.Heironymous Rowe (talk) 03:29, 20 January 2010 (UTC)