User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Seriously, deeply concerned ...

...about the way our "Government" is evolving. I'm trying to hang on in here, by the skin of my teeth. I really don't like this "Government". It reminds me far too much of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. And also of the Ceaușescu regime. And of the Forced disappearances in so many places. And of Lord of the flies and Animal farm.

"Disappearances work on two levels: not only do they silence opponents and critics who have disappeared, but they also create uncertainty and fear in the wider community, silencing others who would oppose and criticise."

We're living in a scary place, right now. First they came….

I may be around from time to time, but certainly not as before. Surely this isn't what you meant by a "community"? Pesky (talk) 08:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's a lovely dramatic turn of phrase, but can you be more specific about a particular problem that I might learn something from?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:47, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It's about the blocks of User:Penyulap and his talk page, as discussed at User talk:Courcelles and a few other locations. Fram (talk) 10:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

No, not, it's not just about that, at all. It's an accumulation of a number of things in a number of places. That's just one thing. A previous one, which I found very deeply concerning, was when ArbCom were asked for clarification on an issue, and brought out the firing squad as opposed to clarifying a point of law (which was all they were asked for). A total failure to understand the question asked of them, and an apparent failure to realise the concerns and consensus there. Pesky (talk) 10:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not about that? Well, if it had been about that, it would be worth noting that one of the major participants in the discussion at User talk:Courcelles has just now been blocked for two weeks on a different matter, but with an explanation at WP:AN that "I have blocked for two weeks, which I think was fairly generous, especially considering the personal attacks and the battleground mentality on User talk:Courcelles' talk page". I'm worried that this may enhance your dramatic turns of phrase, though :-) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 10:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I apologise for not being able to keep up with things. Real Life, ya know, getting in the way. this is one of the others. (As far as I recall, this is the one and only time I ever flew off the handle in the 'pedia. Yes, I hurled obscenities, myself ... very unlike me.) I wish it were easier to find archived requests – I've had to do a cowboy-cobble to get to (probably not all) of this. I'm not referring to any particular situation that affects me personally, here, just what seems to be developing into a very heavy-handed approach all around. Pesky (talk) 10:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Demi, dearest, I know you've predicted this, but that example is a little bit disturbing. If the block were required (and I'm certainly not saying it's not required, under the letter of the law), it would have been so much better if it hadn't been applied by someone who was involved in an argument with the user at the same time ... who hadn't just told the blocked person "You're not discussing, you're engaging in a torch-and-pitchforks procession. I strongly advise you to disengage and let someone else deal with this who doesn't have an ax to grind." So much better for this to have been done by someone who was disengaged from any current / recent disputes with the editor in question, and couldn't possibly be seen, by anyone, as having an ax to grind.

Adding: the above may very well not violate the letter of WP:INVOLVED, but it certainly appears to violate the spirit of it. Things like this do get gamed, in many places, though I'm not necessarily suggesting that this was deliberate gaming. Pesky (talk) 10:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it is being gamed, though perhaps not in the way you think. A phenomenon I've seen increasingly frequently in the past years is people setting themselves up in the role of a "critic of authority" and using that as a shield for their misbehaviour. Whenever someone tries to put them to task over the disruption, cue the cries of "They're trying to silence a critic!" The sad thing? It works more often than not. Most of the administrators then turn a blind eye and avoid acting for fear of being "repressive" given our powerful culture against that – and the arbitrators are even more strongly tied up given the scrutiny.

Is this everyone who claims "repression"? Certainly not. Still, someone much wiser than I once said "When someone screams about 'admin abuse', it's most likely true – they're probably abusing admins again." It bears keeping to mind before you take every claim from self-designated martyrs at face value. — Coren ^(talk) 14:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware that this happens. However, in attempting to shut up those who are gaming the system in that way, we need to be very careful that we're not also silencing those who aren't: those who are genuinely concerned that something has gone / is going very wrong. It's very tempting (and human nature) to tar everyone with the same brush. And it's almost always wrong to. Adding: there is always the thing, of course, where everyone who criticises is seen as "misbehaving". Pesky (talk) 14:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

That's true, but I believe that's actually very rare. I don't remember every seeing someone setting themselves up as a critic that got in trouble over the criticism rather than actual disruption – I'm sure they exist (and are possibly fairly common given the generally libertarian outlook of Wikipedians) but since they tend to never pop up on the drama boards, they keep a low profile and never end up in the limelight.

With one (very salient) exception, I don't recall a high-profile critic that was a critic before they got sanctioned for some problematic behaviour. — Coren ^(talk) 14:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(Coughs) – iridescent 14:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm not "high-profile", I suppose. But I am (kinda by definition!) a critic. And I've never (yet) been sanctioned for any problematic behaviour. Pesky (talk) 14:45, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Me, too. And I think that others with messageboxes similar to that of Boing! said Zebedee also fit the bill. There is a problem at the moment. - Sitush (talk) 14:50, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(e/c) Well yes, that's my point. I doubt you'll find anyone here even thinking of (virtually) roughing you up over that criticism! There is no conspiracy to take you out, nor "attempts to bait you", nor even people trying to find a nit to hang you over.

Let me put it this way: this project's community is so fundamentally permissive of criticism and anti-authoritarian in nature that even the trolls that pose as critics are left to disrupt and consume community resources – sometimes over years – over the reluctance of even appearing to be repressive. That is why I take it with a five-ton grain of salt when someone who ends up over and over on the drama boards is crying "Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" — Coren ^(talk) 14:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

@Coren

Would you please address Pesky's concern about ArbCom turning a request for clarification into an attempted banning of an editor (before most of them came to their senses)?

Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It was neither unprecedented nor particularly surprising; there is a reflex – not entirely unwarranted – to re-evaluate whether an editor's continued participation is beneficial on the whole when they have returned in front of the committee for the umpteenth time over the same issue. Would I have voted to ban him? I don't know. I haven't evaluated the situation, nor was it my job to do so. I do think that some of the comments from the sitting arbs were catastrophically asinine (on both sides of the discussion) and I will certainly vote accordingly come next elections.

Do I believe that this is indicative of a fundamental problem of repression or political payback? I know it isn't. I know for a fact that the poor sods currently sitting on the committee are doing the best they can to help the project, to the limits of their ability. Mostly it works out on average, sometimes it blows up. I certainly will be voting against some of the current arbitrators (not just over that incident), but I see no justification for heaping scorn on the group, the institution, or even those individuals whose judgement I find most lacking. I was in that seat. I know it's a fucking hard job. I know that even those I think should not be within 10' of the committee have willingly taken a shit responsibility for trying to do the Right Thing even if it means being spat upon and crapped all over as your sole reward, and they deserve respect if only for that. Disagree with them. Vehemently if you feel the need for it. Campaign, or run for a seat yourself. But do yourself and everybody else a service and stop imagining vast conspiracies to "get" some editors, or to take over, or whatever else is the reproach du jour. — Coren ^(talk) 16:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I've skimmed the rest of this conversation, but right now I really just want to make one point, directed at Pesky's original post: Pesky, are you aware how painful it is to be someone working in the "government" to help the encyclopedia run, and to see you saying we're basically committing genocide, murder, real-life horrors? I know you say you're very concerned about civility and not hurting people, so I'm really very surprised to see you tarring all admins with such a horribly offensive brush, especially when you're then hurrying to add that we're all so truly, deeply horrible that we're sure to arrange for you to "disappear" next because you dared call us the war criminals we are. No, I don't want you dead. No, I don't want anyone dead. I don't want the worst trolls I've ever encountered "dead" or "disappeared" or "sent to Siberia" or "given smallpox-ridden blankets," and I think I speak for pretty much every other admin on Wikipedia when I say that when you make statements implying that we do, or that we are just as bad as people who do, you are alleging very serious things about people who have never done anything to you. I don't understand quite why you dislike all of us so much when 99.99% of us have never had a thing to do with you, or why you feel it's ok to hurl such horrible words at us as if we don't have feelings and don't count, but I wish you'd give some thought to the fact that you're hurting real, live human beings when you go on about how we're less than human. It doesn't make the people you think are being victimized any better off for you to turn and victimize others. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:50, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

A fluffernutter is a sandwich, if it is so painful "to be someone working in the "government" to help the encyclopedia run", there's an easy way out of that "government" and its pain: just resign your position in the goverment, and go write the encyclopedia. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 17:50, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello logged-out/IP editor. Do you genuinely think that the best response to being hurt by what someone says is to resign and stop helping? If we all did that, things would cease to function around here very rapidly, and we might be able to power a small country with the force of all the "whoosh"ing as people go out the door. My personal feeling is that a better place to start is to ask the person to reconsider what value they're getting from using dehumanizing or offensive terms. Often they don't even realize that they've crossed a line or hurt you; other times having attention drawn to it will make them reconsider their strategy even if they knew what they were doing. In a similar "ask to reconsider" vein, I would point out that you appear to be conflating "administrator" with "has never written an article or otherwise contributed to Wikipedia content". Could I perhaps urge you to reconsider that notion? I'm in the middle of the pack as far as creating and improving articles - that is, I work steadily, but I am by no means a "top" creator - but I think you'll find any number of admins around here who create or improve tons of articles (as well as any number of non-admins who don't; for instance, under this IP address the only thing you appear to have done on Wikipedia is speak here on Jimbo's talk. That doesn't mean I get to look down my nose at you, as long as you're operating in good faith and trying to help). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom places restriction on editor. Editor edits in line with written wording of restriction but not in spirit (continuing the same behavior that the restriction was placed in an attempt to prevent). An administrator raises clarification request as admin actions taken in line with enforcing spirit of restriction are contested by editor. Arbcom leans towards banning due to the ongoing behavior but settles for re-wording the restriction to make it say unambiguously what the editor must not do. Entirely within their remit. If you dont want to end up at Arbcom, dont skirt around things arbcom have sanctioned you not to do. Pesky's complaint is about not following due process, however the due process here would have been for Arbcom to a)clarify intent of restriction, b)wait until someone raises an AE enforcement request or an amendment request. Its needless process wonkery given everyone was already on the same page after clarifying it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I can understand Pesky’s point of view, as the past few months have been very unsteady in certain circles. Malleus Fatuorum spent nearly 24 hours under threat of a ban at ArbCom. Large portions of the community spoke out against this and Malleus’ ban proposal lead to a number of editors going on strike. Penyulap is an example of a blocked editor who was trying to improve the encyclopedia, who has been blocked and unblocked from editing his talk page multiple times, along with his talk page fully protected (in no small part by sitting Arbitrators). I’m sure you’ll see editors here with an axe to grind.

The reason that these two cases are linked and the reason that Pesky has posted here is that they both involve civility complaints and de-humanisation of editors. In Malleus’ case, Jclemens suggested that he “is not now, nor has he ever been, a member of the Wikipedia community” as Malleus did not abide by all 5 pillars. In Penyulap’s case, similar to many blocked editors – his userpage has been blanked and tagged ([1]), his talk page has been blanked and fully protected with accusations of trolling ([2]) - both actions have since been undone. I’m not commenting about the validity of any statements or actions – they are all debateable. If anyone want’s my opinion on these cases, I’d be happy to give them at my talk page.

What I am trying to highlight though is how we as a community treat people. From the comments made in the request for clarification to the comments made to blocked users to Pesky’s comments above, highlighted by Fluffernutter – which tar the “government” as similar to those responsible for atrocities. These are all uncivil comments, because civility means treating people like people. I was bored the other day and put together a list of contradictions between standard wikispeak and what I’d consider to be civil. We’re on the internet, it’s easy to forget that the editor you’re talking about is a real person, with real feelings. It’s a problem with an anonymous society and I don’t have a solution. Worm^TT(talk) 16:48, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• Jimbo, while we are talking about Arbcom I'd like to ask you about this email "And have you stopped beating your wife yet? Jimmy, I don't know if you have noticed, but you're not getting a heck of a lot of support for this block even from Arbcom, and most of us aren't all that impressed with Bishonen calling someone a little shit either.I speak only for myself here, but you missed the boat on this block entirely. You did not take time to inform yourself of the circumstances that led to the use of unacceptable language (an edit war when Daedelus kept putting "Retired" templates on a histrionic editor's userpage), and your entire response since then is to start off by personally attacking the person you blocked, and spending days putting words in her mouth. If you were any other admin, you'd be admonished at minimum. So....consider yourself admonished by me, at least." This email was written by one of your arbitrators and sent to the list and to you. There's nothing wrong with this email: an arbitrator disagrees with the block you imposed and makes her opinion known, expect in the next email Risker admits she sent this first email by a pure accident, and writes: "I apologize to everyone on this list, but most especially to Jimmy, for this outburst, which I never intended to make public." Jimbo, do you see any problem at all with your ArbCom? After all at least one one of your arbitrators has not enough honesty to say publicly what she really thinks. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 16:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Ah, yes, Risker committed the heinous crime of accidentally copying a strongly worded email she intended to be a private complaint on a mailing list, then had the gall to apologize for the mistake of unwittingly making public what she meant to remain private. Such evildoing must not be left unpunished! — Coren ^(talk) 16:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

    "a private complaint"? Wasn't this "private complaint" a little bit too private? What's the point in writing "a private complaint" that is not intended to be shared with anyone? This is not only Risker's problem. Most Wikipedians are afraid to speak up publicly because of the risk of retribution, but guess what, a person cannot be honest only in private. A person cannot be unafraid only in private. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 17:34, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

    By sharing it with the person to whom you are complaining? It's a polite thing to do when you have cencerns with what someone did by talking it over with them and not making a public dramafest out of this. Not that the concerns expressed there weren't already being discussed in less personal terms on the mailing list by the arbitrators, but you wouldn't know this since you're citing out of context from a leak in order to denigrate someone; and facts do tend to get in the way of a good tar-and-feathering, right? — Coren ^(talk) 17:39, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

    I agree with this, but how did get an idea that Risker intended to send this email to anybody at all? 67.169.11.52 (talk) 17:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

    ... because she did send it? I mean, this was clearly addressed directly to Jimmy; that she clearly didn't intend to send it to the mailing list has no bearing on the matter. Or perhaps she didn't intend to send it out at all after writing it – some people write in anger to vent and then think better of it once they cool down. That's also a very good method of behaving cordially in a tense environment (one which I wish I had used on occasion myself). Both scenarios seem commendable to me and paint Risker in a fairly good light, yet you seem to think this is worthy of censure? — Coren ^(talk) 18:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

    Coren, this email was not going to be sent at all. You do not believe me? Okay, let Risker speak for herself: "So there I was killing time while "on hold" by cleaning out my draft folder - you know, the one where you stick those emails you'll probably delete when you've gotten over whatever insanity you're suffering at the moment - and somebody in the next office plugged in a fan." As you see Risker was going to delete this email. She calls her attempt to be honest "whatever insanity you're suffering at the moment". So as you could see there's only one possible scenario in regards to Riscker's email, and this scenario paints Risker in a very bad light I am afraid. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 21:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

    I don't see how it paints in a bad light. What's wrong with venting in writing without planning to send? ...and this was how many years ago? What's the point of this now? --Onorem♠Dil 21:40, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

    You call it "venting". I call it "being honest only in private". "Being honest only in private" is a dangerous condition, and most members of Wikipeia's "goverment" suffer from it. Of course many other members of Wikipeia's "goverment" are never honest even in private. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 23:00, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

@Fluff (and all those sharing Fluff's views): yes, I actually do understand how difficult it can be to be in a governmental-type situation. I really do. I can (kinda) imagine the amount of pure crap wossname that arrives in the email every day; I can sure as heck understand the levels of stress which can be involved. Fing is, though, fing is ... that a lot of good people are seeing things going wrong. Not just "all the usual suspects". We seem to be swinging towards more and more draconian measures to deal with what are sometimes really semi-trivial little things. And draconian measures, unless the levels of absolute pure justice are unimpeachable, are always something to be very cautious about.

Oh, umm, errmmm .... I didn't actually tar all admins with the same brush. And I didn't actually call everyone war criminals. I just said I'm being reminded of various oppressive regimes, where the voices of critics and "the puling masses" can just get silenced. It seems that my original concern has been kinda twisted around a bit; almost certainly unintentional, I know, but still a little hurtful to see what I was trying to say being distorted into some kind of all-out name-calling attack against all admins and all arbs ... Pesky (talk) 18:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, you did invoke Godwin in your opening paragraph; that's rarely conductive to cool heads even with the very best intentions and some people are bound to take offence. That said, I don't think anyone is making light of your concerns, but I do think you're worrying for the wrong reasons. I think that fear of an oppressive regime on Wikipedia are not warranted. Yes, there are critics that end up in trouble. No, I don't believe it ever occurred that they ended up in trouble because they were critics. Some may have gotten in trouble over the manner of the criticism (trolling, or disrupting to make the point) that would have been welcomed if they had behaved, some were critics that ended up in trouble for unrelated reasons, and some simply played the role of critics as a cynical ploy to shield themselves from consequence of their unrelated misbehaviour.

If I ever find someone who was ousted or harassed because they held or expressed critical views, I'd be the first to take up arms to protect them. — Coren ^(talk) 18:45, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(after much edit conflicting) Really, either you're making a point that Wikipedia's admins are operating like dictatorships that "disappear" people - in which case it's appropriate for you to say we remind you of war criminals - or you're making some other point entirely, in which case saying we remind you of this dictator, that maniac, and this book about how people get off on abusing each other is...not only misplaced, but very unnecessarily inflammatory. I feel like I say the phrase "unnecessarily inflammatory" a lot lately. That's probably because people on Wikipedia are prone to using hyperbolic, extreme language to describe what could be described much more calmly, and then being surprised when the extreme language is interpreted as them saying what they mean to say. Let's try an analogy. I know you love your ponies, right? So suppose I think you've overworked one of them one day, and I wander up and I say to you, "God, watching you work that pony reminds me of the guy who just got arrested for slowly dismembering dogs while enjoying their pain. No, more than that. I'm reminded of that other guy who who doused a horse with gasoline and then lit it on fire, and then posted on youtube." You, obviously, would get upset. How could I say such a thing about you? You love your ponies and you would never, ever purposely injure one of them or be cruel to them or enjoy them suffering! Would it be appropriate for me to then see how upset you were and say, "What? I'm hurt that you think I was comparing you to cruel, animal-killing maniacs! You've twisted around my point, which was just that you've overtired your pony and I think you shouldn't do that!" And really, maybe that is all I meant. But I sure did a bad job of saying that, didn't I, since instead I somehow managed to compare you to horrible abusers of animals? In other words, if what you want to say is "I think we need to be careful about interpreting criticism itself as disruption", then you can say that very well without throwing out things that look like accusations that the administrators here are maniacs who not only disapprove of criticism, but will take any violent, destructive means necessary to keep people from seeing it. I believe you if you say that wasn't your point, but I question why you then felt you needed to couch your point in language dehumanizing admins as horrible criminals.

The problem with doing that - the problem with overreaching your analogy to the very end of that slippery slope, with implying we are the very worst of the worst, is that you're spiking your own guns. If that's what you think of admins who you haven't even met yet, or haven't even had a conflict with - and all signs until your latest comment point(ed) to that being what you were trying to get across - how can we learn from you at all? If I'm going to be thought of as Ceaușescu whether I block vandals, or I never once use the block button, or I counsel everyone I can get my hands on and only block as a catastrophic last resort, how would I know whether I'm actually doing anything wrong with any of those? There's no real feedback here; I'm assumed to be horrible no matter what I'm doing. If you really want people to hear and understand what you're afraid you see happening, and you want us to be able to act on it, you have to speak in realistic terms, actually explaining what the problem is, because those are the only type of terms that give people something to act on that might satisfy you. Godwinning, on the other hand, alienates the very people - those reasonable, calm, non-abusive admins - that you want to be listening to your concerns. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

What Fluff said, really. You're twisted and hurt that we took offence at comparisons to brutal, autocratic and in many cases genocidal regimes? You didn't intend repeated citing of brutal, autocratic and genocidal regimes as things that reminded you of us to imply that we reminded you of brutal, autocratic and genocidal regimes? And that when you said "government" you didn't mean to tar all its members, or even the majority of the members, just some of the members? I'm having a hard time AGFing on all of that. I would suggest that if you don't intend for things to come out like that you try not to start a discussion by invoking godwin's law. Ironholds (talk) 19:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

:o( That's not what I meant. I apologise if anyone thought I was calling them, personally, names. And I didn't see this as a "me vs. them" thing, at all. So I'm a bit confused by references to "us". I note Coren said That is why I take it with a five-ton grain of salt when someone who ends up over and over on the drama boards is crying "Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" But I wasn't crying that I was being repressed, and I don't end up over and over on the drama boards ... if I were only better at expressing myself (or finding links to oppressive situations / regimes / whatevers which aren't "brutal, autocratic and genocidal "). I'm concerned; maybe I could have found better wording (but Real Life is a bi@tch and a half at the minute), and all that really happens seems to be a kinda pile-on Yell At Pesky thing. Never mind. Pesky (talk) 19:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The danger of speaking so metaphorically as you did, Pesky, is that it results in wide ranges of interpretation. I can see why some were offended, but I can also see where you were trying to come from. I won't speak to the specific cases that brought you here, but I will say that I support Coren's arguments. As a general rule, the first people to scream "oppression!" are often those who feel that hurling abuse at others is the most effective way of backing up their criticism. So when they get sanctioned for being abusive, they cry that it was instead due to the criticism itself. The problem at this point, IMNSHO, is not the "repressive regime", the rules or even the abusive critic. The problem is the enablers. The abusive critic rallies their supporters, earning just enough support to continue doing what they were doing. Consequently, a frustrated community reacts to the abusive critic, and you create feedback loops, hurt feelings and repetitive complaints. It is those enablers that cause these problems by not taking the abusive editor to task. Give an abusive person a sense of entitlement and invulnerability, and nothing good will come of it. It's like training an attack dog and setting them lose on the community. Resolute 20:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• I know and understand exactly what Pesky was rather clumsily tying to say at the beginning of this thread , and I, unsurprisingly, agree with it. That we have Coren talking his usual load of hypocritical bollox “’’If I ever find someone who was ousted or harassed because they held or expressed critical views, I'd be the first to take up arms to protect them. — Coren (talk) 18:45, 6 November 2012 (UTC)’’” is equally unsurprising. I can’t be arsed to find the link to prove how he behaves, but I’m sure someone can if he wants to argue it – he can be dismissed. The way Wikipedia’s leadership behaves is becoming increasingly cult-like, mysterious and unpleasant and is one of the reasons I have largely withdrawn. This blasted and ridicuous, overused Godwin’s law prevents a lot of honest opinion, to such an extent it could have been drafted by Adolf Hitler himself. Now, put that in your pipes and smoke it. Giano (talk) 19:56, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

  Interestingly(?) enough, you are the one salient example I was speaking of; the one case I know of of someone who became a stern critic as a result of having been wronged. — Coren ^(talk) 20:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh I remember your concern well: Odd isn't it how this quote is removed from your contributuons record ~ I wish I had such magical friends [3]. Giano (talk) 22:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC):

"*Giano, your paranoid delusions are taking a turn for the worse. I'm hoping this blows over soon before you cover yourself with ridicule, because your contributions (especially in architecture) are valuable; but you are quickly expending what little credibility you have left by insisting that the windmills are giants. The only place there is a conspiracy is in your own overactive imagination. You're being confused by a consuming grudge over an imagined slight to the point of twisting everything that happens into self-fulfilling confirmation of your delusion. And, to prove the point, you'll now deem me part of that conspiracy (if I wasn't already) for pointing this out.

Take a break away from Wikipedia for a few months and do something else to clear your head, or go and discuss things with a health professional. "Truly I was born to be an example of misfortune, and a target at which the arrows of adversary are aimed." — Coren (talk) 17:53, 9 November 2010 (UTC)"

• I have restored (it was removed overnight [4]) this comment above by Corent to my post as it's an exampled of how a sitting Arb (as Coren was at the time) can attack an editor, without rebuke from his peers) and then have the comment removed from his contributions, while at the same time condemning incivility and bullying. This is a prime example of the way that Wikipedia is run and it concerns many and it needs to change. Giano (talk) 07:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not so very magical, sadly. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:50, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

You can find a verbatim copy there. It was on a page that ended up deleted in an unrelated discussion, but I've nothing to hide. That comment, of course, was intemperate and quite a bit nasty – which is why I've reconsidered and reverted it swiftly. I fail, however, to see how that's relevant to what I've been saying here. — Coren ^(talk) 23:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, you reverted your own post within less than a minute of making it. It was Giano, in his great wisdom, that chose to restore it himself. Mind you, this was more than two years ago now, I think. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:59, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

• Rich Farmbrough, currently blocked, wanted someone to post his message here. Just doing it procedurally. Wifione ^Message 03:32, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

This idea that Wikipedia is not "Real Life" is fallacious. I have had at lest two editors contacting me saying that they were suffering ill health because of abuse on Wikipedia, and two who have felt close to taking their own lives. In every case but one administrators (individuals, not as a cadre) were responsible. You have to remember our editor demographic corresponds very closely to the suicide demographic. It is only a matter of time before "Wikipedia editor takes own life" is a headline, and I just hope that when that evil day happens none of us have anything to reproach ourselves with. (Note: We have of course lost editors to suicide, but not due to Wikipedia as far as I know.)Rich Farmbrough, 03:24, 7 November 2012 (UTC). (posted in edit-2346. -Wikid77 06:16, 7 November 2012 (UTC))

Good point. There is such a thing as a community here – the only community for some active members. It is time we acknowledged this and began insisting on more humane treatment of each other; we should, at the very least, observe the norms of a functional workplace. One aspect of the governance problem that Pesky points to is slowing our progress toward a more humane ethos here: admins with little social wisdom lording it over others are virtually unremovable. They have no idea what real incivility is, what it can do to recipients, how it undermines genuine debate, or that it matters. These tin-eared misfits are numerous enough to defend each others' behaviour and influence the mores of the rest of the community. Not sure what the answer is. (It would help if we didn't elect such people to ArbCom, though.) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Very smart comments from Anthonyhcole. Pesky was alluding simply to abuse of position & power, which everyone agrees is "bad", but people pile on to criticize examples of abuse of power, only meant to highlight why abuse is 'bad' thru exaggeration to make a point, because they have no other argument. Pesky is right. The environment & culture is tending repressive. I wake up every morning wondering if I have been indef-blocked (again) for having made conscientious comment I can support and back up. The Request for Clarification re Malleus morphed into a ban proposal, the criticisms of abuse of process are obviously reasonable. (WP doesn't want anarchy, does it?) I made a couple light exchanges w/ Penyulap re Elen, and they've apparently been rolled into "trolling" accusation which rationalized a further block of access to his Talk. Admins have been clearly extra-authoritative and trivially oriented IOM, presumably to assert their buttons & egos, which just produces resentment and complaints re obvious fairness issues, which are marginalized to "there is no justice" mantra. The resentment smolders & grows. Pesky is pointing to something real. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 06:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

It happens a great deal. I can understand why people get hurt and offended by less-than-wise use of language (which I fully admit to, but I couldn't think of many linkable examples of abuse of power). BUT ... here's the big "but" ... this is what happens. The harshest input comes not from addressing the point I was trying to get across. We probably need, as a whole, to focus much more on what someone is trying to say, rather than attacking the way they said it. Anyhoo, that's it from me here (on this page). Anyone wanting to know what Real Life is like at the mo has only to visit my talk, and just read. Pesky (talk) 06:26, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

• Term limits and leadership lottery re Plato: As before, I favor term limits for admins, to again become non-admin users after so many years of membership in admin factions, but then I also favor "mandatory wikibreaks" where users agree to schedule time away to prove they are not addicted, well, not "overly addicted". However, I am channeling Plato with ideas I haven't remembered in years, specifically the selection of random leaders, as in:

"Dear User:X, as a long-term user beyond 3 years, you have been selected at
random to become a one-year junior admin, do you accept this offer?"

I cannot quickly verify the concept was fully Plato's idea or perhaps Socrates (remember I'm channeling here), but the general concept is to avoid cronyism by spreading administrative power, by random appointments, among qualified people to deter cliques of people (aristocracy) from all seeking related powers. The idea is related to the "philosopher king" issues. By having a level as "junior admin" then the powers could be kept limited, and perhaps a chosen junior admin might, months later, submit a wp:RfA to become a full-fledged admin, not limited to the "one-year" (or 6-month?) term as a junior admin. At least, with randomized leadership, there would be fewer us-versus-them groupings, which seem to be quite common these days. -Wikid77 06:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The "philosopher king" concept is indeed Plato's, but the idea of officials being chosen by lot in order to avoid cronyism would be better attributed (albeit with a level of uncertainty) to the reforms of Solon about a century earlier. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 11:08, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I lied, above ... I haven't quite finished here. Has anyone else noticed the weird thing? There seem to be two conflicting no-win views here: #1 is "If you've been oppressed, you probably deserved it! Stop whining!", and #2 is: "Why are you having a go about this? Nobody's ever done you any harm?" So ... who can actually try and point out stuff like this, if neither the people who may have been directly affected nor the people who haven't been have any perceived right to do so?

The trouble is, partly (I think) that people's politely-worded concerns simply get ignored, belittled, brushed under the carpet, not really addressed, until it gets to the point where they're so frustrated that they yell. And then all that happens is they're told off for yelling ... Pesky (talk) 11:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Stop it! It is ungood to present logical argument. You will be *blocked* from editing if you persist in this tendentious and battleground behavior. This is your final warning. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

[Chuckles, despite everything] Pesky (talk) 12:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Ahhh. So ... any ideas on how the community can actually improve on this one? Because it is a real problem. And I'm not here because I've personally "been oppressed" and am whining about it. Nothing I've "brought on myself". Stuff like that. And it's a much bigger, more extensive problem than just one or two cases. Also, I'm not here "because I'm an enabler" (and when someone can get blocked for calling a group of editors sycophants, and anyone thinks that's OK, then nobody should think it's OK to call any other editors enablers, fan-club, posse, supporters or anything else which means the same thing; either both are just fine or neither is).I'm here because I'm seriously, deeply concerned about what's happening to the atmosphere in our community. And a lot of other people are, too. They just might not all be prepared to stick their necks out. Pesky (talk) 04:49, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't calling you an enabler, Pesky, so my apologies if you took it that way. I was speaking in general terms. We have the abusive/oppressed (depending on your point of view) and the oppressors/defenders (again, depending) as the obvious groups in this dynamic. But without speaking to any specific cases, there are those who wrap the enablers around themselves as a shield or as a weapon. We will never resolve these issues by pretending they don't exist. The motives of these enablers will vary - some won't realize the role they are playing, and therefore are being used. Some just like fucking with the system. A few are malicious, and use the person they are enabling like an attack dog. Most are actually acting honestly, thinking they are doing right. But you know what they say about good intentions and the path it can lead one down. Regardless, any solution has to consider more than just the oppressed/oppressor point of view. Because Wikipedia has editors who are basically professional victims. They will abuse the system, cry out for support, and paralyze the community. They become a drain on volunteer time, morale and resources. But you are right that Wikipedia has legitimate victims - on both sides. The amount of abuse some at all levels put up with - including arbitrators - is ridiculous. Consequently, I would argue an important first step is to separate the truly abused from those that only act the part. Resolute 05:08, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Term Limits would certainly make for a very different governance of our community, and if we only had a limited number of mops then they might be useful. But there are drawbacks to term limits, especially when you consider that we want unpaid volunteer admins between them to be around 24/7 365 days of the year. With our existing setup we are beginning to get worrying gaps, and that is with circa 700 admins. A much smaller group of admins would struggle to avoid having the occasional hour long gap at AIV. By contrast if our existing active admins drop another 10% a year then we could be some time before we have to look at options such as pure wiki deletion (though the AIV gaps will get worse). With term limits there would also be a huge loss of experience, and a smaller newer admin cadre will almost by definition be making more mistakes of inexperience. But there is also the issue of specialism, at the moment we get by with a large number of admins many of whom only get involved in areas of adminship that they feel comfortable in. The fewer admins we have the more psychological pressure there will be for all our remaining admins to be able to do any admin task, consequently we can expect a higher error rate from our reduced number of admins. But the most serious argument against term limits for admins is that it will exacerbate the existing divide caused by the scarcity factor, and the lack of mainspace editing by specialist admins. We are already seeing all sorts of signs of tension between admins and other editors, and some misjudgements by Arbcom that I can only put down to Arbcom members having no time to edit and thereby losing touch with the community; The fewer admins we have and the more mistakes they make the worse that will get. What we really need is to replace RFA with some sort of process that appoints all experienced clueful editors as admins. If everyone is an admin or could be in a few months then the admin/nonadmin tensions will melt away, and the admin who only does admin type stuff will thankfully be very much an exception. ϢereSpielChequers 19:20, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Section break

Yup, that's the really difficult bit! However, I think we could look at ways of trying to reduce the instances of heavy-handedness, where the punishment (OK, OK, I know stuff is supposed to be "preventative, not punitive") is OTT for the crime, and possibly consider retributive/vengeful "OK, I'll find something else to block you for, not related to my argument with you" workarounds for WP:INVOLVED. 'Nother thing to consider ... how about putting some kind of a limit on the number of times any one admin can block any one other individual? I know that it wouldn't get over the "Oh, he just asked one of his friends to block me instead!" response (which could be applicable either to a perfectly good block on a genuine offender, or to an atrocious one), but after a while a genuinely abusive admin would possibly run out of "friends" because they'd all exceeded the limit as well, whereas in the case of genuinely blockable offences the pool of available admins to do the blocking should never run out. The other thing this might get over is the feeling, from the blockee, that a particular admin is responsible for too great a number of their blocks and is hounding them. What about some more possibilities like that? Pesky (talk) 12:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

OK Pesky. You find half a dozen instances over the past year of an admin repeatedly blocking the same user.

• It must be the same account - you can't count blocking a basket of socks as 'repeatedly blocking'
• fiddling around with the block log eg to remove or permit talkpage access doesn't count as reblocking,
• and it must be more than twice, to allow for the admin raising a block on condition that the editor doesn't....(edit war or whatever), and reblocking when the editor does it again.

And then we'll all look and decide whether this is an actual problem that happens all the time on the pedia, and needs rules to stop those dreadful admins beating up the poor users without any redress at all. Or not. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Admins don't repeatedly block the same user , they know they would not be able to get away with that - however they also don't need to - it would be naive to think that there are not groups of admins working together. - Pesky has made a couple of perceptive comments as to how the current admin model is disaffecting a lot of contributors Youreallycan 15:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreed - cliques are a phenomenon found in pretty much every group of humans, so it would be pretty odd if we didn't have 'em here. But to achieve anything, the focus needs to be on what the actual problems are, not on proposing solutions for things which manifestly aren't problems in the format expressed. Pesky is a good editor to ask these questions, because she's never been blocked, so no-one can say (as they would to you or Keifer) "oh you're just complaining because you keep getting blocked" (subtext, you keep getting blocked, you must deserve it). And I agree that a lot of Pesky's observations are good. But we've been round this course a few times now, and suggested solutions that don't get anywhere near the core problems just cause the discussion to dissipate.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Administrator abuse is a problem. Jimbo and ArbCom have already discussed the difficulty of taking action against administrators who are protected by fellow administrators. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

That would actually go back to my commentary about enablers. But then, despite best efforts to pretend otherwise, that is not a problem associated with administrators. It is, in fact associated with any long-term popular editor who just happens to get on the bad side of any other long term popular editor. Resolute 16:11, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

An administrator left this personal attack on my talk page:

"I really don't know what type of social adjustment problems you may have in real life, so I'm not going to assume too much. However, it is clear to me that not only are you an unsuitable person to be part of the Wikipedia community, you are quite possibly so incapable of self-reflection that you shouldn't be using any online forum at all. I can normally take your trolling as part of the rough and tumble of Wikipedia - that's fine and part of what happens here."

Guess which user, the abusive administrator or myself, received a block warning, from an uninvolved administrator setting an example of civility, AGF, and NPA. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I like how you quote out of context, failing to note that that began when you made a posting that one editor found highly offensive, and he told you so. Was his commentary polite? No, I'll grant you that. But then, who are you to speak? You seem quick to attack others for perceived slights ("Two-faced arbs without the honesty or integrity to make a ruling on incompetent/dishonest/uncivil arb behavior") but as is typical, you are even quicker to complain when you get back what you give. Perhaps you should take a long look in a mirror before complaining about how others disregard civility, AGF and NPA, eh? You're no victim, Kiefer. Resolute 17:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

@Resolute, you are apologizing for administrator abuse. Again, I complain about one-sided enforcement of civility and NPA. Scott MacDonald made a severe personal attack, and has suffered not even an admonishment. I was threatened with a block. That disparity is the inequity.

I provided the diffs so that others can see the context. What was quoted out of context? An administrator derailing a discussion with nonsense about male breasts? The administrator going bananas when informed about effects of cancer, etc.?

You are quoting me out of context. My statement was about the arbitrators not dealing with the recent Civility Enforcement fiasco. It was not about Scott MacDonald, who did not like my discussing prostate cancer, etc.

Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:59, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Nah, I am just a fan of irony. Such as: I was once threatened with a civility block by one of the admins linked to in this thread for a rather apt description of a non-admin's behaviour on Wikipedia. The warning was bullshit, of course, but trust me, the shit and abuse isn't unidirectional. I just don't hold grudges, and I don't run around a dozen different forums complaining about it. Resolute 18:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The point is that a warning should also have been given to the administrator who left the personal attacks.

A warning to me was not bullshit (that is, it passes a laugh test among blocking heads at ANI, for example), although it would have been better below something I had written that was arguably uncivil (and would have been credible if it noted incivilities to which I had responded).

Placing a nasty block warning below the other administrator's abuse was a display of power---not the first (as ArbCom and Jimbo discussions have shown) and alas likely not the last.... Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:24, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

We need a bigger ArbCom that can look into more cases and more community control of that ArbCom. That's one of the points in the platform of the ArbCom Reform party. Once that's in place, discussions like this can happen on one of the ArbCom pages; if something can be done to address the situation, you can implement that much faster. Count Iblis (talk) 17:03, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

First you should determine what exactly is the Wikipedia community. Is this thousands of editors who create content and never or almost never voice their opinion in the community discussions, or it is a bunch of trolls who hardly create any content, but happily support community bans of content contributors. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 17:28, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Excellent point. We don't hear from a lot of the community, because they keep their heads down and just create content, gnome away or whatever. There are admins whose name never appear at ANI, who beaver away doing stuff with images, blocking penis vandals or deleting spam pages. We rarely hear from any of these people, but they are a large part of what makes this encyclopaedia keep running. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Admin abuse is and has been rampant for years. Admin's can do nearly anything including violate policy and get away with it. This is determinatal to the health of the project and causes a lot of users to leave. Of course nothing will ever be done because its impossible to get a consensus so the problems continue, admins see they can get away with nerly anything and its nearly as hard to get someone desysopped as remove them from Civil service for the US government. The only thing at this point that will change it is for the foundation to finally show an interest in the project, quite the benign neglect and quite turning their back to the problem. What we need is a couple folks at the foundation to ride herd over the Admin cadre. To keep them inline, make sure things are happening the way they should and when necessary put them back in their place. This will not only help to solve the admin problem but will also give them some credibility which I'm sorry to say has been lacking and getting worse. Having said all that I know thats not going to happen, most readers of this will probably just think I am ranting and will ignore it and nothing will continue to happen. Whatwe do not need though is a larger stronger Arbcom that is no better than the Admins they would be supporting. Kumioko (talk) 17:17, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

So you're saying the WMF could replace Arbcom with a couple of staffers, like what happened at Livejournal. Get rid of the ability of the community to govern itself. Do you want to run for Arbcom on that platform? Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

But this Admin Abuse can only exist because you do have problem editors who need to be dealt with. If you have a system that is not so efficient, what happens is that good editors who do have some problems end up getting banned/blocked even if better solutions were available because "it takes too much community effort to find a better solution". The real reason is that with an overworked and burned out ArbCom, ArbCom only accepts a limited number of cases and will not be able to do a good job ineven those cases. Admins have then free reign in other cases, and then it's a Wild West like situation where you can have some Admin abuse that goes on unchecked. So, we do need a much larger ArbCom that will exert a much tighter control of the Adminstrative aspects of Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 17:37, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to ask you the same question as Pesky - point to instances. There are one or two, but the truth is that the number of cases presented has gone down drastically, and the number of cases that need to be taken have gone down drastically, because the community prefers to deal with these problems itself. This results in blocks and bans enacted by admins at noticeboards, in much higher numbers than in earlier years, and actually much less these days for Arbcom to do. We've desysopped a few admins in my time - oddly some of the parties to this discussion crying about admin abuse, cried and cried that we were unfair to desysop them for....admin abuse. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

@Ellen, Let me address the first question first. I do not like the existing Arbcom environment and of that I have been pretty clear I think. As much as some might think otherwise I do not have a problem with most of the individual members and have actually met several of them in person and have a lot of respect for them. What I do not like or agree with is the atmosphere that has generated that if they accept a case, then nothing good will come out of it. If its a user, they will be banned, desysopped or restricted because they won't accept a case unless they think the user is guilty and that itself generates a predetermination of the outcome. If they accept a case regarding something else, they have a much much better process and I think that with the exception of 1 I have agreed with the decision or could at least accept and understand it. But the cases weren't chosen based on guilt as is the case of editor related cases. Leading to the second comment, I believe this is why the cases have gone down. Because there is a general lack of faith in the decisions and most users who are familiar with Arbcom generally think that the end result isn't going to be good for either side.

@Count Iblist, Admin abuse exists for multile reasons including burnout, a general atmosphere of the admin is always right and others. Regardless of the number of people with the admin permission set its the same 5 - 75 admins doing all the work. If it wasn't for the editors without the tools helping out, many of which, myself including who can't get or don't want the tools, the admins would hve been overwhelmed long ago. I do not think that the foundation should, could or needs to override Arbcom, but, Arbcom isn't currently capable to manage the Admin cadre, probably wouldn't want to mix that with their judicial role and shouldn't because of that judicial role. The foundation keeps saying they are trying to help to make things better but they keep leaving it to the community and frankly (and I know this will hurt some feelings but oh well) we (including myself) have failed miserably at fixing it. We can't do something without consensus and can't get a consensus to do something. If the foundation isn't willing to step up to make some of these decisions to try and turn things around, they may as well shut the servers down and call this noble effort a social failure. Kumioko (talk) 18:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

It will be a failure as a social experiment if you replace the volunteers with staffers. Seriously - go over to VPP, suggest that, and see how long you live (metaphorically). And I'm sure this will madly tickle you - from Mbizance on AGK's talkpage my concern that Arbcom is far too lenient on parties to cases by assuming that those brought before it are acting in good-faith. By the time a dispute reaches Arbcom, there has usually been a failure on the part of someone. It may have been that the accused is guilty of violating policy or it may be that the filer is guilty of escalating a matter beyond reason or it may be that one of the parties has such poor communication skills that they cannot resolve a dispute on their own. Arbcom seems unwilling to recognize that most requests involves someone messing something up and is willing to entertain lengthy screeds of argument, let everyone speak their mind, and then tailor the narrowest sanction it thinks will address the precise problem. Broader sanctions (topic bans instead of interaction ban, site bans instead of interaction bans, etc.) instead of the most narrow sanction and severe sanctions for disruptive (overly long, IDHT, uncivil) conduct in Arbcom proceedings (the person should be on their best behavior, they know their behavior is being reviewed by the final body on Wikipedia) should be the norm, not the present outlier. Lets face it, if everyone was as beastly as you say they are, you'd still be blocked for socking. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not talking about replacing anyone, I am talking about adding. This wouldn't replace Arbcom, admins or editors. What it would do would create a connection between the foundation and the Admin cadre/Arbcom. But with that said. Paid staffers do the development, paid staffers are maintaining the servers, paid staffers are doing other things, why not making sure that we aren't running around doing something stupid just because we are admins and can get away with it.

I know you are a member of Arbcom and I know that there is a movement to make Arbcom bigger, to expand their powers and increase their workload. Aside from my personal feelings on that, Arbcom does not and probably will never have the bandwidth to monitor the Admin community and as the judge, jury and executioner role they already have I don't think they also need to be the hall monitor. I'm not even saying that it needs to be a full time job. I do think it needs to be someone who doesn't actively edit, who doesn't have strong ties to the community and who can determine if an Admin is acting in error in a nonbiased way. They don't need to remove the tools or ban them or block them. Just float by and mention to said admin that they have or may have acted in such a way that is not appropriate. If it happens too many times then they can act. I believe that just knowing that someone is watching will stop a lot of the ongoing admin abuses and big ego's. In regards to that comment that is kinda funny, and in utter contrast to my opinions, which isn't in itself surprising about the place. That's why we can never get a consensus on anything here. There are always groups on opposite poles and not enough in the middle. In the end though we need to do whats best for the project and the Pedia. Whatever we are doing currently isn't working and a blind man (or woman) can see that. We need to do something and try it for a while, if it doesn't work we can adjust fire and try something else. But just sitting here arguing that everything won't work and trying nothing is absolutely not going to help. If someone has a better idea, great lets try it.

IRT my history, your right I have made mistakes (like Iron Man largely public) and thanks for bringing that up to decrease my credibility. I appreciate that. :-) I am not trying to indicate the place is full of monsters, but there are some monsters here, some are hiding in the shadows, some are hiding in plain sight and have admin tools they are there and they pop up from time to time. Going back to my block though its all good now because I am done editing. I may make a comment here and there on a talk page or levy a vote in the upcoming Arbcom elections but with all the content being protected and not being an admin I got tired of waiting a week for my edits to be implemented only to have to explain to the admin how to do it because they don't know template programming. I stopped vandal fighting a couple years ago because I couldn't block them and I couldn't protect the pages. I'm simply not the basic editor anymore and I am not allowed to do the more advanced things so there is no sense in staying. I can't grow and continue to learn and help out so its time to retire. Kumioko (talk) 02:56, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't have, stored in my fast-access memory, a huge list of particular cases of one admin performing multiple blocks on one editor. That almost certainly doesn't mean that there aren't any. Also, in most respects, I'd actually much prefer to leave individual names and so on out of discussions like this, as, as soon as names are mentioned, it tends to derail the discussion into almost-strawman arguments about the ins and outs of that particular case, to the great detriment of thinking wholly about the bigger picture. I think that happened, to a lesser extent, right up at the top of this conversation, when I stuck to "big picture" wording, and it was immediately decided that this was definitely only about Penyulap, which it definitely wasn't. I do think people should avoid stating something as fact when it's only an assumption!

I can, for example, think of one instance when an admin took an action which, although not technically involved, was done after a long (and evident) history of personality clash with another editor, going back for many months. I left a note on the admin's talk, and my view was backed up by another admin who saw it. We do have some really good admins, with integrity and honour and big hearts (and sound minds). But we also have some of the other sort, who don't see a problem with abusing the power that they have been given.

I really don't have the time (Real Life stuff) to go hunting through enough block logs to try and find particular instances where an individual user may have been the subject of too much focus from one admin, or a small clique of admins. But something else occurred to me as a possibility that we should maybe consider, and that's the "weeding out" of block logs; finding a way of separating the genuinely good blocks from the highly-debatable or even atrocious ones, and displaying them in some kind of different log. I think this would require something along the lines of a "jury of admins / editors in good standing" (combination, ideally) to look at particular block logs and make a rational and fair decision about what should stay in the main log as a sound and good and deserved block, and what should go into the secondary log. I know that something along these lines is already on someone's to-do list as a thing to think about, so it may eventually happen.

This would be a great proactive move to make, as in many, many instances editors look just at the length of the block log, the number of blocks, without considering in any way the quality of the blocks. (This is one of those instances where size does matter ... that's what people notice.)

I'm really not trying to get up anyone's noses here, just trying to come up with ways of improving what we have. A lot of people have lost faith in the current situation, and it's not just the people with lists of blocks, sanctions, reprimands, and so on. Pesky (talk) 07:45, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I would dispute that last sentence - as the 67 IP observed above, the majority of editors (and even the majority of admins) never appear at handwringing sessions, so neither you nor I have any means of judging their mood. Be that as it may, your notion about block logs is on sounder ground than your notion about admins reblocking users. I recently accidentally blocked an innocent user (didn't untick a box in a script) and spent the next week apologising. Worse, when I looked into it, it's not possible to remove the entry, all you can do is blank the reason for the block (and you're not supposed to do that because it makes it look even worse than it was to start with). Some means of oversighting blocks made in error would be worth looking into further. If you have that (which is a technical solution), then you could see if the community wants some means of being able to oversight blocks that it doesn't agree with. Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:39, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I've heard that several times before. And your one of the more competent admins, it happens more often than it should. I have even seen editors at things like RFA trying to contest it when someone brings it up and they get comments like Oppose - User is unwilling to admit they made a mistake and they end up losing the RFA. That is just one of many examples. Currently if a user doesn't agree with an admin, they have to try and figure out the right venue to go to, then try and figure out how to properly submit something, then have the endurance to spend the next several weeks in discussion. If we had some hall monitors that periodically reviewed admin actions whether through the logs, floating about the site or in other ways, we would soon find that although we would lose a few admins undoubtedly because their shenanigans are discovered and dealt with, the admin abuses would stop, the general mood would lighten and things on this one small niche piece of Wiki life would start to improve. Now I Arbcom is willing and capable to perform this function its worth discussing but I don't think they should because of reasons I already mentioned. I think at this point the community has shown that we are unwilling and incapable of competently completing this task. We talk a good talk but at the end of the day we are incapable of any real significant change because there is never a consensus. We need someone to show some leadership, grow a spine and try something. If it doesn't work, as I said before we can adjust and try something else but we cannot continue to stick our heads in the sand on these issues. Kumioko (talk) 12:17, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Any community is going to have bad eggs and game players; they exist here within the admin corps and amongst the remainder of the editing pool as well. I don't think we have a particularly large proportion of those people when the editorship is viewed as a whole, but we do tend to have large chunks within smaller parts of the the 'pedia. One of the larger chunks is amongst those that hand out around the admin/policy/arbcom pages and as these are the most active and influential users it can take its toll.

The solution isn't to expand or improve arbcom IMO but requires a social change. It is to reduce the power of individual adminstrators, and admins as a whole. We should remove the requirement for admins to close certain discussions; a simple way to do this would be to say that anyone with X edits over Y months, and without community sanctions, is "trusted" and given powers to close and implement discussions. Admins should be relegated to "tool users" merely there to press the delete/protect/block buttons as required, and not arbiters of anything. We need proper content abitration, so that admins are not called on to break up content disputes. We need to make adminship more accessible and easier to take away. However, these social changes have been tried before and not got anywhere. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:58, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

It has been a growing opinion of mine that as the community has taken on more of the role of dealing with unruly users, the cases coming to Arbcom are - leaving aside the ones dealing with administrators - frequently ones where there is an unresolvable content dispute. I've even joked on this page that Jimbo should set up a coin-toss policy to resolve the most intractable disputes. I have thought that there might be a place for an established, binding, content dispute resolution process, to handle the ones where the two sides are utterly entrenched. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:18, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

@ Errant, I would largely agree with that except for the last sentence. Changes have been "discussed" but not tried. We can never get a consensus (and probably never will) about doing any changes related to RFA.

@ Ellen, as I mentioned before I don't think its so much that the community has taken over the role as the community is shrinking, editors are leaving en masse and the general communities notice that if it goes to Arbcom, the editor is going to be blocked or banned but only after spending the next several weeks in endurance tests and discussion just to have the outcome be a Ban, desysop, edit restriction because Arbcom wouldn't take the case if they didn't think the editor was guilty. So why even bother. IF your going to submit it to Arbcom, you may as well block them because that's what the result would be anyway. Kumioko (talk) 14:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Kumioko, your personal demons are your problems, not mine. Your continued belief in the great myth of editors leaving en masse because of Arbcom is your problem, not mine. That you have created a situation in your own head where Arbcom can never legitimately take a case, because you cannot comprehend the difference between taking a case on prima facie evidence, and making a decision based on an investigation which has hopefully revealed the whole truth of the matter, is your problem, not mine. Ask User:Wikid77 for some data on the actual size of the community - you will be surprised. Check out how many sanctions are handed down at AN and ANI - you'll be surprised. I can also recommending spending some time at WP:AE observing all the editors who in many cases have already been sanctioned by Arbcom, and in all the others have been warned that they will be sanctioned, going at it like Kilkenny Cats to get sanctioned again. You really will be surprised. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Your right that is a perception on my part based on longterm experience in both AN, ANI and Arcom cases. I may not be an admin but it won't take a data analyst to see that I have spent a large amount of time in these discussions. You may not agree with my viewpoints or hypothesis but I do actually have some idea what I'm talking about and am familiar with the policies and the forums. I just choose to side with the editor when Admins use tactics like a certain one I won't mention did recently to get their way. Which no one seems to care about by the way which I find highly annoying. I also agree that Wikid presents some interesting numbers. I do not think they are particularly accurate though and here's why. Rich did a massive amount of edits a month, including his bots even more so but the numbers Wikid displays shows no measurable difference. You cannot tell me that we suddenly got enough new editors doing more edits to pick up the slack. But the numbers reflect no noticible increase or decrease. How is that? Kumioko (talk) 18:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Elen wrote " the number of cases that need to be taken have gone down drastically, because the community prefers to deal with these problems itself. This results in blocks and bans enacted by admins at noticeboards, in much higher numbers than in earlier years, and actually much less these days for Arbcom to do."

I think this is a step in the wrong direction. Compare Wikipedia to real world society. We started in the Stone Age, ArbCom can be compared with the elders of the tribe. As society gets more complex we need to move in the direction of the analogue of a modern justice system. Instead what has happened is that we moved toward a larger tribal system where the elders are letting local warlords deal with problems. The elders make sure that there is no infighting between the warlords. Count Iblis (talk) 17:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree. Here are a few of the utterly stupid things we are doing as a community that shows potential editors that Wikipedia is really not the encyclopedia anyone can edit and we really don't trust you so don't bother that needs to stop. Mostly by our "trusted" admins.

1. We have range IP blocks in place now that essentially exclude about 2% of the entire worlds internet from contributing. This incudes libraries, iuniversities, high schools, etc. Yes there was vandalism at these sites but there was a lot of good edits too and some admins blocked them simply for their own convenience rather than any meaningful purpose.These IMO need to be reviewed and most restored.
2. Certain admins have been going on a mass protecting spree protecting templates and articles at an unprecedented rate because they are trying to "prevent" vandalism. Most of these have never been vandalized, ever. But they are protected so no one except the aforementioned "trusted" admins can edit them.
3. Wikipedia's rules are hard to learn. There are a lot of them, some are not intuitive and a lot disagree with each other. But new editors that make a stupid mistake because they don't understand are blocked indefinately. Sometimes this is necessary but frequently its not. There are currently thousands of editors indefinately blocked. Many for good reason, a lot for not so good of a reason.

These are just a few. Kumioko (talk) 18:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Count Iblis: You have a rare gift for coming up with ridiculously flawed metaphors. Of course it was barely two days ago you were trying to instigate a coup to remove the current ArbCom at AN, I fail to see how that reflects your vision of a "law and order society" on Wikipedia. Admins are not warlords. ArbCom is not a government. We don't need political parties in ArbCom elections. Wake up and smell the coffee. Your ideas are not, have not been, and in all likelihood will not be supported by the community. You managed to fool a few users for a minute there with the ArbCom reform party but it seems they have all seen the light now, I note not a single one of them has come to your defense over yesterday's "recruitment RFC" disaster. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:36, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, although Iblis' idea is probably unworkable, you can at least see the logic in it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 02:16, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Semi arbitrary section break

Wowsers, I was gonna read this whole thread. But then I realized, the folks in Florida will have their state's votes counted before then. GoodDay (talk) 06:43, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm absolutely sure that, if we tasked ourselves to come up with a whole flotilla of ideas which might change the atmosphere for the better, around this issue, then we could actually do something. There are probably some ways of scripting a few things to flag up situations which might want to be double-checked. The weeding of block logs, I'm sure, could be done and would be beneficial. What about some way of checking the number of blocks made by individual admins, to suss out if there are a few who are more trigger-happy on the block button than others? (Would probably have to exclude blocks of IPs as for the most part those are likely to be vandalism blocks; yes, I know IPs are human too, but still ....) Could someone work up a script which checks things like this? Then at least a small panel of auditors could have a look to see if the blocks were all good, and justified. Of course there will be some admins who a script might flag as "possible trigger-happies" who aren't, at all, worthy of the flag, but it might help to highlight instances where a trigger-happy admin could do with a warning, or just a chat (or maybe a break from adminship if they're burned out?) Pesky (talk) 08:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem with that idea is that the admins making the most blocks probably are not the ones making the most problematic blocks. It's more likely the top results from such a script would be checkusers and/or admins dealing with WP:LTA. Checkusers often find "sleeper" socks that have never even edited and long term abuse trolls tend to create throwaway accounts by the dozens. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:32, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd go further. The admins who do loads of blocks are the ones who watch AIV and block loads of vandals, either indef blocks on accounts or short term blocks on individual IPs. Can anyone remember the last time that sort of block got contentious? Contentious blocks are invariably not for vandalism, and are blocks of IP ranges or longterm editors not new throwaway accounts. Watch for the blocks of editors with more than 1,000 edits, that's where we get contentious blocks. As the blocking of an established editor is almost never for vandalism it would be sensible to upbundle this to the crats. They are already trusted to block and the very few blocks involved would not be that much of a workload. I suspect that quite a few editors would be much more relaxed about admins if we lost the ability to block them, so it might even take some of the tension out of RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 18:16, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Hence the challenge to Pesky to come up with any evidence at all that admins repeatedly blocking users who don't deserve it is a problem, rather than a fantasy of Pesky's. Iblis's idea of 'lower courts' on the other hand is, in my opinion, actually starting to emerge naturally (as long as you remember not to think of them as legal processes). WP:DRN has emerged; contentious RfCs are being closed by troikas rather than by single users; AN is handling bans and topic bans. I think there's scope for splitting up the melange of tasks that fall to Arbcom - and indeed merging some of them. The whole AE area to my mind doesn't work good at the moment, and pushing some of the responsibility for managing these sanctions back to an elected committee that rotates, rather than half a dozen admins that just burn out, should be considered. On the other hand, BASC should be separated off, and have a much more clearly defined scope and working practice, particularly now UTRS is available.

Much of this is just rearranging the deckchairs though (but not necessarily on the Titanic). What seems to bother most editors (although see notes above on the silent majority) is being able to edit in peace, without being molested by other editors (hence the challenge to Kumioko to come up with any kind of evidence that editors are leaving in droves because of concern over being sanctioned by an insane Arbcom). It is our dispute resolution procedures (the lower courts) that still need improvement, and Wikipedia's legendary tolerance of trolls, pov pushers, internecine warriors etc that is still the more major problem for most editors. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@SpielChequers - I don't think the crats idea would fly - that's not what they are there for. However, the idea of a 'lower court' which would actually make a decision as to whether a senior editor warranted a sanction is a possibility. The WMF themselves might however oppose it, as their focus is almost exclusively on new editors, and they are not minded to support what they might see as discrimination against new editors. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:25, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Currently all admins can block any editor. Changing the code so that only Crats can block accounts with over 1,000 edits is technically easy, and it isn't giving the crats any more powers than they have, just taking away some power from other admins. But if the crats don't like this it would be quite practical to have a separate group of editors who had the block anyone userright. As for the WMF, the important thing is to present this as a way to reduce tensions between admins and the community, not some sort of newby biting process. ϢereSpielChequers 18:50, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

This is a terrible idea. For starters, people with over 1,000 edits get blocked all the time for edit warring. Even very experienced users sometimes have a lapse in judgement and partake in edit warring. Why should we have to appeal to a higher power to block for something as obvious as 3RR? Practically everyone blocked at WP:AE is also very experienced. And why should a user with 900 edits be subject to stricter standards of behavior than users who have been here for years and ought to know better already? On top of that, there are not very many active crats, it's not a job a lot of admins even want, and the community is rarely in a mood to promote new ones anymore. And, as if that weren't enough, crats are generally expected not to act decisively but rather to act only when there is a clear consensus (as in RFA) or a very specific policy (as in CHU) that supports a specific course of action. That is not going to mesh well with the realities of blocking problematic users. this would create a massive class of unblockable users, including every single admin. I do agree that blocks on very experienced users are a problem area, but this is not the solution. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:25, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The actual number of blocks we'd be talking about is really quite small, and yes edit warring would probably be the most common cause. IMHO we are too free with blocks re edit warring, and it would be much better if we were warning people each time they approached being blocked. But sometimes it really is necessary to block active editors, and I think that crats would be the right people to do these blocks because we should only be blocking where there is a clear case - so with this change some of our sillier blocks just wouldn't happen. But with the power to block also comes the power to unblock - and if a vested contributor was blocked then only a fellow crat could reverse it. So I would hope that some of our dramas would get resolved without use of blocks, and those completely unblockable characters would have to remember that if they did merit a block they could no longer rely on their friends to undo it. ϢereSpielChequers 19:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not the crats job to block people, and they never signed up to block people in the crat role. They would turn you down flat.Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

All the current crats are already admins, so upbundling an admin function to them isn't giving them an extra right, just increasing the number of times they are likely to need to exercise that right. However if the existing crats would prefer that we appoint some additional crats or a new user group for this then either is doable. The important part of this suggestion is that by taking that one tool away from admins we reduce the tension between the admin cadre and other editors, and we enforce a move away from blocks and the threat of blocks as an early resort for the enforcement of policy. Think of it a bit like guns and Police forces. Here in the UK only a tiny minority of the Police carry guns, there are armed police available for when guns are really needed, but if the Police actually kill someone it is national news. Policing with consent is much easier if the Police are no better armed than the populace. ϢereSpielChequers 06:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

As a general matter, I've long since felt that when good-faith editors lapse into edit-warring, they often should first be warned and then blocked from the page or from the topic area for a couple of days, rather than blocked outright, which simply deprives us of their ability to contribute in other areas. I also agree with Elen that the current group of bureaucrats neither signed up for the responsibility of handing out specific kinds of blocks nor were they necessarily selected with that role in mind. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:05, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I love the idea of "protect against editing by users X, Y and Z." I think this should be entirely possible at the page level - topic level would require some more complex programming and would have lots of loopholes - including the risk that other editors could then extend the topic ban by adding the topic tag to other pages. ϢereSpielChequers 06:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I also really like this idea. Blocking someone for editing warring on one particular article is dropping an elephant on them when a tap on the shoulder would usually do. If they're only disrupting Page X, let's try separating them from Page X before we hurry off to separate them from zomg everywhere, ever. I wonder if it would be possible to get a dev to just give us five minutes of brainstorming on such an idea, as far as quick answers for "Is this feasible software-side? What parts of it do you think would be low-cost? What parts high-cost? What parts are hell-no-never-gona-happen?" A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 22:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I am going to hazard a guess that if something that awesome could easily be done they would have done it already, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to ask. Who wants to ask? I've already bent enough of their ears this year. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:31, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why a software change would be needed in order to use this idea in appropriate situations. A few times over the years, I've said to an editor caught up in an edit-war "in lieu of my deciding whether to block you, will you agree not to edit Article X or Topic Y for 24-48-72 hours" and they've said yes and kept the promise. And if (for example) an AN3 report were closed with "Editor A instructed not to edit Article A for 24 hours" in lieu of "Editor A blocked for 24 hours," and then Editor A disgarded the instruction and edited A again, the other party to the AN3 report would be complaining about back on AN3 so quickly it would make one's head spin, and a block would follow. If the editor seems out of control and unlikely to follow the instruction, then the administrator could block in the ordinary way, but most editors would comply with a 24/48 hour ban from a given article or topic in lieu of a full block. I certainly think the idea is worth trying more widely. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:37, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't the capability already exist anyway, with WP:Edit filter, or can it not be used for this purpose? Unless I'm misunderstanding (I often do), a nice front end to create an edit filter rule could be all that's needed? Begoon ^talk 02:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but I believe an edit filter applies to a given type of edit from all editors; I don't think it's set up to be customized to permit one editor to edit an article but not another. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:42, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

You could well be correct. WP:Edit filter doesn't list "account name" as one of the User criteria you can fling a regex at, although it is in this list, intriguingly. Possibly it won't work without software changes, then - I was really just trying to find a "no work" or "little work" solution. As you said, it's usually spotted quickly when editors "break" topic bans, and this idea does nothing where "socking" is involved.Begoon ^talk 02:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• addendum: Special:AbuseFilter/148 seems to indicate the filter here can act based on 'user_name' regexps (filter log). I'm not an expert, either, and I can't see the "private" filters which may also use this variable - but it at least still seems as if it could be possible. Begoon ^talk 04:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Potential Lua-based Template:CheckMOS to spot errors

Beyond having Template:Watchdog expanded by lightning-fast Lua script searches to question improper words in live articles, I now see the need for some edit-only templates which could check for hundreds of grammar or punctuation problems in older articles, but only during an edit-preview to perhaps run 2 whole seconds of numerous error searches. Such a Template:CheckMOS (short alias {ckmos}?) could hunt for the following numerous small problems, as noted in wp:MOS:

• warn of any contraction "n't" (although quotations are exempt).
• warn of ampersand " & " used as "and"
• warn of run-together units, such as "3km" should be spaced "3 km".
• warn of misused "then" when "than" is the expected phrase.
• warn of abbreviated units "km" when full "kilomet.." expected
• check for the 200 most-often misspelled words.
• warn of hundreds of other potential issues.

In recent work to edit another 150 articles, for copy-edit problems, I am again seeing the need to fix about 30-50 small punctuation, or phrasing, problems in every article. As more patterns emerge, then a {ckmos} template could be expanded to search for hundreds of those small errors, perhaps listing just 15 at a time (as "showing 15 of 57 detected"), to allow an editor to fix a dozen, then try again for the next dozen, to keep from overwhelming the editing process. This note is just an FYI to think about easier ways to solve the current 50-typo-per-article problem, in a few edits, rather than waiting years for articles to be AWB-edited for 3 words at a time. More later. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:04, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

That's a very smart idea! Pesky (talk) 09:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

• Show borderline cases at end of scan: Well, a common problem, when trying to detect potential text errors, is avoiding too many messages about borderline cases, such as flagging of intended style differences, or even "deliberate errors" in some sections. Because a Lua script module can increment counters, then multiple messages could be combined, such as, "Detected 67 commas preceded by spaces" rather than listing all 67 messages. Another advantage, to showing only "15 of 57 detected" at a time, would be to display the high-priority typos first, and then minor, debatable glitches would be suppressed until the "top 15" major issues were corrected first. It is important not to overwhelm the user/editor with a zillion messages, as done for decades by the old UNIX "lint" or newer Splint (programming tool) which checked for syntax errors in C language software files. Now, I am thinking that editors are often led to an article for some specific update, not intending to copy-edit the whole page, but perhaps might have time to run a "{ckmos}" and decide to fix perhaps 20 small problems while editing for their original update. It is sad to see an Indo-Pak article, with 250 obvious typos, rarely get an AWB-edit to fix 3 words, and leave the remaining 247 typos for months/years. Also, it is an eye-opener to review a major article ("Jennifer Lopez") and find 37 new typos from recent editing last month by fans with quick fingers. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

• Borderline cases as a separate option: Upon further reflection, I think some borderline typos or "deliberate errors" should only be reported by a {ckmos} template when a specific option was requested; otherwise, there might be too many valid exceptions to a borderline rule about punctuation. The problem is that many typos can also be valid, but unusual, text phrases, especially in quotations or math formulas which are not clearly within quotation marks or math tags, but perhaps inside an image caption. Hence, the best way to control for too many exceptions would be to turn the option off, when it distracted from detecting other issues in a text section. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

• Rapid, template parameter lists of words to check: Previously, I had thought that some editors who worked on the wp:MOS style guide might perhaps update a Lua script module to search for text errors. However, now, I am thinking that the lists of words to hunt should be, instead, the parameters of the template which #invoke's a Lua module. Because the Lua language is so vastly different from the markup language used in writing templates, I am worried that most editors will dislike making changes to Lua modules, which are currently processed similar to "compiled source code" versus the interative changes to edit-previewed templates. Lua is almost identical to advanced computer software with parameters imported by accessor functions (but with implicit data types), and casting of data from one format to another can be complicated, where if a user does not "live and breathe" writing in C language, then they are likely to find Lua almost unintelligible. Fortunately, we have many computer experts contributing to WP, but most users will probably want to work with Lua-based template parameters, rather than modify the Lua modules directly. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Court case ruling commercial conflict-of-interest editing illegal under European law

As the de:Wikipedia:Kurier (the German Wikipedia's internal newsletter) reports, a recently published German court decision ruled that if someone paid by a business adds information about the business's products to a Wikipedia article, then the intent is to influence consumers – and that this is a form of advertising, as well as a part of the business's commercial activities. Moreover, the court ruled that because this is a covert form of advertising, it is illegal under European unfair trading law.

Ongoing discussions in German Wikipedia point out that the German law under which the decision was made is merely the German implementation of a European directive, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. This seems to be true, and there is a parallel law in the UK: The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. This lists the following in Schedule 1, under "Commercial practices which are in all circumstances considered unfair":

• 11. Using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer (advertorial).

• 22. Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer.

In the German court case, a manufacturer of incense products had (1) mentioned in a Wikipedia article that their own products were widely available in German pharmacies and (2) had claimed that a competing Indian product was not readily available in Germany for various reasons. The court saw both of these types of statements as designed to bias purchasing decisions in favour of the company's own products. They were taken to court by the competitor and ordered to desist from making such statements in Wikipedia on pain of a €250,000 fine and up to 6 months in prison.

This was so despite the fact that they had declared their conflict of interest on the article's talk page. The court ruled that as the average reader would not consult the talk page, and because Wikipedia saw itself as presenting articles from a neutral point of view, with an impartial description of any existing disputes, the company had breached the unfair trading regulations.

Wikimedia Germany has commissioned a legal opinion on the wider implications of this judgment for Wikipedia, given that the German Wikpedia's own advice on conflict-of-interest editing is not consistent with the court decision.

For a UK application of the same law, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/20/nike-twitter-campaign-banned

At least as far as the UK is concerned, this might represent an excellent vindication of the bright-line rule never to edit article space with a commercial conflict of interest, as it lays the editor's company open to lawsuits from competitors, and claims for damages. Andreas JN466 17:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

This sounds like a huge can of worms. Think about how many companies in the U.S. have been saying "like us on Facebook for a chance at a free iCrap." But I assume there's nothing like it in the U.S., nor do I think there could be, which, oddly enough, sounds like it will give our companies an unfair advantage. So far as I understand from what these articles say, these European companies can't just hire some Americans to edit for them... not unless they have an American subsidiary doing it?... Wnt (talk) 17:51, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

European free speech law maybe less protective but even in the US, a competitor can sue another competitor for 'unfair trade practices.' And get an injunction. From the Pedia's interest, this is just likely to drive such editing even more underground, and subject the WMF (and others) to more subpenas. In the end people should just not do this stuff, but "business ethics," are well, "business ethics." -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not totally following how it affects purchasing decisions. If I'm standing in a German pharmacy and see Indian incense in front of me, am I supposed to say to myself, "Hold on, I just read in Wikipedia that this incense isn't widely available, so this must be an illusion, and I'll search for another brand?" Or to put it differently, who ya gonna believe, Wikipedia or your lyin' eyes? (Yes, I can imagine some effect, but I couldn't pass up a chance at a cheap line.)--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:56, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

It seems they were trying to influence wholesale purchasing decisions, and to discourage imports of Indian goods that would have competed with their own product. According to this analysis they made factually inaccurate statements about import regulations in the process, while stating that their product was widely available in pharmacies as a nutritional supplement. Andreas JN466 19:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Good Lord. Now that I think of it, is the NPOV policy - is Wikipedia policy - really relevant to whether "unfair trade practices" were committed? I mean, does this affect the company only because they lied about a competitor's product in a specific way, or because they violated Wikipedia policy? If it's the latter ... then companies could be going back five? years and Wikilawyering in court that X adding an EL to its own web page was not recommended by WP:EL, saying that Y was linked to baldness was a WP:COATRACK. The expert witnessing opportunities alone (not to mention the paralegal opportunities) could be enough to gainfully employ every Wikipedian who ever made 100 edits... Wnt (talk) 20:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Here's an example of what would could get in the trouble with this legislation. If people search Wikipedia for "bodkinprints" they will find a number of outgoing links to a site that used to belong to a company that was wound up a couple of months ago. These links were added in 2006 which predates the legislation. However, in the period from when the law came into force (or if similar legislation existed before then) until the company stopped operating, Wikipedia just happened to link to a commercial organisation. The user who added the links was User:Johnbod aka John Byrnne, now the Treasurer of WMUK. ([5], [6] etc.) The "bod" in his id is no coincidence. He was a director of Bodkin Prints. So Wikipedia had apparently dispassionate link to a site which had some links to useful pictures but in reality these links were inserted by someone who had a business interest in the linked site. It would need a lawyer to work out whether the continued existence of these links after the directives came into force made them unlawful in Europe, but it certainly is sleazy.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I have been saying for a while now that the Federal Trade Commission in the US "strongly advises" companies to disclose their affiliation in all online communications. When companies edit Wikipedia deceptively with socks, this is illegal astroturfing; when they edit it anonymously in a non-deceptive way, this is violating what the FTC "recommends." The issue the FTC struggles with - as is our issue as well - is enforcement. In many instances a company must astroturf to compete in a market where doing so is prolific and product reviews are a strong influence on purchasing decisions. However, I think more real-world legal repercussions would dissuade a lot of blatant astroturfing, especially by larger companies with legal departments. Of course, I need to read this now to see what it might infer about Talk page participation. Corporate 21:17, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

For anyone interested: The FTC’s Revised Endorsement Guides: What People are Asking. Corporate 21:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Corporate, the FTC does not "strongly advise" or "recommend" disclosure, it requires it.

§ 255.5 disclosure of material connections. When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.

In the rest of the document it clarifies that "endorser" applies to "consumer-generated-media", it doesn't need to be an explicit endorsement. They give an example of an Internet forum participant that has a commercial COI, unknown to the rest of the forum participants, § 255.5 Example 8. Gigs (talk) 22:16, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification - I had read secondary interpretations that suggested it was more like "advice." It's a very compelling argument for us to require disclosure, as it is not a good idea for Wikipedia to give companies advice that encourages something potentially illegal. On the other hand, we can dive into things like what is an "endorsement" and what materials may "materially effect" the company and so on. Corporate 22:26, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The difference here though is that while a company rep on a web forum might disclose his identity either in his signature or in his postings, he can't do that on a Wikipedia article. While Wikipedia articles can actually resemble forum threads if you page through from diff to diff, they're generally read as static documents by the reader, who wouldn't know to look on the talk page, nevermind the userpage of each contributor. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 00:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The inability to put disclosures in the article itself is a pretty compelling argument to forbid all direct editing by people with a commercial COI. Gigs (talk) 04:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Well Gigs I'd like to forbid all direct editing by people with a commercial COI, but then I'd also like a flying pony. But as to your other point, why can't we put disclosures in the article itself? It's a wiki! Yelp and Amazon and so forth have a similar problem with their reviews. It's not the same problem because their reviews are explicitly user-generated so they don't have the same legal exposure, but it's still a problem for them. Well here's what Yelp is doing. Why can't we do something like that? We can, because we have the template {{Corrupt (organization)}}. (We didn't five minutes ago, be we do now.) It looks something like this:

Now that we have this, we can deploy it,where its appropriate. I think that for legal reasons we need to do this right away (and its a service to the reader to boot). Let's get to work! Herostratus (talk) 04:55, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I would hate for that kind of banner to become common. In general I dislike article issue banners. It also kind of runs against WP:NDA. I would hope we could come up with some other solution. Gigs (talk) 16:35, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I don't like banners either, but I guess in this case the alternative of no banner is worse, especially when you consider that this solves a possible legal problem. Even if the legal issue is found to be not a problem, I think it's only courteous to alert the reader that she's being played. WP:NDA is only a guideline, offers some exceptions, and was written before this particular issue came up. This is not WP:TOBY or spoiler alerts, this addresses a whole nother level of bad. We need it. Herostratus (talk) 17:20, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Surely, this banner would only be put in place if problematic edits have been identified. But, if so, why not just revert them? Formerip (talk) 17:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps because the "bad" analysis need to await litigation? (Eg. It looks like the DE Wiki knew there were COI edits but did not know they were "anti-competitive" under the law.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow, Alan. Are you saying we would only use a banner as an interim thing while we are waiting for de.wp's legal advice? If so, I'd suggest that it would be easier just to wait for the legal advice. That will be along in less time than it would take to get agreement on a banner. Formerip (talk) 18:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

No. I am not familiar with getting legal advice for article content. My understanding is that there are not enough lawyers or an identified editorial "client" to do so, in the case of almost all content. (Also, in the En-Wiki Project, it would not just be German law). However, there is still a risk, apparently, that anti-competitive statements go into articles, which the volunteers have no training or authority to evaluate. A banner just warns the readers, where we know that such risk exists, I take it. (It might also discourage such edits, altogether, one supposes) - Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm still not entirely following you. But, AFAICT, promotional COI edits of the type being talked about either are or are not lawful in the US/EU, and so we either do or no not need to think about adapting our policies to exclude such edits. We wouldn't need an army of lawyers, just appropriate wording in our policies which addresses the legal issue (in the same way that our BLP policy is worded to as to address the legal issue of defamation). Having general disclaimers everywhere would just make WP look inept and I don't think it would realistically give us any legal protection (unless you want to get into inline editor attribution). Formerip (talk) 18:46, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Formerip, it's often not practical to revert the edits, for a number of complicated reasons. One reason is that it's very tedious and time-consuming to vet material that's been worked over by a paid reputation-management editor. Any bias may be subtle and consist partly of omitted material, and its hard to vet material that isn't there. There are other problems which I won't detail here, but it's a big job and just not always possible to get someone to do this. It's possible that there's nothing false or misleading in the article. Who knows? So all we're really saying is "Paid agents of the subject have worked over this article, you might want to read this with a grain of salt (or not, depending on your own personal credulousness and so forth)."

As to the other argument, I've never been much of a fan of the "It's probably not technically actually illegal to do X, so therefore it's fine and dandy". Legal considerations aside, allowing our readers to be deliberately played without notifying them when we easily could is unethical. All things equal, we shouldn't be knowingly unethical, especially when there's no upside. Herostratus (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, but when you say "it's often not practical to revert the edits", that can't be what you really mean. In fact, it's always fairly straight forward to revert edits. It clearly wouldn't, on the other hand, be practical to expect editors to make case-by-case legal determinations about content. That's one of the reasons we have policies. You're quite correct that sometimes it may be unclear whether content is or isn't lawful. This happens with BLP all the time. We just apply the policy.

So, for example only, our policy in this case might be to make mandatory what is currently advice about COI editors and direct editing. Or it might be something less sweeping. Whatever. If you have a tiger in your restaurant, you should not something about the tiger, rather than thinking about appropriate signage. Formerip (talk) 19:18, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Why wouldn't you tell others about the tiger? Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:24, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I would run a restaurant with a tiger in it in the first place, and I don't think I would bother with a sign alerting customers to the ever-present hypothetical possibility of a tiger jumping out of the soup. Formerip (talk) 19:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

You aren't running it, 1000s of unknowns are. We hopefully give them a myriad of tools to run it a responsible fashion, and to know when to look for tigers. (BTW: Tiger soup, violates the endangered species act). Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

(E/C):No. 1) I don't think the concern is for liability for Wikipedia or the liability of its editors. Rather, it's information for readers. 2) BLP is a poor analogy because BLP is expands to remove critical information of living people but the same (moral) issues with corporations/companies don't exist. What does exist is complex anti-competitive law and identified COI. Legal/not legal involves factors which lay editors cannot know. But they can know when someone says they have COI, and that's where the risk for unwary readers begins. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:16, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't an article-space disclosure essentially make it legal for companies to astroturf us? Corporate 19:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I can't see how it does that. They still need to "follow the law." That's still on them. But wiki policies are not the law, and are not patrolled or administered by the law. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The whole point of the law is that advertorials must be clearly identified as such. To avoid infringing the law, a paid editor would have to disclose in article space what information they had inserted, and do so at the time they were inserting the info. That is something we do not allow: it would be quite helpful in a way, adding transparency for the reader, but it is not present house style. Let's not kid ourselves: if Wikipedia had article space declarations like that, they would be all over this website. Andreas JN466 21:48, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, of course Users are already barred by policy to do any of that, which you describe, beginning with editing it as an advertorial. There are only a few ways (currently) to deal with that. 1) Trust they will not do that; or 2) Raise other's antennas about COI editing. "Templateing" articles where it is in evidence that commercial COI editing is occurring (or has been requested) is just one way. But overtime, as with citations, and copyright, and BLP, one gets a culture going that is aware and thus less conducive. (As for the body of law, that's not its only point, it covers a broad array of anti-competitive communications). Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:20, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

NPOV is violated every day, by all sorts of editors. Also note that it seems a pure mention of one's own product may be enough to fall foul of the law, because of the lack of transparency, while the mention itself may not necessarily fall foul of NPOV. Andreas JN466 00:46, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes. As noted above, this area of the law covers a broad range of speech and wiki policies are not law. Violations of NPOV are also pointed out everyday. That's what other editors do when they are aware. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:58, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Where do you get the idea that pure mention of one's own product may be enough to fall foul of the law? My German is not excellent, but the decision appears to me to focus on the making of marketing claims, rather than editing of Wikipedia in general. Formerip (talk) 00:53, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

One of the statements the editor was forbidden to make was "d. das Erzeugnis [...] sei in Deutschland als Nahrungsergänzungsmittel in allen Apotheken erhältlich"; i.e. the mere mention that their product was available in German pharmacies as a nutritional supplement was ruled unfair advertising.

An analysis on this law firm's website adds that in their opinion any edit a company representative makes to an article on Wikipedia lays them open to the charge of "covert advertising", as Wikipedia does not provide any means to make other than "covert" contributions: "Wie man nun überhaupt als Unternehmen selbst ohne den Vorwurf einer Verschleierung auf Wikipedia Änderungen vornehmen lassen möchte, erscheint mir derzeit äusserst schwierig zu beurteilen, ernsthafte Möglichkeiten sehe ich jedenfalls auf Wikipedia nicht. Insbesondere, da das OLG letztlich einen offen gewählten Nutzernamen nicht als Kenntlichmachung diskutiert hat und die Diskussionsseite als Argument abgelehnt hat, verbleibt kein ernsthafter Diskussionsspielraum." In other words, even though the user identified their company in their user name, and identified themselves on the talk page, their edit to the article itself was considered non-transparent because the average reader does not read the talk page, and does not check all the accounts in the contributions history.

The de:Kurier-Artikel itself ("Die Konkurrenz liest mit!") comes to the same conclusion: "Aus Sicht des Verfassers dieses Beitrags ergibt sich aus dem Urteil und der allgemeinen Rechtslage, dass kein „zulässiger Bereich“ – in den Worten des Gerichts: keine „allgemeine Unterrichtung der Öffentlichkeit“ – existiert. Damit ist tatsächlich jeder Edit eines Unternehmens gleich Schleichwerbung und kann Unterlassungs- und Schadensersatzansprüche von Mitbewerbern und Verbrauchern auslösen." In other words, their conclusion is that the judgment means that there is no "permissible area" and any Wikipedia edit by a company is covert advertising. Andreas JN466 02:38, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

So let's take the example of a company that changes the location of its head office. The press officer logs in to WP and updates the company infobox to reflect the news. Are we saying that, according to Kurier, this would be a breach of EU law, as interpreted in Germany? Formerip (talk) 02:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know. What is certain though is that the press officer can go to a talk page or a noticeboard, explain who they are, and provide info on the location of the head office without falling foul of the regulations. If they do that, then they are not making a covert contribution to the article the reader reads. And to readers of the talk page or noticeboard, their contribution has the required transparency, because they've said who they are. The problem with article space is that there is no way for them to hold up their hand and say, "I did that." So the reader, who according to the German court is led to believe that they are reading a neutral article authored by third parties in Wikipedia, unwittingly reads one that was secretly (partly) written by the company itself. Andreas JN466 04:16, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

In terms of what would be a good way to handle things, you'll get little argument from me. But, if we're talking about responding to a legal issue, I think we need to begin with clarity about what the legal issue actually is. Formerip (talk) 15:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, why don't we put this template on ALL articles:

That would at least reduce the number of different warning templates... Saw the template on Gigs user page and stole it, sorry. Sometimes you must steal things you like. Just like "In many instances a company must astroturf to compete in a market". What can you do? Create a new template, i guess. --Atlasowa (talk) 20:36, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

@FormerIP: Yes. This is a great example for how far the ratio decidendi of the judgment goes. Any edit with a commercial background is unfair competition. It is important to understand, however, that Wikimedia cannot be held liable for any unfair competition taking place in Wikipedia. The only thing that can happen that is that a competitors sue each other for their Wikipedia edits. --Gnom (talk) 15:44, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's quite correct, Gnom. In the UK, at least, we would be talking about a regulatory criminal offence, so a company would normally be prosecuted by the Office of Fair Trading. But if Germany does it through regular civil proceedings, then it would be inescapable that someone is going to need to demonstrate loss. That would mean that it is not the case that any edit whatsoever is a problem.

I'm not trying to start a pointless fight over it, I'm just counselling against setting off with half an understanding. Formerip (talk) 17:01, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment, Formerip. No, no demonstration of loss is necessary under German law, the claimant must only prove that he is a genuine competitor of the defendant and that the commercial practice in dispute is of commercial relevance for his business. I understand that under Part 4 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, England uses a different approach where a government authority enforces unfair competition regulation. --Gnom (talk) 17:11, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

(e/c) Hmm? Injunction (order to stop) does not require financial loss, rather potential harm. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:14, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, but either way, that's not going to cover absolutely any edit, is it? To take a step back, how plausible does it seem that there could be a court case, for example, over someone correcting a typo on Wikipedia. I've been wrong about stuff one or two times before, but I'd say it just isn't. There has to be a line somewhere. Formerip (talk) 17:34, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

There is a line somewhere, but the Pedia does not draw that line. The Pedia tries to guide Users to "do the right thing," in support of the Pillars. Don't do illegal acts, is generally in that vein. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there is (must be) a line. Correcting typos is definitely okay, and I can see the point where people say information that is in a public register is okay as well, also correcting obvious errors although I am not sure about the latter two. But the vast majority of corporate edits fall in neither of these categories. --Gnom (talk) 23:00, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

@Alan. I'm again not clear about what you are saying. It sounds like you're saying we have it covered through our existing practices, but that seems at odds with what you've said further up.

@Gnom. Are you sure that the German law would work by exceptions to the rule, so that there are certain categories of edit are OK? I think it more likely that it would attempt to positively define what is not OK. Formerip (talk) 00:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I do not see that this affects the English Wikipedia; our servers are in the United States where there is commercial free speech.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

This is not a very bright pertinent comment: after all, the German Wikipedia is hosted on the exact same wikipedia.org servers, and this evidently did not prevent a German court from making a binding judgment. As with all these things, Wikipedia (i.e. the Wikimedia Foundation) is covered by Section 230 safe harbour provisions anyway. But the safe harbour does not extend to the individual Wikipedia contributor like the manager of the German company involved in this suit, whose actions in Wikipedia fell foul of European fair trading law. And note that even the US have laws against astroturfing, and that astroturfing is not protected speech. Andreas JN466 08:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

That "not a very bright comment" bit is kinda rude. I am not clear on how the Germans view precedent, but in the United States, a judgment would not bind a non-party. And calling editing in the manner you mention "astroturfing" and then saying the US has laws against astroturfing does not mean the editing you do not like is illegal. It simply means you'd like it to be, or for others to think so anyway.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. Edited. What I meant to say was: that Wikipedia cannot be sued is trivially true anyway. You do not need to invoke freedom of speech here; Section 230 is enough. But individual contributors to Wikipedia evidently can be sued, fined and jailed under EU law for what they do here. That does affect Wikipedia. And I did not call any particular edit astroturfing: I am merely pointing out that certain Wikipedia edits might fall foul of US astroturfing laws, too, i.e. I am saying that there are limits to the freedom of commercial speech in the US as well. Andreas JN466 10:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Not a problem. But as a lawyer, I'm not going to be convinced by anything short of a legal opinion that I can examine and check through. Though I intend to come to my own conclusions. I suspect there's a range, depending on what the company actually does and what it's purpose is in seeking edits to its article.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

@Formerip: the German law does work by exceptions to the rule: Every commercial practice that disguises its commercial character is unfair competition unless a) the practice has no effect on competition or b) the commercial effect is negligable. See sec. 3 Unfair Competition Act.

@Wehwalt: Precedent is of course not binding in Germany, but it is treated as a legal opinion where another court would not depart from without stating why it would do so, thus creating a threshold for disagreement. --Gnom (talk) 15:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

@Former IP: We discourage commercial COI editing -- we should still discourage commercial COI editing, and raise awareness that it should be discouraged. That's not a change in policy, but re-emphasis. Are there changes in policy that might do that better? Probably, but that needs discussed elsewhere. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:14, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration Election Commission RFC closing advance notification

Mr. Wales, per the consensus reached at Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012 it is requested you close and select the commission members sometime after Saturday 23:59, 17 November NE Ent 23:14, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I think we'd all prefer it if you selected the Arbcom some time after 17 December ... :-) Graham87 10:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Or rather, acknowledged the community's selections. This is certainly one of the reserve powers, such as they are, that should be turned over to the community.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:05, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Electoral Commission != Arbitration Committee. NE Ent 13:18, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

According to the page, "This is not a vote or an election; the final appointments will be made by Jimbo Wales." I will do that. However, despite this being neither a vote nor an election, I do not intend to exercise my own discretion or judgment; I will follow the advice of the community. That more or less makes in into the equivalent of a vote or an election. In any event, this is just the electoral commission, a role which is purely functional/technical in nature - the electoral commission has no right to do anything other than tally the votes and communicate the results to me for the ultimate ArbCom appointments where, again, I will simply follow the advice of the community. As a side note, I think this electoral commission is a layer of bureaucracy that we could do without.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:44, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if its good or bad but my meager understanding is it had its genesis in something like an unexpected resignation last year and who was to handle that issue. So, it's unexpected problems, that they are suppose to sort out. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:19, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but I think it's unnecessary to for that sort of thing. I can do it in consultation with the community just fine. Too many layers of rules aren't really the right answer.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:19, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with what Jimbo says 58.106.21.42 (talk) 10:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I think a lot of editors do! Most just choose to stay out of it because these things can be particularly nasty and regard editors that are very well established and for lack if a better word, "powerful" within the community. 108.28.162.125 (talk) 23:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia

Hi Jimmy! When exactly did you create the Wikipedia and can it be that you are a billionare? Dol Grenn (talk) 12:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

2001 and I'm very far from a billionaire.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

If you like you can read History of Wikipedia for a comprehensive history of what Jimmy did when. Rcsprinter (talkin' to me?) @ 19:48, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Finsbury editing of Usmanov biography

Another PR / BLP story, from two different perspectives:

• "Finsbury edited Alisher Usmanov's Wikipedia page", The Telegraph
• "PR industry blames 'cumbersome' Wikipedia for Finsbury editing issue", PR Week

"PRCA director-general Francis Ingham added that the site’s internal process for amending inaccurate or inflammatory material was ‘opaque, time-consuming and cumbersome’. [...] Ingham urged Wikipedia to implement ‘radical reform’ to its editing process."

"Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told the newspaper: ‘It is a disappointment that PR firms or lobbyists think that this is what they have to do when we’re here, we’re free, we’re open. We have a community very keen to correct errors.’"

Each side complains of feeling they are misunderstood by the other. Andreas JN466 14:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

And no wonder, with people like you spreading misinformation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

[ Citation needed ]. Sorry Jimmy, but Andreas is a passionate amateur investigative reporter, which is a good thing to have around to compliment a project which is (ideally) created by passionate amateur encyclopedia contributors. Everyone our age has been told from time to time to consider an email to be like a postcard (as opposed to a top-secret document), and you have no-one to blame but yourself if you forget that sometimes. Andreas is one of the good guys, so you need to get over it if you really want to get things fixed (rather than just giving the impression to the media that things are getting fixed). --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 23:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Andreas doesn't compliment the project much though, does he?

Besides which, I thought it was the person to whom Andreas sent the email - one of the "Wikipediocracy trustees" who have such great plans for how Wikipedia should be run - that just happened to be the "reporter", right? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Opaque is rarely a criticism that stands alone as most people don't object to a complaints system that is opaque but efficient, fair and effective. Cumbersome and time consuming can be valid criticisms, but only if someone has actually tried to use a system. Do we have any evidence that those particular PR people had tried to either Email OTRS or make a comment on the talkpage before they decided that doing the right thing was "cumbersome"? I don't have access to OTRS, but I did have a look at the article talkpage. If people in the PR industry can show that our mechanisms for dealing with error are in some way more time consuming and cumbersome than is normal for an internet information site, then I would hope we would review our processes and look at the way others do this better. But as for this incident, it seems difficult to see how this is about our processes being cumbersome at delivering a neutral article; More the usual case of a PR company wanting a positive article about their client. As for the idea of allowing PR agencies to rewrite wikipedia articles on their clients, can you imagine them even asking that of the BBC or a Newspaper? ϢereSpielChequers 15:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I've asked people to check my work, but when I searched in OTRS, I found zero evidence that we were contacted about this at all. Seriously, no one can plausibly claim that they have to engage in deception because we aren't responsive. That's doubly true when they didn't even bother to email us with a concern.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:29, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I think their basic point is that even finding/using OTRS is 'overly cumbersome'. Lets face it, it could be made a lot easier for PR companies to find out how/why/who can help them in correcting info they believe is incorrect. For some reason there is a lot of resistance to do so. I suspect because of the innate reluctance and difficulty of the wikipedia community to alter long-standing guidelines/processes/policy. And of course the stubborn 'why should we help PR shills' mentality which leads them to avoid interaction altogether. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

If this is their "basic point" then it's total and complete nonsense. How do you contact us? It's easy. Like most websites, there's a "contact us" link at the bottom of every page. You click there and it tells you what to do. The page is written very clearly and simply. It does not use jargon like "OTRS". It even links to a specific and more detailed page about what to do if you are the subject of an article, and that page clearly tells you what to do. There is so far zero evidence that Finsbury did any of those things, so their objection that the editing process is 'overly cumbersome' is nonsense. It tells how to leave a message on the talk page and tells how to email us. If anyone has suggestions on how to make that easier, I think we should make it easier. But it's super freaking easy already, and I have zero - let me emphasize that - ZERO - sympathy for pr hacks who don't even both to email before they slag us off in the press after they've attempted some sneaky nonsense.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:43, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Having worked with hundreds of COI editors (for free!), I think most of them simply do not want to "contact us". They think Wikipedia is like Facebook or LinkedIn or the various PR-News-Release websites and business directories - it's "their" entry so they want to be able to edit it directly! (And in some cases they want it "locked" once they've done so.) Some of them can have it explained to them that this is not the situation; some understand that explanation but want the situation to change; some (as you've implied) don't even make the effort to ask or enquire in order to receive the explanation. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC) And all three of those categories of COI editors are more than happy to spout nonsense publicly, whether ignorant nonsense or badly researched nonsense or deliberately misleading nonsense. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The comment about our complaints process being ‘opaque, time-consuming and cumbersome’ was not from Finsbury, but from PRCA director-general Francis Ingham. It's also worth noting that, as stated below, the Contact Us page was only recently revised, shortly after this discussion. It was an absolute maze before. Andreas JN466 22:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

It was sub-optimal before; but it was much less of a maze than many major internet companies' equivalent pages. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

These were the pages you had to go through if you wanted to report a problem: 1 2 3 4. So on their way to the location of the OTRS email address, PR people would in fact pass several invitations to edit the article themselves! Andreas JN466 22:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Has anybody bothered to read the Contact Wikipedia page and see what it tells people to do? And why is it Wikipedians assume that people who have occasional need to contact Wikipedia can be reasonably expected to stumble upon the impenetrable policy pages? WTF does OTRS mean to a real human being anyway? (Clue: not a lot). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.100.19.115 (talk) 16:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The contact page was recently overhauled and is a lot better than it used to be. Used to be impossible to find the email addresses, now they are pretty easy to find. Gigs (talk) 16:38, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes. That was overdue, and Ironholds did a fantastic job. Andreas JN466 17:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

One BLP subject told me it took a month for OTRS to respond. "I've seen this happen on OTRS time and time again: real tickets about unbalanced articles do go unanswered for weeks." Jclemens 02:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC) The other complaint is that talk page messages sit without adequate response, which is also my general experience with leaving talk page messages. Jimbo has offered people that they can come to his talk page, but I have never seen anyone do this, and frankly, it's not an ideal solution: it's a bit like standing in the middle of the market place and telling the crowd that someone has put something unflattering into your article, thereby broadcasting it. Andreas JN466 16:59, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Were, neither of them advertises itself as a place "anyone can edit", nor do they put up biographies like this one or this one or this one. Some of Johann Hari's vandalisms, calling people alcoholics and antisemites, lasted for a whole week in mainspace. When the BBC gets something that wrong for a day or two, the Director General resigns. Newspapers answer to the press complaints commission. Wikipedia answers to no one. Andreas JN466 17:10, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

This template would solve a lot of issues by telling the article subject what to do Corporate 18:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Using and publicising the conflict-of-interest noticeboard as a default on-wiki location for article subjects and PR people to go to would be useful. I really like the idea: it's an existing noticeboard with regulars where people should get a response within a reasonable time, and a larger community could grow around it in time. A centralised location also produces good transparency for the public, who can see what sort of job the community is doing handling such complaints. Andreas JN466 18:48, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. Already works fairly well in the parallel/related case of WP:BLPN. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that many examples of "paid company PR editing" are similar to BLP. This is a prime example, especially since it does indeed involve claims about an individual, not his company. The concerns which led to this are pretty much identical to the ones that BLP subjects complain about all the time. The only difference is that he edited through an intermediary instead of doing it himself. I don't know what the exact edits are so I can't say whether they're justified BLP edits or not (was the original page from before he was found innocent or after? If before, did it mention an appeal?), but I know that if the guy himself had come on and made exactly the same edits for exactly the same reasons, our rules say that we should treat him with leniency and seriously consider his concerns. But as soon as someone says the words "paid PR professionals" this gets treated as a horrible crime for which we don't want to listen to excuses. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:01, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Has anyone identified the actual edits Finsbury made? Andreas JN466 19:22, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Possible candidate. Formerip (talk) 19:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The first part of that does mention the exoneration, but it's a weight issue.

The second part is even easier to argue as correct. A guy accused Usmanov of violating the law, but Usmanov wasn't convicted. Under WP:BLPCRIME this should not be mentioned if Usmanov is relatively unknown. Obviously he's a rich person with media coverage, but a case could be made that he's still relatively unknown--I certainly hadn't heard of him before now.

Even if we would have ultimately decided these are bad edits, we would not have reacted to them the same way if they had been made by Usmanov himself instead of by his PR department. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, FormerIP. It looks like the stuff about the Kommersant free-speech row that was taken out in that edit was never restored; at any rate it's not in the article now. Andreas JN466 20:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I do see BLPs and PRs as different. When a person or company has professional representation, they are expected to know better and a higher level of orchestration is presumed. Corporate 20:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Mike Peel on wikimediauk-l tells me the IP mentioned by The Times was a different one, i.e. 212.161.34.130 (talk · contribs). Both this and the other IP, 109.156.63.107 (talk · contribs), are from London. Andreas JN466 21:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Corporate raises a good point on one aspect. Moreover, the "professional representation" is often there to remove the person from responsibility for what is done. This leads into issues of when the "representative" can or cannot be trusted. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom elections

I've been periodically asking some Wikipedians who I think are this side of awesome whether they would like to run for arbcom. I just saw your name pop up on my watchlist and thought: "Why not". What would you think about sitting in on Arbcom? I realise you select the other members, but I don't think that should disqualify you from selecting yourself to actively take part and sit in for a term. What do you think? - jc37 22:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I do sit in, I always have. I'm on the ArbCom mailing list and sometimes participate in a limited way in discussions. I try to keep my participation there to discussion of broad principles and giving whatever basic factual information I have that might be relevant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:55, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. I merely thought it was worth asking : ) - jc37 22:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

An AGF approach to the PR crowd

I do assume good faith, and I'm not browbeating anyone. No purpose would be served by allowing direct article editing by people who are paid advocates. There is no reason to modify the software to encourage more bad behavior.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:05, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I've been thinking lately, Jimmy, that your approach to the PR people hasn't been up to the ideals that Larry tried to push with the original policies, and in particular the AGF policy. You've been more or less brow-beating them, which they might deserve, but it doesn't seem to be working. Perhaps as a better approach the Mediawiki software itself could be modified slightly to allow them to edit articles directly: the talk page/noticeboard/OTRS/whatever thing is way too complicated and frustrating, and goes against the "anybody can edit" ethic to boot. The software currently can mark edits as bot or minor, but I can't imagine it would be all that difficult to add a third option for "COI". This would mean adding an option to click on your edit comment (just like the minor edit button) to indicate that you have a personal/commercial/political/etc. stake in the article you are editing. Even better an extra edit comment field would pop up when you click on the COI button to allow the editor to describe the COI. Additionally, edits that go through where that button was clicked would be flagged as such, and perhaps have a "recent COI-conflicted edits" appear in the special pages so that wikipedians could look over them and either mark them as NPOV or revert the edit if it's spam-ish. So, for example, if you were editing your friend's biography, your edit comment would look like: (removed uncited and patently false information connecting Micky Mouse to the Kennedy assassinations) COI note: (Micky Mouse is a good friend of mine.) Or, for a PR person (riffing off of a recent controversy): (removed false information that Jeep is moving its factories to China) COI note: (I am a PR representative for Chrysler) I hope this makes sense... and improving Mediawiki really is something the WMF can do, as opposed to trying to change policies on the wiki itself. Section 230 doesn't in any way prohibit the provider from improving the software, and this approach would both avoid some headaches and (more importantly, perhaps) extend AGF and "anyone can edit" to those COI editors (who can't really be stopped anyway, as you know all too well). --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 00:06, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Great news, guys!

Hi, there! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.207.5.134 (talk) 13:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

URBLP

We're battling a backlog of over 500 articles right now at Wikipedia:URBLP. I try to do a few now and then, but without more editors involved, it's hard to keep up. We are 2 months deep at this point. Part of the problem is that even a link to myspace or youtube prevents the use of WP:BLPPROD. Gigs (talk) 20:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to attention here... could you post here regularly, like every week or two, reminding people of the number? A lot of good people hang out here and might very well be motivated to chip in and help!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

There's even still a special bounty on unreferenced BLPs at DYK, to motivate people that little bit more :) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:05, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Spotting off-wiki disputes that end up causing serious problems here.

Hi Jimbo and others. I've recently come across two separate cases where poorly-sourced defamatory material was included in articles for extended periods, and want to float an idea about how we might be able to stop it. The two articles are Antisect (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Nude Records (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and both involve parties who are in disagreement off-wiki edit warring over extended periods, without anyone noticing. Looking at the edit histories of both articles it is obvious that they are substantially different from an article without such problems - accounts reverting each other again and again. While this could happen in cases where there were no defamation issues, patterns of editing like this almost always need administrative attention of some form. I would hope that someone could develop software to spot patterns like this in article histories and log them for us to review. Sure it would be difficult and time consuming, but as you well know, cases like this cause people real distress to real people. Surely it is our responsibility to develop a way of spotting it if at all possible? To demonstrate how poorly we deal with this at the moment, the person being defamed in the second article posted at AIV > 7 times - this was their last post and never received any assistance - tens of admins ignored a blatant plea for help (I only came across it by chance). I hate to think how many other cases like these are lurking hidden from our view. SmartSE (talk) 21:26, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

There already exists logic to spot things like "possible BLP issue or defamation" or "new editor rapidly reverting" and tag it as such. This is helpful in that it means those edits will be picked up more quickly by recent change patrollers (and anyone else who already happens to have the articles on their watchlists). The problem, however, is that a significant proportion of recent change patrollers will tend to just click on "revert as vandalism" if they see section blanking - and from what you say about BLP-related complaints at AIV being ignored, the average administrator may not be much better.

I think there are indeed some patterns in what undetected/unresolved BLP issues can sometimes look like, and it shouldn't be impossible for a bot to pick that up. While tagging edits doesn't help much, there's no reason why a bot - even a rather cobbled-together experimental one - shouldn't write its guesses to a sub-page of WP:BLPN, and BLP-interested people can look through the bot's (or bots') guesses and see what they think of them. I'll have a look into what can be done, unless someone is inspired to knock something up quickly.

This doesn't solve all the problems of course - for example it won't pick up cases where defamatory material is added and even the subject is unaware or unwilling to remove it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. None of these edits got picked up by those filters though, because AFAIK they only look at the content added, not the pattern of editing. Unfortunately way too many people blindly revert IPs removing content which is why a different approach is required. A sub page of BLPN or AN3 sounds like a good idea. The real problem is that there are so many pages that are unwatched by regular editors, which leaves spotting this to chance. SmartSE (talk) 23:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

SmartSE, in my last two posts (deleted by Jimbo as "trolling") I tried to illustrate how off-wiki disputes end up causing serious problems here. In particular I brought up this example:

On November 22, 2009 a false accusation is added to a Wikipedia BLP. It took a whole week! to remove it. How many sites picked it up during this week?

Another interesting detail about this case: This libel was introduced to the article by Johann Hari and reverted by the husband of the subject of this BLP.

Wikipedia BLPs, Wikipedia Administrative noticeboards, Wikipedia talks have been used as a weapon do defame opponents for years, and nothing could be done to stop it, and it is the difference between Wikipedia and BBC 67.169.11.52 (talk) 22:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I (and most of the others here) are fully aware of these problems. I'm interested in working out how we can stop them though, rather than simply moaning to Jimbo about it as if it's his fault. Sorry if I'm harsh, but it does appear as if you are trolling. SmartSE (talk) 23:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I an not trolling and not moaning. I provided a very good example for your post, and I supported it by evidences. I've never said it was Jimbo's fault. It is nobody's fault. It is how Wikipedia works. This problem is unsolvable, at least not until Wikipedia remains an encyclopedia that is written and governed by largely anonymous Internet volunteers 67.169.11.52 (talk) 00:03, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

But's it not the same - it is one edit not a slow edit war. SmartSE (talk) 00:17, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

One suggestion I've brought up a few times in the past is to have an elected committee that can look at cases like these in a timely manner, rule on content, and topic-ban editors who are consistently not editing within policy. Wikipedia needs a place where the buck stops. (Needless to say, WMF would have to indemnify members of such a committee in case they were ever sued for libel.) The underlying problem is the number of low-notability articles that are only ever edited by subjects and their detractors. Andreas JN466 02:13, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Most Wikipedia articles are stubs

How do you feel about the fact that most Wikipedia articles are stubs? Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team#Statistics says there are 2,207,914 stubs and 478,688 unassessed, out of 3,936,234 articles total. The main page says there are now 4,096,981 articles total, so the information isn't too far out of date. Dream Focus 23:46, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Many articles are tagged as stubs but in fact have not been stubs for a long time. It's quite easy to contribute a little to fixing this; just sign up to WP:SUGGESTBOT and, from time to time, click on (and check) a few whose titles take your fancy. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:52, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't it just count how many have a stub category in them? I'm sure most of those are actually stubs. Dream Focus 23:56, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

What makes you sure? I was referring to this kind of thing. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:03, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Need to automatically search for articles below a certain size, to determine how many real stubs there are I suppose. Dream Focus 00:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

How do I feel about it? Well, many or most stubs aren't problematic. I think some should be gotten rid of (particularly if they are BLPs which are not highly likely to ever move beyond the stub stage) but most of them are just short articles that someone, someday, might wish to improve.

One old-time debate in Wikipedia has never been settled, to my knowledge, with actual data: which is more likely to generate productive editing and improvement over time: a stub or a red-link. We are now big enough and active enough that a test could be done by selecting 2,000 stubs, then randomly deleting half of them. But the problem with that would be that there's no way to do it quietly enough that people with an agenda couldn't come and cause a lot of problems with the experiment.

But stubs, in and of themselves, aren't inherently a problem.

I'd love to see the stub template be made as friendly and exciting as possible though. A bit of humor wouldn't hurt. Possibly an experiment could be done with that... I bet I can write a template that generates more worthwhile edits per pageview than what we have now. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:06, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I personally would love to are a nature metaphor in the stub template, something like "this article is a stub.help it to grow and become part of the tree of knowledge" ....except less cheCoin945 (talk) 00:41, 14 November 2012 (UTC)esy.. :)--Coin945 (talk) 00:41, 14 November 2012 (UTC)