from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
I think that Erik's suggestions here have great merit, and I'd like to
open the floor to a discussion.  Obviously, he's given a fair amount
of detail, and I may not want to adopt all of the detail that he's
suggested, but I think in broad outline we're going to have to move to
something like this.

--Jimbo

Erik Moeller wrote:

> Jimmy-
> > It seems likely that he's angry enough to never come back anyway, in
> > which case we can all just talk about how to best avoid this sort of
> > thing in the future.
>
> Ban faster? :-)
>
> Seriously, I don't see how you can avoid dealing with problematic persons,
> and I don't see how the persons attacked by RK should have acted any
> differently, and I still think that a temporary ban was the best action in
> this case. There are some people who believe that I am somehow working on
> a grand strategy to usurp power on Wikipedia, which is kind of funny,
> because the first thing I would do it if I had it is democratize
> everything ;-).
>
> We should avoid developing too much of a behavioral double standard. RK
> was tolerated because he contributed good material. But how much good
> material has not been contributed because of his well documented
> behavioral problems? In my opinion, we need to set clearer rules on
> Wikiquette and be serious about enforcing them, with a well-defined
> protocol of warning, temporary banning, permanent banning etc. Maybe there
> could be a 5-10 member Wikiquette "committee" where violations could be
> reported and decisions would be made by voting. By making it proprietary
> (totally unwiki, but so is reporting directly to you) we can avoid having
> the lists and talk pages cluttered up with these complaints and can make
> sure that users will not have to fear repercussions for reporting
> Wikiquette violations.
>
> Implementation wise, this could be a mailing list with non-member posting
> rights (perhaps with a web-based submission interface to avoid spam --
> this could actually be done inside Wikipedia by creating a fake user with
> that email address and using the "Email this user" feature, how about
> [[User:Mediator]]?). Right now, it's really difficult for users to deal
> with insults and personal attacks. I would love to be able to say in 5-10
> years that the discussion climate on Wikipedia is the best anywhere on the
> Internet.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [WikiEN-l] RK temp-banned

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Since wikipedia isn't really accessible at the moment (sigh, new parts
> arriving tomorrow or Monday, though!), and also just for the
> historical record of the mailing list, can you give the mailing list
> some details of what RK was doing?

At first, there were issues of him misreading the sources of some edits on
controversial articles. He then started frothing about "vandalism" of his
"home page" when people posted comments on his talk page. When other
comments were made on there, and no one agreed with him that this was
vandalism, he declared that everyone was ganging up on him. He added lines
like 'It's okay to vandalise the Jew's pages, so he can write on yours!'
(not quite an exact quote) on the user pages of those messaging him (Martin,
Angela, others). He was told to stop on his talk page... and he replied by
posting similar messages on those users' pages, which is when Erik blocked
him. RK responded to this with the 'Nazipedia' rant to the mailing list.

That's how I recall it.

-- Jake


from_name: Gutza

subject: [WikiEN-l] DON'T BAN RK – hes indispensable

body:
This is Abe Sokov's opinion. I do not agree with it, but he asked for it
to be presented in a "readable" format, so here it is.

--------------------------------

I am going to make strong pleas against any moves to ban RK or
marginalize him. While I?m not arguing that we tolerate his bad behavior
in the short-run, it is crucial that we tolerate having to deal with,
and act against, his bad behavior instance by instance in the long-run.
To sum up my argument, RK?s bad behavior is an indispensable asset for
Wikipedia.

Yes, his tendency to overreact, aggressiveness, and lack of ability to
channel disputes into a more substantive debate, rather than an all-out
personal conflict, is confounding his difficulties with other users,
underlying this conflict is the nature of the articles on which he has
been working. On Wikipedia his fields of interest (Israel, Judaism, and
anti-Semitism) inherently attract a polarized core of contributors,
which pits committed supporters of Israel against pro-Palestinian advocates.

Of course, certain practices and behavior are better at channeling them
toward cooperation. Although I did say that his personality is at the
heart of this whole attempt to ban you, the dynamics of his edit wars
mean that he has to act as he does! While other topics polarize as well,
the ideology of the extremists on both sides, along with their ingrained
prejudices against each other, discourages them from yielding any
concessions to each other. Moreover, it encourages both sides to seek to
prevail at all cost, and escalate the conflict into a zero-sum game.
Since both sides are too fearful of the aims of the other, RK is always
forced not to retreat and make concessions to the other side (that might
be his personality, but the often raving lunacy of his crudades is means
of putting checks and balances on his opponents in the long-run).

Although he can be paranoid irrational at times, and he?s raving and not
strategizing, his aggressiveness is well-suited in that it might be the
only pattern of behavior that will work for him. Moreover, since he is
almost always outnumbered in any dispute, he naturally has to lodge just
as many salvoes, and make just as much noise, as many users put together.

The fair-minded users who favor his banning ignore one the only fact
that matters: the end result of most of his edit wars has been
neutrality. There's a lot of noise, but everything's fine afterwards.
Wikipedia needs his forceful dedication to his side of the issues.

RK and RK alone provides a counterweight to large number of
contributors, and determines whether or not his side is equally powerful
(despite being under-represented in terms of the number of contributors)
in each edit war.  Right now, we have a ?balance of power? on the
Israeli-Palestinian articles that yields stalemate in edit-war after
edit-war. Thus, Wikipedia gets the quality of writing, accuracy,
balance, and neutrality needed for to emerge as a viable sourcebook.

Thus, even if he did do something that warrants a banning, Wikipedia
needs to accept his actions at all cost in order to maintain balance on
the articles on the Israeli-Palestinian articles.

His absence would mean that conflict would ease considerably over the
Israeli-Palestinian issue, thus meaning that they written at a far
faster rate by the remaining users. But that would be the result of a
terrible development.

This would be at the cost of allowing his antagonists to achieve an
all-out victory, and be able to exercise such a degree of control over
the articles that there would only be a fa?ade of neutrality. While I
did not reach this conclusion when I was subjected to my first RK
experience (disagreeing with him isn?t pleasant), I now realize that his
absence would be a crushing blow to Wikipedia, an unprecedented
experiment whose success is not a foregone conclusion.

The dynamics of the disputes on Wikipedia that arise over the
Israeli-Palestinian issue mean that neutrality is only going to be
attained when both sides are finished terrorizing and brutalizing each
other, after a zero-sum battle has ended in a stalemate. If RK weren?t
here, that would mean that the other side would consistently win.
RK?s role as the lose cannon on the Israel-related articles - always
suspicious, prickly, and aggressive ? bolsters the influence of his side
of the issues. You cannot deny that RK has steered dozens of articles
toward an orientation further from that of his antagonists. He often
starts off adding grotesquely POV content, but that?s toned down after a
fierce battle with his ever-observant opponents. Although his opponents
are more subtle in slanting articles, there are more of them, and other
users usually have no sympathy for RK. Whereas RK can inject hysterical
propaganda in a few articles, many other users can inject subtle biase s
in many articles. However, fear of RK?s tyranny is a check on them; and
when RK mobilizes his energies into a hysterical fit, balance results
from the ensuing struggle.

In short, if Wikipedia is to present both sides, it?s contingent on
letting RK be RK. He generates chaos and a lot of ill-will. He?s often
obnoxious (but he can magnanimously admit that he was wrong ? I believe
that he took my advice to stop calling a very well-respected user an
anti-Semite). He even alienates his own supporters, and often attacks
potential allies with great bitterness. But due to the nature of users
who are attracted to the Israeli/Palestinian article, the only way to
get balance is stalemate after stalemate after stalemated zero-sum
conflict between equally powerful and committed groups of antagonists.
Among the non-academic partisans who take the time to write about this
dispute, the fanatical camps on both sides make it impossible for the
two sides to put aside their differences and agree on what a neutral
article is. It?s too idealistic to expect them to have the dexterity to
cooperate and quit wasting time by sniping at each other. RK?s intrans
igence, and often flat out bizarre behavior, but it?s an indispensable
part of a confluence of opposing forces required for Israeli-Palestinian
neutrality.


from_name: blairr

subject: [WikiEN-l] "Wikietiquette" Committee

body:
The idea of a "wikietiquette" committee is a good one, in my opinion. It
would probably make it easier to for the at-large community to deal with
problem users (eg. Heine), rather then relying on developers.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erik Moeller" <erik_moeller at gmx.de>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RK temp-banned

> Jimmy-
> > It seems likely that he's angry enough to never come back anyway, in
> > which case we can all just talk about how to best avoid this sort of
> > thing in the future.
>
> Ban faster? :-)
>
> Seriously, I don't see how you can avoid dealing with problematic persons,
> and I don't see how the persons attacked by RK should have acted any
> differently, and I still think that a temporary ban was the best action in
> this case. There are some people who believe that I am somehow working on
> a grand strategy to usurp power on Wikipedia, which is kind of funny,
> because the first thing I would do it if I had it is democratize
> everything ;-).
>
> We should avoid developing too much of a behavioral double standard. RK
> was tolerated because he contributed good material. But how much good
> material has not been contributed because of his well documented
> behavioral problems? In my opinion, we need to set clearer rules on
> Wikiquette and be serious about enforcing them, with a well-defined
> protocol of warning, temporary banning, permanent banning etc. Maybe there
> could be a 5-10 member Wikiquette "committee" where violations could be
> reported and decisions would be made by voting. By making it proprietary
> (totally unwiki, but so is reporting directly to you) we can avoid having
> the lists and talk pages cluttered up with these complaints and can make
> sure that users will not have to fear repercussions for reporting
> Wikiquette violations.
>
> Implementation wise, this could be a mailing list with non-member posting
> rights (perhaps with a web-based submission interface to avoid spam --
> this could actually be done inside Wikipedia by creating a fake user with
> that email address and using the "Email this user" feature, how about
> [[User:Mediator]]?). Right now, it's really difficult for users to deal
> with insults and personal attacks. I would love to be able to say in 5-10
> years that the discussion climate on Wikipedia is the best anywhere on the
> Internet.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Can anyone fix the formatting of my message about
	RK? I	can't.

body:
Please excuse me for mis-spelling your name in the reformatted version,
I re-read my "disclaimer" on the list and noticed it when it was too
late for fixing.

Gutza

Abe Sokolov wrote:

> My long explanation for the indepensibility of RK spilled over the
> margins. I cannot seem to fix this problem, so I'd really appreciate
> it if someone would copy and paste the contents of what I wrote in a
> new, readable message within the margins. Thanks in advance to anyone
> willing to do this.
>


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server back up after partial crash

body:
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 16:13, Peter Gervai wrote:
> OnUm, the wikimedia's first press release completely disappeared from the
> > hungarian wikipedia, along with its history. :-@
>
> Oh, I see, the whole Wikip?dia: namespace is screwed. Did you upgrade the
> sw, Brion? ;-)

D'oh! Lemme downgrade that bit again until that's fixed.

-- brion


body:
Umm...it's been giving me an intermittent "503 Service Temporarily
Unavailable" error.

Vancouverguy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Server back up after partial crash

On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 16:13, Peter Gervai wrote:
> OnUm, the wikimedia's first press release completely disappeared from the
> > hungarian wikipedia, along with its history. :-@
>
> Oh, I see, the whole Wikip?dia: namespace is screwed. Did you upgrade the
> sw, Brion? ;-)

D'oh! Lemme downgrade that bit again until that's fixed.

-- brion

_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: I made something like a summary

body:
--- Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> wrote:
[huge snip of the RK Summary]

and people watch daytime TV for drama, twists and gut-wrenching
decisions? Dang, they ought to check the W list for some home-grown
dirt-dishing :)

On a more serious note, I appreciate Anthere's efforts in the
summarizing.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

__________________________________
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from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK temp-banned

body:
I think a few days is enough time for him to cool down. I propose he is
unbanned on 5th October.

Theresa

-----Original Message-----
From: Poor, Edmund W [mailto:Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com]
Sent: 02 October 2003 16:35
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK temp-banned

In light of comments from Erik (aka Eloquence), Axelboldt, Vicki R.,
Gutza, Abe, and I hope I haven't left anyone out...

Our next question is:

* Shall we set a date for ending the temporary ban? Or,
* Shall we ask Jimbo to endorse a permanent ban?

Ed Poor
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Picking up the pieces

body:
I feel like the guy who pulled the plug on a bar-room jukebox, trying to
get the guys to stop fighting over what song to play next. Then the
bouncer threw out the biggest hothead of them all when he started
knocking over tables, as various partrons shouted their encouragement or
hooted their derision. The next day, the owner saunters in and all he
says is that he's not going to reprimand the bouncer.

This does not give me a good feeling about the project. And I know a lot
of others don't like the dark, smoky atmosphere of Jimbo's Bar and
Grill.

We need a better system.


from_name: Abe Sokolov

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Response to Ray Saintonge - more in favor of the status
	quo for the Israel-related articles

body:
I thank Ray Saintonge for reading - and rereading - my lengthy comments, despite the lack of copyediting for typos, and the formatting problems that I can't seem to figure out (I've only been having trouble with the margins on the Wiki mailing list). Although he understood all my points, the assumptions of his counter-arguments are unrealistic.

His comments, however, highlight my need to further explain why there's no way that removing RK would do anything to bring the Israel-related articles under the influence of the idealized set of contributors whom Stan had described.

First, consider the central cause of all flame wars. It's important to note that by and large, the more controversial an article gets on Wikipedia, the more partisan the core group of contributors becomes (e.g., the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal, abortion, and Communism - just to name some recent and never ending flame wars). This is an iron-clad relationship that few who contribute even scantly to Wiki articles on history and politics can deny. I acknowledge that other flame wars are far less prolonged and vicious. While patterns of more manageable disputes over parallel the ones over Israeli-Palestinian neutrality, the others are less prone to zero-sum games (see the Wiki article on game theory if this term?s unfamiliar ? btw, sorry for habitual jargon of the social sciences). They usually far less emotionally charged, and/or the structure of the antagonists is not polarized.

I acknowledge that polarized factions is not unique to the Israel-related articles. There is polarizing left-versus-right political squabbling all the time on many articles, but the stakes are not as great personally to users. Disputes are channeled toward something narrowed (such as a particular policy), rather than an 'us versus them' struggle. For example, consider the recent disputes over privatization, which I?ve been mediating. Lir and Daniel Quinlan hold irreconcilable views on the subject: one brings in an anti-government dogma, the other an anti-capitalist one. But there was no personal animosity expressed on the talk page (they didn?t even cross paths ? just channeling their mixed feeling though me on the talk page).

Jews worldwide, however, are haunted by the past and ever-vigilant when criticism of Israel might be imbued with anti-Semitism. Conversely, Palestinians have suffered declining living standards in the context of Israeli heavy-handedness, displacement, and marginalization in their homeland and in any setting of any refugee camp. These two collective identities are not ?irrational? or ?insane? when individual channel those frustrations toward hating the enemy; and we should expert their champions outside the Middle East to quarrel in every forum in which they are both present at the same time.

On other controversial articles, emotionalism can run high too, but the structure of the disputes is rarely so polarizing. For example, there is often conflict over a minority view that challenges an analysis, the balance, and/or the tone of a Wiki article. However, you don?t inherently attract two equally-large homogenous groups pitted against each other.

Among the conflict-prone articles on Wikipedia, perhaps only abortion attracts the same level of polarization and bitterness as the Israel-related articles. But this is largely a single article, along with a handful of others that go along with it, not close to receiving the level of attention garnered by the hundreds of articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian disputes.

Within the freedom of Wikipedia (which opens the doors to partisans), the fanacticism and polarization of the two sides on the Palestinian question, the partisans can gravitate toward the zero-sum conflict demanded by their fanatical ? and often quite understandable considering where they are both coming from - worldviews. Thus, we'd have almost daily Mid East flame wars regardless of whether or not RK's around.

Yes, theoretically RK would be less "effective in presenting [his] view[s] than a large number of moderates." But the ?moderates? are always going to be marginalized - with or without RK: the large share of extremists on both sides will always make more noise than the "silent majority" (not that I like to borrow Richard Nixon's '68 campaign slogans). A new RK can arrive any day. Even worse, since the majority of the core contributors are also partisans, RK's absence would just shatter the workable balance of power between the opposing forces. Yes, we would like to have a scholarly, congenial lot rather than what we have, but we?re to going to get it. And yes, Stan and Ray are correct that the flame wars have driven off a number of users; but this was the only likely outcome anyway.

In that regard, I do admit that Ray has good reasons to express concerns over my "[endorsement] of bully tactics and intimidation." I firmly agree as much as anyone with Ray that "failing to confront these people does not make the world better or safer." RK must always be prodded to ensure that he?s reasonably acing in line, but not so constrained that RK can?t be RK. That's been the status quo for over a year, and it's been working.

However, we should consider lax enforcement policy in light of this context - with the caveat that RK is reprimanded promptly each time (and with so many enemies, he?s under enough scrutiny). The Israeli-Palestinian articles should be regarded as an exception, calling for a measured enforcement of Wiki policy (and every institution doesn?t enforce all laws and guidelines to the letter ? just consider all the arcane, non-enforced laws on the books right now everywhere). There should be a tacit, unstated understanding that the habits and customs among their core group of Israel-related contributors are going to be more a function of the emotionalism and fervency of the real-world Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not the conventions of Wikipedia as a whole. However, I?m not saying that RK deserves preferential treatment. Just don?t ban him, and let?s to more to acknowledge that he?s a indispensable pillar of the Wiki community.

I'd also point out in closing that the ideals of the Wikipedia project would favor my laissez-faire, less elitist, and more freedom-oriented approach to this matter. Little heavy handed intervention from the top (by developers such as Erik), combined with the free-for-all squabbling from below, has been working. Impartial experts need not dominate the Israeli-Palestinian articles (which would be Stan?s elitist ideal) because the struggle and fervency among all the partisans winds up forging good, neutral articles after a lot of noise has been made. The problem with little expertise and a lot of opinion is rectified, not caused, by stalemated edit wars among the partisans - right now we have a lot of horrible articles that could use some antagonism to whip them into shape. RK and his edit wars are part of the solution, not the problem.

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from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK temp-banned

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> Shortly after I sent a mail to Jimbo asking him to examine whether RK
> should be banned for his obnoxious behavior, RK started vandalizing
> several user and talk pages because he felt *his* talk page was being
> vandalized. The vandalism: People placed comments on it. I have
> temporarily banned him (and no, I won't read through his lengthy diatribes
> which will inevitably follow). I strongly suggest turning this temporary
> ban into a permanent one, at least for a month or so.

Who made the decision to enact a temporary ban? If it was you, I ask you
again to refrain from taking decisions that nobody has given you
authority to take. In the past, you have repeatedly tried to usurp
powers based on your developer status.

If it was Jimbo, then I would like to see his reasoning.

Axel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK temp-banned

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> Tim-
>
>>Eloquence obviously has a different idea of "simple vandalism" than I
>>do. RK got angry, he lashed out at a few users.
>
> He did so by vandalizing their user pages. I told him to stop. In response
> he vandalized mine.

And so you got angry and banned him.

The issue could have brought up on the mailing list. In the past, we
have often discussed weeks and weeks before banning long-term
Wikipedians. I do not think that this practice should be changed now.
There was no imminent danger. RK rudely and unexcusably replaced four
people's user pages with angry messages, that's all. Wikipedia was never
under attack.

Axel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
I say we should have such a committe. This would allow us to decide on bans
more quickly where they are needed, as well as making the process more open
to the at-large community.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

> From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at joey.bomis.com>
> I think that Erik's suggestions here have great merit, and I'd like to
> open the floor to a discussion.  Obviously, he's given a fair amount
> of detail, and I may not want to adopt all of the detail that he's
> suggested, but I think in broad outline we're going to have to move to
> something like this.
>
> --Jimbo
>
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> > Jimmy-
>
> > > that email address and using the "Email this user" feature, how about
> > > [[User:Mediator]]?). Right now, it's really difficult for users to
deal
> > > with insults and personal attacks.
>
> Mediation has become a good tool for trying to resolve disputes.
> E-bay has an online mediation service. I was thinking that
> the submission standards which I drafted (I previously posted the
> URL here and at Wikitech about Mav's suggestion for updating
> the edit page text and linking pages) suggests not only mediation
> but eventually arbitration (that may be eating too much into our
> Fearless Leader's prerogatives).
>
> If two users are fighting should it be open or should there by
> a closed mediation process? Mediation is typically confidential
> and only involves those directly involved in a dispute. If mediation
> fails the agreement between the parties (and this can all be done by
> agreement very easily because everything on Wikipedia is in
> writing) then it goes to whatever dispute resolution process is
> otherwise there.
>
> The advantage of private mediation is it allows the parties to
> vent and get their disputes off their chests withouf the
> fear that somehow what they say will be used against them.
> The ideal is that by communicating (through a third party that
> is trained in conciliation and compromise) that the parties actually
> understand each other better.
>
> I think this might be useful on Wikipedia because it is such
> a communal and cooperative environment. Of course the privacy
> is done is a way that there is no record, but if the mediation
> resolves, then there is no need for there to be a record, it is
> all reduced to a mediation resolution agreement and anything
> discussed during mediation is not recorded.
>
> Arbitration can also be done fairly easily with very relaxed rules
> (the ICANN/WIPO domain name dispute policy is an example
> of a _very_ stripped down mediation).
>
> In arbitration this is going to be someone who acts as an impartial
> decision maker. That might be Jimbo, but there could be a committee
> that has a few online members who have some training in this
> area and who are prepared to see the process through. Many
> arbitration proceedings also use three arbitrators. One chosen
> by each side and the third chosen by the two arbitrators in
> order to insure some kind of impartiality. They could also
> make a decision that could be submitted to Jimbo and he
> could either confirm the decision or decide to grant the
> user clemency in his discretion as our personal Lord and Master.
> (Hear ye, hear ye, the Court of Jimbo's Bench is now is sesssion!)
>
> Thus, when users complain about someone there could be
> a complaint officer (CO) whose job is to represent the complaints
> to the mediator or arbitrator (having a group against one person
> is not really fair is it?). There may also be people who volunteer
> to advocate for the person whose been accused of breaking
> Wikiquette to the point that they should be banned either
> temporarily or permanently. That advocate would work with the
> "contributor alleged to be offending"  (CATBO). The process could
> be acheived by a secure private site (it is very important to
> mediation for this not to be disclosed) or maybe with a telephonic
> mediation session between the CABTO hiers advocate, the
> complaint officer (CO) and the mediator.
>
> If they reach an agreement, i.e. we will withdraw our complaint
> if the user agrees to the following conditions, (i.e. no edits on
> the following pages for  a month, no nasty accusations on
>  user talk pages, etc.  then the dispute is resolved.
> If they do not reach an agreement the parties prepare
> for the arbitration hearing. the CO prepares a complaint that lists
> all the alleged transgressions with links to page histories and
> references to the Wikiquette  that has been alleged to be violated.
> This is a public document and they may even be a period where
> suggestions are submitted to the CO to amend the written
> complaint. (this need not be a long document, just a refactored
> succinct statement of all the complaints against the user).
>
> This is deposited with Jimbo who then picks a arbitrator (different
> each time and maybe also by random number generator). The
> arbitrator is contacted and asked to serve. After that point all
> communications with that arbitrator must be copied to the User
> Advocate assigned to the case. The UA is given a deadline
> to respond to the written complaint.  The UA  discusses the
> choice of arbitrator with the CATBO and the CATBO can
> go forward with one arbitrator or three. If three, they request
> their arbitrator who has the power to  accept or decline the
> appointment.  Then the two arbitrators pick a third arbitrator.
>
> Once the UA and CATBO know the arbitrator or committee they
> can write the response to the complaint. We might even
> be able to get a law school to give our UAs credit to participate
> in this kind of program. When I was in law school I worked
> as a student advocate for the University disciplinary committee.
>
> Anyway it could be something that is easily organized with a
> few people and all the posts could be short term appointments.
> The CO could be a monthly job as could the UA. You can'
> also make being an arbitrator being contingent upon serving
> either as a CO or UA so that they are  There could also be
> a list of UAs and it is up to the CATBO to contact the UAs
> and convince them to enter into the volunteer representation.
> (I would consider this pro bono, in the US all lawyers are
> asked to do at least 50 hours pro bono a year for the community).
>
> This is really a very simplified version of the commercial or
> international arbitration programs of  the American Arbitration
> Association (see www.adr.org) Most arbitration and mediation
> programs have similar structures. If the person wants to
> represent themselves without an advocate, they can do that,
> but there should be someone who represents the complaints
> by other users of Wikiquette violations, I stress that strongly.
>
> I think one big problem now is that someone who is accused
> feels like everyone is ganging up on him or her.  Being in
> such a defensive position can make one act irrationally. If
> all the allegations are channeled through one person and
> if the person who is accused has someone impartial to talk
> to about it the debate should be more rational and reasoned.
>
> This whole thing may sound very complex, but in practice it
> will not be. The mediation procedure can be implimented with
> one or a few volunteer mediators. The whole arbitration procedure
> can be implemented with 6 COs (everyone volunteers to work
> on that committee for two months a year) 6 arbitrators and
> a few UA, so we are talking about 12-15 people tops giving
> on the average a few hours a week. There are people who might
> consider contributing to such a process here.  We have
> at least 6 lawyer members who we could probably convince
> to volunteer once and a while and there must be a few social
> workers, psychologists or philosophy types who could play
> a role.  some of these positions could even be voted upon.
> Vote for Anthere for Arbitrator! or, Angela for User
> Advoate in 2004! Erik for Complaint Committee, etc. Little Dan
> for Mediator of the Month! (yes L'Dan you are old enough
> to be a mediator, in the NYS school system they have a peer
> mediation program where HS students mediate disputes
> between students to resolve problems between students).
>
> The advantage of creating such a type procedure is that it would
> calm things down and once people complained the process
> would not consume everyone's time the way it is doing now.
>
> Jimbo would still have his foothold [[royal prerogative]]  which
> he could use for temporary restraining bans or in extreme
> cases where the CATBO is engaging in serious destructive
> activity. he could also be appealed to to overturn a particularly
> harsh decision by the arbitrators or unbanning (like [[clemency]].
> T the whole process shouldn't take any longer than
> the amount of time that goes into discussing these issues
> right now, so it takes about a month or something before
> the decision about a ban (or lifting a temp ban) comes down.
>
> Anyway, this is just another legal beagle suggestion, and
> as usual it is not "legal" advice, just a suggestion.
>
> Alex756
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
A summary of that giant message would be nice to help those who would like a
shorter version.

Vancouverguy


from_name: Björn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: DON'T BAN RK ? hes indespensable

body:
Abe Solokov wrote:

> The dynamics of the disputes on Wikipedia that arise over the
> Israeli-Palestinian issue mean that neutrality is only going to be
> attained when both sides are finished terrorizing and brutalizing each
> other, after a zero-sum battle has ended in a stalemate. If RK weren?t
> here, that would mean that the other side would consistently win.
> RK?s role as the lose cannon on the Israel-related articles - always
> suspicious, prickly, and aggressive ? bolsters the influence of his side
> of the issues. You cannot deny that RK has steered dozens of articles
> toward an orientation further from that of his antagonists. He often
> starts off adding grotesquely POV content, but that?s toned down after a
> fierce battle with his ever-observant opponents. Although his opponents
> are more subtle in slanting articles, there are more of them, and other
> users usually have no sympathy for RK. Whereas RK can inject hysterical
> propaganda in a few articles, many other users can inject subtle biase s
> in many articles. However, fear of RK?s tyranny is a check on them; and
> when RK mobilizes his energies into a hysterical fit, balance results
> from the ensuing struggle.
>
> In short, if Wikipedia is to present both sides, it?s contingent on
> letting RK be RK. He generates chaos and a lot of ill-will. He?s often
> obnoxious (but he can magnanimously admit that he was wrong ? I believe
> that he took my advice to stop calling a very well-respected user an
> anti-Semite). He even alienates his own supporters, and often attacks
> potential allies with great bitterness. But due to the nature of users
> who are attracted to the Israeli/Palestinian article, the only way to
> get balance is stalemate after stalemate after stalemated zero-sum
> conflict between equally powerful and committed groups of antagonists.
> Among the non-academic partisans who take the time to write about this
> dispute, the fanatical camps on both sides make it impossible for the
> two sides to put aside their differences and agree on what a neutral
> article is. It?s too idealistic to expect them to have the dexterity to
> cooperate and quit wasting time by sniping at each other. RK?s intrans
> igence, and often flat out bizarre behavior, but it?s an indispensable
> part of a confluence of opposing forces required for Israeli-Palestinian
> neutrality.

I won't lie, I'm QUITE HAPPY that RK is banned now. Sure he added a lot
of important information to religious topic and so on, but please! He
has called everyone that has ever been in a dispute with him an
anti-semite. Not only those contributors who debate with him in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict as I firsth thought, even contributors who
has praised his work and/or are Jews themselves have gotten the stamp
"anti-semite". It is no fun for one who has spent a lot of time and
effort fighting racisim to be called that again and again and again.

Now I know that practically everyone who has been the target of RK's
diatribes have responded with a remarkable calmness and tolerance
(except for me who has written insulting comments back at him), noone
other has responded with insulting and degrading comments. I salute you
for that, Ed Poor, Stevertigo, JTDRL, Anthere, MyRedDice and many
others... Stevertigo even nominated RK to a sysop, his motive for that I
can only guess. My guess is that he thought that if RK became a sysop he
would understand that noone was "out to get him" and that WP wasn't
"infected by anti-semites" and maybe stop calling everyone an
anti-semite. But it didn't work, a month after receiving a sysop
nomination from Stevertigo, the name-calling is back and this time RK
has "outed" Stevertigo as a nazi or someting.

Stevertigo still probably think RK should not be banned (im
speculating). He doesn't get offended, many others doesn't get offended
by RK. But I get offended by RK, a countless number of anons get
offended by RK and many contributors have left WP because of RK's
antics. It's impossible to edit articles in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict because if you do, RK will be there reverting and calling you
an anti-Semite. It is not fun and is one of the reasons why I don't
spend as much time on WP anymore.

And it isn't like he hasn't been warned. He has been varned many many
times, he got countless more chances than for example EofT did but he
has never listened, not changed the slightest. He has gotten his chances
and he has burnt them all. It is time to say goodbye.

BL


from_name: Daniel Ehrenberg

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
> If two users are fighting should it be open or
> should there by
> a closed mediation process? Mediation is typically
> confidential
> and only involves those directly involved in a
> dispute. If mediation
> fails the agreement between the parties (and this
> can all be done by
> agreement very easily because everything on
> Wikipedia is in
> writing) then it goes to whatever dispute resolution
> process is
> otherwise there.
>
> The advantage of private mediation is it allows the
> parties to
> vent and get their disputes off their chests withouf
> the
> fear that somehow what they say will be used against
> them.
> The ideal is that by communicating (through a third
> party that
> is trained in conciliation and compromise) that the
> parties actually
> understand each other better.
>
> I think this might be useful on Wikipedia because it
> is such
> a communal and cooperative environment. Of course
> the privacy
> is done is a way that there is no record, but if the
> mediation
> resolves, then there is no need for there to be a
> record, it is
> all reduced to a mediation resolution agreement and
> anything
> discussed during mediation is not recorded.

This looks useful, but it sounds like it would either:
a) require everyone's email address, which we don't
want to do, but it would make an effective mediation
system.
or
b) make a complex messaging system within wikipedia,
which would be beneficial, but might be difficult or
time-consuming to code and would also slow Wikipedia
down.
>
> In arbitration this is going to be someone who acts
> as an impartial
> decision maker. That might be Jimbo, but there could
> be a committee
> that has a few online members who have some training
> in this
> area and who are prepared to see the process
> through. Many
> arbitration proceedings also use three arbitrators.
> One chosen
> by each side and the third chosen by the two
> arbitrators in
> order to insure some kind of impartiality. They
> could also
> make a decision that could be submitted to Jimbo and
> he
> could either confirm the decision or decide to grant
> the
> user clemency in his discretion as our personal Lord
> and Master.
> (Hear ye, hear ye, the Court of Jimbo's Bench is now
> is sesssion!)
>
> [lots of complex procedures]

Wikipedia's goal is to make an encyclopedia, not a
judicial system. Any big debates that are not solved
by mediation could just go on village pump, an article
talk page, or, if it's really hard to resolve, the
mailing list. A private messaging system would be
useful (but possibly difficult to impliment), but more
than that would be too much. The user talk system
seems to work well currently; maybe I missed something
about an actual problem with it that's come up.
LDan

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body:
The summary illustrates the problem. RK was acting faster than the decision time of the mailing list. It's the reason why a temporary ban of 12 or 24 hours for something which qualifies as vandalism if done from an anonymous IP is useful. This isn't a punishment for the temporarily banned person; it's a way of stopping things from happening faster than the list members can react. It's also a usful way to cause someone to do what they should be doing when involved in a heavy dispute: take deep breath, sleep on it and come back the next day.

I suggest the following: one administrator or 3 sysops who have not previously been involved in the issue can decide to put the temporary ban in place and raise the matter on the mailing list then or as soon as the request is made. Ban lifted in 12 hours (or 24?) or if 3 people on the list say so, after reviewing the situation, not out of general dislike for bans. Ban not lifted if the list result is longer term ban.

That gives the list the greatest possible notice and cuts the potential for inappropriate use of the capability, while still letting it be used to give the list time to start to react to a rapidly developing situation.

On a different subject, RK is an interesting and tough problem. Some of the hardest choices I've had to make have been when, in dictator position with a philosophy resembling that I've seen Jimbo express here, I've had to decide that the interest of the community is best served by asking or compelling a contributor to depart because their discouraging effect on others does more harm than the good of their contributions. There's some reason to believe that this may apply for RK but the case hasn't been made yet, just claimed. This is just about the toughest decision Jimbo will have to make, so if you think RK needs to be banned for this reason, please gather the case together with a collection of specific examples for Jimbo and others to review.

OK, enough boldness for my first post to this list. I'm the user:JamesDay Alex756 has mentioned a few times in recent discussons on legal issues. Not a lawyer, just a community manager with a keen interest in online community law. More background on my user page.

James


subject: [WikiEN-l] Where can I find a WikiBot?

body:
--- Gutza <gutza at moongate.ro> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Sorry for bothering you with something I'll probably
> get bashed about
> for bringing up, but where can I find a bot for
> /editing/ Wikipedia
> articles? Some user has started creating articles
> with the wrong format
> on the Romanian Wikipedia, I don't have the proper
> permissions to
> perform SQL queries on it, and due to the lack of
> regexp replace
> functions in MySQL, even that would be pretty much
> useless in the end.
> What I really need is a PHP bot I can program to get
> the current content
> of some articles, perform some preg_replace's in
> them and post them
> back. Can anyone suggest a basis for such a bot?
>
> Thanks,
> Gutza

I don't think you can just find a template wikibot;
people usually program it themselves. Why don't you
just contact the creator of the bot on the romanian
Wikipedia and tell him to change how it works? (I
think) he should be able to upload onto existing pages
without much trouble, unless he wants to protect
against getting rid of other people's edits to the
articles.
LDan

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body:
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 17:03, Peter Gervai wrote:
> Well if you think every possible thing finished sucking today then it's time
> to realise that there's plenty further opportunity to find something new that
> sucks. :-))

Yay! :P

> Btw I believe it's okay to freeze Wikip?dia: and Wikipedia: namespaces on HU
> for 5 minutes and run a simple conversion on the db to change the namespace
> numbers. (Less than 200 articles, lightweight.) You're pretty free to make
> all Wikipedia: (without accent) entries to either disappear or transmutate
> to, say, Wikimonster:. Probably 2 simple SQL commands would do the job
> (without checking, so I could be wrong). Then we could forget this messup.

I think I've got them sorted out now; the ex-Wikipedia: pages have now
been either moved into Wikip?dia: space or deleted (for mere redirects).

The link tables may be all screwed up, so if you see weird things in
whatlinkshere etc, well, that's how things are until we've got a better
way to straighten those out.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK temp-banned

body:
Axel Boldt wrote:

> Who made the decision to enact a temporary ban? If it was you, I ask
> you again to refrain from taking decisions that nobody has given you
> authority to take. In the past, you have repeatedly tried to usurp
> powers based on your developer status.
>
> If it was Jimbo, then I would like to see his reasoning.

Although I don't agree with Erik about enforcing a permanent ban, I
think the temporary ban for a day was welcome. I'm not sure if you were
following the discussion yesterday, things were rapidly escalating, and
the one person who was generously pouring gas on the fire was RK. If you
haven't been following things "live", as I suppose you didn't, it's hard
to imagine in retrospect how fast things were going down the drain. RK
obviously lost it, he was calling everybody names, he didn't accept even
the most mildly tempered comments (and I'm not talking about me here,
some people actually tried talking to him as if they were sipping coffee
together) and he started vandalizing user pages because people were
placing comments on his talk page, as I'm sure you already read ten
times by now. So I agree with Erik, and I don't think he was "usurping"
anything -- he just did what he had to in order to chill everybody down.
But then again, I don't think a month's ban would solve anything. RK
should either be banned for good (which I don't support), or receive
chill-down kicks (IRC sense), which I fully support.

Gutza


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK ban deemed unwise

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I oppose
> unbanning him until he retracts his "Nazipedia" remarks.

I don't think we should invent new bannable offenses, we should not
invent those bannable offenses *after* the offenses have occurred, and
we should not initiate punishment *before* the acts have occurred.

I have ended the temporary ban on RK.

Axel


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
>LittleD said Wikipedia's goal is to make an
>encyclopedia, not a judicial system. Any big debates
>that are not solved by mediation could just go on
>village pump, an article talk page, or, if it's
really >hard to resolve, the mailing list. A private
messaging >system would be useful (but possibly
difficult to >impliment), but more than that would be
too much. The >user talk system seems to work well
currently; maybe I >missed something about an actual
problem with it that's >come up.
>LDan

Usually, a conflict gets out of the way of the pump
very quickly. It is inflating the page very quickly.
Going to the talk page is obviously the direction, but
once the conflict has cristallized, it tends the leave
the talk page anyway.
Now with experience, I recommand that you don't head
for the mailing list for an edit war issue, except to
just tell people what is occuring if nobody noticed.
Two reasons for this. The first is that you annoy some
people who don't care at all about your problem (and
it regularly happens with other topics as well, which
extend for days on the ml).
The second is for you. Once people are upset that you
impose your problem on them, not only do you have to
cope with the other user with whom you are in conflict
with, but you also have to cope with angry editors,
who feel you are abusing them. That may generate even
more mails, public or private, and does not really
help you to quiet down.

Private mediation is already occuring anyway, but
perhaps this way would insure that *everyone* could
benefit from it, and from a neutral pov as regards the
conflict. Which all do not benefit I am sure.

Now, I see not how it would apply to ips or to people
refusing to give an email adress.

Finally, mediation could have two different goals. One
would be to solve the issue surrounding the topic, and
this should be public ihmo. And one dealing with
personalities conflicts. This one should be private.
It could be better than these two goals are separated.
imho.

Otherwise, I find the idea interesting and worth exploring.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK temp-banned

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>In light of comments from Erik (aka Eloquence), Axelboldt, Vicki R.,
>Gutza, Abe, and I hope I haven't left anyone out...
>
>Our next question is:
>
>* Shall we set a date for ending the temporary ban? Or,
>* Shall we ask Jimbo to endorse a permanent ban?
>
>

I vote for unbanning him 24 hours after the original ban was set.
Apologies wouldn't hurt either. I am however completely against a
permban, all he did was lose it for a moment, I'd like to see who hasn't
ever.

Gutza


subject: [WikiEN-l] Response to Ray Saintonge

body:
--- Abe Sokolov <sokolov47 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I thank Ray Saintonge for reading - and rereading -
> my lengthy comments, despite the lack of copyediting
> for typos, and the formatting problems that I can't
> seem to figure out (I've only been having trouble
> with the margins on the Wiki mailing list). Although
> he understood all my points, the assumptions of his
> counter-arguments are unrealistic.
>
> His comments, however, highlight my need to further
> explain why there's no way that removing RK would do
> anything to bring the Israel-related articles under
> the influence of the idealized set of contributors
> whom Stan had described.
>
> First, consider the central cause of all flame wars.
> It's important to note that by and large, the more
> controversial an article gets on Wikipedia, the more
> partisan the core group of contributors becomes
> (e.g., the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal,
> abortion, and Communism - just to name some recent
> and never ending flame wars). This is an iron-clad
> relationship that few who contribute even scantly to
> Wiki articles on history and politics can deny. I
> acknowledge that other flame wars are far less
> prolonged and vicious. While patterns of more
> manageable disputes over parallel the ones over
> Israeli-Palestinian neutrality, the others are less
> prone to zero-sum games (see the Wiki article on
> game theory if this term?s unfamiliar ? btw, sorry
> for habitual jargon of the social sciences). They
> usually far less emotionally charged, and/or the
> structure of the antagonists is not polarized.
>
> I acknowledge that polarized factions is not unique
> to the Israel-related articles. There is polarizing
> left-versus-right political squabbling all the time
> on many articles, but the stakes are not as great
> personally to users. Disputes are channeled toward
> something narrowed (such as a particular policy),
> rather than an 'us versus them' struggle. For
> example, consider the recent disputes over
> privatization, which I?ve been mediating. Lir and
> Daniel Quinlan hold irreconcilable views on the
> subject: one brings in an anti-government dogma, the
> other an anti-capitalist one. But there was no
> personal animosity expressed on the talk page (they
> didn?t even cross paths ? just channeling their
> mixed feeling though me on the talk page).
>
> Jews worldwide, however, are haunted by the past and
> ever-vigilant when criticism of Israel might be
> imbued with anti-Semitism. Conversely, Palestinians
> have suffered declining living standards in the
> context of Israeli heavy-handedness, displacement,
> and marginalization in their homeland and in any
> setting of any refugee camp. These two collective
> identities are not ?irrational? or ?insane? when
> individual channel those frustrations toward hating
> the enemy; and we should expert their champions
> outside the Middle East to quarrel in every forum in
> which they are both present at the same time.
>
> On other controversial articles, emotionalism can
> run high too, but the structure of the disputes is
> rarely so polarizing. For example, there is often
> conflict over a minority view that challenges an
> analysis, the balance, and/or the tone of a Wiki
> article. However, you don?t inherently attract two
> equally-large homogenous groups pitted against each
> other.
>
> Among the conflict-prone articles on Wikipedia,
> perhaps only abortion attracts the same level of
> polarization and bitterness as the Israel-related
> articles. But this is largely a single article,
> along with a handful of others that go along with
> it, not close to receiving the level of attention
> garnered by the hundreds of articles related to the
> Israeli-Palestinian disputes.
>
> Within the freedom of Wikipedia (which opens the
> doors to partisans), the fanacticism and
> polarization of the two sides on the Palestinian
> question, the partisans can gravitate toward the
> zero-sum conflict demanded by their fanatical ? and
> often quite understandable considering where they
> are both coming from - worldviews. Thus, we'd have
> almost daily Mid East flame wars regardless of
> whether or not RK's around.
>
> Yes, theoretically RK would be less "effective in
> presenting [his] view[s] than a large number of
> moderates." But the ?moderates? are always going to
> be marginalized - with or without RK: the large
> share of extremists on both sides will always make
> more noise than the "silent majority" (not that I
> like to borrow Richard Nixon's '68 campaign
> slogans). A new RK can arrive any day. Even worse,
> since the majority of the core contributors are also
> partisans, RK's absence would just shatter the
> workable balance of power between the opposing
> forces. Yes, we would like to have a scholarly,
> congenial lot rather than what we have, but we?re to
> going to get it. And yes, Stan and Ray are correct
> that the flame wars have driven off a number of
> users; but this was the only likely outcome anyway.
>
> In that regard, I do admit that Ray has good reasons
> to express concerns over my "[endorsement] of bully
> tactics and intimidation." I firmly agree as much as
> anyone with Ray that "failing to confront these
> people does not make the world better or safer." RK
> must always be prodded to ensure that he?s
> reasonably acing in line, but not so constrained
> that RK can?t be RK. That's been the status quo for
> over a year, and it's been working.
>
> However, we should consider lax enforcement policy
> in light of this context - with the caveat that RK
> is reprimanded promptly each time (and with so many
> enemies, he?s under enough scrutiny). The
> Israeli-Palestinian articles should be regarded as
> an exception, calling for a measured enforcement of
> Wiki policy (and every institution doesn?t enforce
> all laws and guidelines to the letter ? just
> consider all the arcane, non-enforced laws on the
> books right now everywhere). There should be a
> tacit, unstated understanding that the habits and
> customs among their core group of Israel-related
> contributors are going to be more a function of the
> emotionalism and fervency of the real-world
> Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and not the
> conventions of Wikipedia as a whole. However, I?m
> not saying that RK deserves preferential treatment.
> Just don?t ban him, and let?s to more to acknowledge
> that he?s a indispensable pillar of the Wiki
> community.
>
> I'd also point out in closing that the ideals of the
> Wikipedia project would favor my laissez-faire, less
> elitist, and more freedom-oriented approach to this
> matter. Little heavy handed intervention from the
> top (by developers such as Erik), combined with the
> free-for-all squabbling from below, has been
> working. Impartial experts need not dominate the
> Israeli-Palestinian articles (which would be Stan?s
> elitist ideal) because the struggle and fervency
> among all the partisans winds up forging good,
> neutral articles after a lot of noise has been made.
> The problem with little expertise and a lot of
> opinion is rectified, not caused, by stalemated edit
> wars among the partisans - right now we have a lot
> of horrible articles that could use some antagonism
> to whip them into shape. RK and his edit wars are
> part of the solution, not the problem.

You're assuming that just because someone has a strong
POV about something that they can't be impartial on
Wikipedia. Even though I have a strong opinion about
most subjects, I don't call people names like
anti-semites. I also try to hide POV behind choice of
words (such as "some people think ..." and calling
people something without bias, not necessarilly what
other people call them or what they want to be called
(but one of them)).  Being an impartial expert is a
good thing still, even if it is not necessary as you
said. I'm definitely not impartial or an expert, but I
think I can still contribute in an factual NPOV
fashion. Maybe this is elitist, but I think that
anyone can, for one moment, write their POV down in a
form that would imply absolute correctness.
LDan

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from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [WikiEN-l] RK temp-banned

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I share your concerns, but did want to add that the power is also
>legitimate for sysops to use in cases of 'pure vandalism'.

Yes, I'm surprised that I quoted your post saying just this,
back when the power for all admins to ban named users began,
less than a week ago; yet nobody seemed to remember it.

If Erik, was wrong, then it was because RK's actions weren't vandalism
(in the pure sense of the term, a sense ironically ignored by RK himself).
A few people addressed this, but more (it seemed) accused Erik
of overstepping his bounds merely because RK's ban wasn't discussed.
That was never a precondition in the case of pure vandalism.

In fact, both Erik and Axel did the right things,
at the times that they did them, in my personal opinion.
Erik performed an emergency block for bona fide vandalism,
but reported it to the mailing list since RK was a longtime user
and the vandalism in question was unusual behavrour for him;
then Axel unblocked RK when the emergency was past.
One may argue /whether/ they interpreted the emergency correctly,
but my personal opinion is that they both did well.

As for whether we should have a permanent ban on RK,
I would suggest that we only discuss this if he returns.
There is little to gain from inflaming passions now,
and I know that people are keeping track of what he did,
so it won't be lost and forgotten when he comes back.

-- Toby


from_name: Angela

subject: [WikiEN-l] RK - various

body:
Lots of replies in no particular order

*Anthere wrote:
> When has RK been a sysop ?

He hasn't. I think people are confusing him with RickK
again. He was nominated for sysophood by Stevertigo
but RK refused the nomination.

*Axel wrote:
>I have ended the temporary ban on RK.

I don't think that was a good idea. The last thing we
need is block/unblock wars. There was a lot of
objection to the EofT ban, but it would be very wrong
for any sysop to simply go and unblock the account.

*Ray Saintonge wrote:
>the mentor could be a person whom RK personally
trusts, and to whom he would pay attention.

I'm not convinced you could find such a person. RK
regards all comments to him as personal attacks. All I
said to him was that Martin's comment should not be
regarded as vandalism and I explained why Martin may
have put what he did on RK's page. RK then accused me
of being a vandal for having made such a comment.

*172 wrote:
>In short, if Wikipedia is to present both sides, it?s
contingent on letting RK be RK.

No, we can not let RK be RK if this means allowing
such abominable behavior. To suggest that Wikipedia
can not be NPOV without RK's help is ridiculous. And
it's not just the Israeli-Palestinian articles that
you mention that he is doing this on.

*Bj?rn Lindqvist wrote:
>But I get offended by RK, a countless number of anons
get offended by RK and many contributors have left WP
because of RK's antics.

I think this is the part 172 and others are missing. A
lot of people complain about RK, but there are
doubtless many more people who do not and simply
respond by avoiding editing any pages that RK edits
(myself for one), or worse leave Wikipedia.

*RK wrote:
>Now Martin and Angela are cooperating in vandalizing
my home page

Neither Martin not I have ever edited your user page.
Polite comments, suggestions and questions should not
be regarded as vandalism.

*Tim Starling wrote:
>Eloquence obviously has a different idea of "simple
vandalism" than I do.

This is the danger of blocking anyone. There is no
clear guidance on what "simple vandalism" is. The
[[Vandalism in progress]] page shows different people
have different definitions and sections are often
moved from this page to the [[Problem users]] page by
those who do not regard something as vandalism. On a
related note, I don't understand why the procedure has
to be different for IPs and logged in users. If an
anon had made those edits they would have been banned
immediately and no-one would have objected in the
slightest. IPs are frequently blocked for far less.
Why should someone be protected simply because they
bothered to log in?

*Erik Moeller wrote:
>Nobody ganged up on RK. I oppose unbanning him until
he retracts his
"Nazipedia" remarks.

I agree on both points.

*Axel Boldt wrote:
>The issue could have brought up on the mailing list.
In the past, we have often discussed weeks and weeks
before banning long-term Wikipedians.

The issue *was* brought to the mailing list, and to
the "problem users" page, and to "RK/ban" and to
"Community case RK" and to Meta. He has been discussed
ad nauseum and it was about time someone did something
about it. He has been given countless chances to
reform and he hasn't attempted to in the slightest. I
can't see how a temporary ban is going to change his
behavior either and I fully support a permanent ban.

Regards,

Angela.

________________________________________________________________________
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from_name: martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk

subject: [WikiEN-l] Goodbye, RK

body:
An ex-Wikipedian wrote:

> [snip inappropriate content]
> Goodbye.

Goodbye.

----

RK has voluntarily decided to excercise his "right to leave", and there's really no
need to discuss the issue any further than that.

The only real unresolved issue is Eloquence's temporary block, and Axel's later
unblock. As a developer, Eloquence currently has the authority to ban logged in
users for vandalism, subject to later endorsement by Jimbo. So, under our current
system, we need only wait to see what Jimbo says on the matter.

Of course, our entire ban/block system is somewhat anachronistic and needs
improvement, which is why I made the proposal for a slightly modified deletion
notice and transgression procedure at [[wikipedia:bans and blocks]]. The feedback
I've got has been very positive so far, but I'm still interested to hear what people
think. If there aren't any objections over the next few days, I'll probably call it official.

WikiLove,
Martin "MyRedDice" Harper


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
A good idea.
Vancouverguy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 7:24 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

> From: "Angela" <sloog77 at yahoo.co.uk>
>
>
> > Confidential mediation could be useful for resolving
> > disputes.
> >
> > This would only involve those directly involved in a
> > dispute. The advantage of it being private is that
> > comments you make can not be later used against you.
>
> > This is a simplified version of what the American
> > Arbitration Association (see www.adr.org) do.
> >
> > There should be one person to represent the complaints
> > by other users.
> >
> > Aim: more rational and reasoned process.
> >
> > You just need 12-15 users to spend a few hours a week
> > on this to make it work. Lawyers, social workers,
> > psychologists or philosophy types especially could
> > help. You could vote for certain people to be given
> > each post. The process would take about a month. Jimbo
> > could still overrule it.
> >
> > This would calm things down and not be so time
> > consuming.
>
> Thanks for that Angela. Very good summary.
> Alex756
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
That's good for vandals, but what about problem users.
For things like strange edits (eg Nuuk/Godthab), and users that have made
POV changes, as well as other things.

I like the idea of mediation by a select group of users, as well as
empowering these users, if the user-in-question does not change their
behavior, to orchestrate bans.

- Vancouverguy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jake Nelson" <jnelson at soncom.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 7:14 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

> Fuzheado's system:
> > 0. NORMAL
> > 1. WARNING
> > 2. AUTO-REVERT (auto revert certain pages for the user)
> > 3. TEMPORARY BAN (time expires automatically)
> > 4. LONG TERM BAN (banned until talks to Jimbo)
>
> ...sounds good to me. I think 24 hours for temporary ban is reasonable...
> and I'm not against there being a mechanism in code that auto-unbans after
> that time, perhaps even by default.
> On a side note... I think a lot of issues are conected to there being no
> official level of authority between J. Random User and Jimbo. Though
there's
> certainly unofficial ones... *shrug*  it's definitely something to work
out.
>
> -- Jake
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] RK temp-banned

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>can you give the mailing list some details of what RK
was doing?

One example was that he blanked my user page and
replaced it with:

>"Angela believes that it is Ok to vandalize RK's user
page. If that is true, then it is also Ok to vandalize
her page.

>Or is it Ok for her to vandalize a Jew's page, but
not for the fucking Jew to respond? I guess so!"

He did similar things on the user pages of Martin
(twice), Eloquence and Louis Kyu Won Ryu.

Angela.

________________________________________________________________________
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from_name: Alex R.

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at joey.bomis.com>
I think that Erik's suggestions here have great merit, and I'd like to
open the floor to a discussion.  Obviously, he's given a fair amount
of detail, and I may not want to adopt all of the detail that he's
suggested, but I think in broad outline we're going to have to move to
something like this.

--Jimbo

Erik Moeller wrote:

> Jimmy-

> > that email address and using the "Email this user" feature, how about
> > [[User:Mediator]]?). Right now, it's really difficult for users to deal
> > with insults and personal attacks.

Mediation has become a good tool for trying to resolve disputes.
E-bay has an online mediation service. I was thinking that
the submission standards which I drafted (I previously posted the
URL here and at Wikitech about Mav's suggestion for updating
the edit page text and linking pages) suggests not only mediation
but eventually arbitration (that may be eating too much into our
Fearless Leader's prerogatives).

If two users are fighting should it be open or should there by
a closed mediation process? Mediation is typically confidential
and only involves those directly involved in a dispute. If mediation
fails the agreement between the parties (and this can all be done by
agreement very easily because everything on Wikipedia is in
writing) then it goes to whatever dispute resolution process is
otherwise there.

The advantage of private mediation is it allows the parties to
vent and get their disputes off their chests withouf the
fear that somehow what they say will be used against them.
The ideal is that by communicating (through a third party that
is trained in conciliation and compromise) that the parties actually
understand each other better.

I think this might be useful on Wikipedia because it is such
a communal and cooperative environment. Of course the privacy
is done is a way that there is no record, but if the mediation
resolves, then there is no need for there to be a record, it is
all reduced to a mediation resolution agreement and anything
discussed during mediation is not recorded.

Arbitration can also be done fairly easily with very relaxed rules
(the ICANN/WIPO domain name dispute policy is an example
of a _very_ stripped down mediation).

In arbitration this is going to be someone who acts as an impartial
decision maker. That might be Jimbo, but there could be a committee
that has a few online members who have some training in this
area and who are prepared to see the process through. Many
arbitration proceedings also use three arbitrators. One chosen
by each side and the third chosen by the two arbitrators in
order to insure some kind of impartiality. They could also
make a decision that could be submitted to Jimbo and he
could either confirm the decision or decide to grant the
user clemency in his discretion as our personal Lord and Master.
(Hear ye, hear ye, the Court of Jimbo's Bench is now is sesssion!)

Thus, when users complain about someone there could be
a complaint officer (CO) whose job is to represent the complaints
to the mediator or arbitrator (having a group against one person
is not really fair is it?). There may also be people who volunteer
to advocate for the person whose been accused of breaking
Wikiquette to the point that they should be banned either
temporarily or permanently. That advocate would work with the
"contributor alleged to be offending"  (CATBO). The process could
be acheived by a secure private site (it is very important to
mediation for this not to be disclosed) or maybe with a telephonic
mediation session between the CABTO hiers advocate, the
complaint officer (CO) and the mediator.

If they reach an agreement, i.e. we will withdraw our complaint
if the user agrees to the following conditions, (i.e. no edits on
the following pages for  a month, no nasty accusations on
 user talk pages, etc.  then the dispute is resolved.
If they do not reach an agreement the parties prepare
for the arbitration hearing. the CO prepares a complaint that lists
all the alleged transgressions with links to page histories and
references to the Wikiquette  that has been alleged to be violated.
This is a public document and they may even be a period where
suggestions are submitted to the CO to amend the written
complaint. (this need not be a long document, just a refactored
succinct statement of all the complaints against the user).

This is deposited with Jimbo who then picks a arbitrator (different
each time and maybe also by random number generator). The
arbitrator is contacted and asked to serve. After that point all
communications with that arbitrator must be copied to the User
Advocate assigned to the case. The UA is given a deadline
to respond to the written complaint.  The UA  discusses the
choice of arbitrator with the CATBO and the CATBO can
go forward with one arbitrator or three. If three, they request
their arbitrator who has the power to  accept or decline the
appointment.  Then the two arbitrators pick a third arbitrator.

Once the UA and CATBO know the arbitrator or committee they
can write the response to the complaint. We might even
be able to get a law school to give our UAs credit to participate
in this kind of program. When I was in law school I worked
as a student advocate for the University disciplinary committee.

Anyway it could be something that is easily organized with a
few people and all the posts could be short term appointments.
The CO could be a monthly job as could the UA. You can'
also make being an arbitrator being contingent upon serving
either as a CO or UA so that they are  There could also be
a list of UAs and it is up to the CATBO to contact the UAs
and convince them to enter into the volunteer representation.
(I would consider this pro bono, in the US all lawyers are
asked to do at least 50 hours pro bono a year for the community).

This is really a very simplified version of the commercial or
international arbitration programs of  the American Arbitration
Association (see www.adr.org) Most arbitration and mediation
programs have similar structures. If the person wants to
represent themselves without an advocate, they can do that,
but there should be someone who represents the complaints
by other users of Wikiquette violations, I stress that strongly.

I think one big problem now is that someone who is accused
feels like everyone is ganging up on him or her.  Being in
such a defensive position can make one act irrationally. If
all the allegations are channeled through one person and
if the person who is accused has someone impartial to talk
to about it the debate should be more rational and reasoned.

This whole thing may sound very complex, but in practice it
will not be. The mediation procedure can be implimented with
one or a few volunteer mediators. The whole arbitration procedure
can be implemented with 6 COs (everyone volunteers to work
on that committee for two months a year) 6 arbitrators and
a few UA, so we are talking about 12-15 people tops giving
on the average a few hours a week. There are people who might
consider contributing to such a process here.  We have
at least 6 lawyer members who we could probably convince
to volunteer once and a while and there must be a few social
workers, psychologists or philosophy types who could play
a role.  some of these positions could even be voted upon.
Vote for Anthere for Arbitrator! or, Angela for User
Advoate in 2004! Erik for Complaint Committee, etc. Little Dan
for Mediator of the Month! (yes L'Dan you are old enough
to be a mediator, in the NYS school system they have a peer
mediation program where HS students mediate disputes
between students to resolve problems between students).

The advantage of creating such a type procedure is that it would
calm things down and once people complained the process
would not consume everyone's time the way it is doing now.

Jimbo would still have his foothold [[royal prerogative]]  which
he could use for temporary restraining bans or in extreme
cases where the CATBO is engaging in serious destructive
activity. he could also be appealed to to overturn a particularly
harsh decision by the arbitrators or unbanning (like [[clemency]].
T the whole process shouldn't take any longer than
the amount of time that goes into discussing these issues
right now, so it takes about a month or something before
the decision about a ban (or lifting a temp ban) comes down.

Anyway, this is just another legal beagle suggestion, and
as usual it is not "legal" advice, just a suggestion.

Alex756


body:
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 16:22, blairr wrote:
> Umm...it's been giving me an intermittent "503 Service Temporarily
> Unavailable" error.

You're using the wiki too much, it's telling you to lay off.

Take your time! _Read_ the pages between clicks.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] RK ban deemed unwise

body:
The refusal to maintain a Talk page was one of the problems which led to the contretemps which eventually caused BuddhaInside to be banned.

RickK

Richard Grevers <lists at dramatic.co.nz> wrote:
On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 09:39:42 -0400, Poor, Edmund W
gave utterance to the following:

>
> I would like to:
> *un-ban RK
> *request that everyone avoid posting on [[talk:RK]]
>
Ed, won't the latter action reinforce RK's misguided impression that his
talk page is sacred and for his use only, the thing which seemed to
trigger his flying off the handle?

His acceptance that user talk pages are intended for Wikipedians to leave
each other messages is probably one of the keys to resolving this.

--
Richard Grevers
Between two evils always pick the one you haven't tried

---------------------------------
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from_name: Vancouverguy

body:
Strange, it seems to work fine now.
Vancouverguy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Angela" <sloog77 at yahoo.co.uk>
To: <wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 8:44 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Server back up after partial crash

> Vancouverguy wrote:
> >Umm...it's been giving me an intermittent "503
> Service Temporarily Unavailable" error.
>
> That is because there is a limit on how many pages you
> can open within a certain time period. The limit is
> currently very low to prevent overloading the server.
> You just have to work really slow or go off to make
> coffee every so often. It's driving me mad, but I
> expect the limit will be raised when the new server
> comes. Sometimes changing browser will solve it. In
> Mozilla, I am totally banned from editing for a few
> minutes, but if I then switch to IE, it often lets me
> edit, (but sometimes doesn't let me write anything in
> the edit summary field). Strange.
>
> Angela.
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Want to chat instantly with your online friends?  Get the FREE Yahoo!
> Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
If it is blatent JoeM-style POV that is the problem, there is really no need
for arbitration. However in cases like the "Japanese Pornograpy" article,
then arbitration is nessesary since not everyone may think that the article
is actually POV.

If we do decide to do this, there should be a "fast track" process that
would be more efficient to go by when we are dealing with people like JoeM

-Vancouverguy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex R." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "blairr" <blairr at telus.net>
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 11:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"
>
>
> > That's good for vandals, but what about problem users.
> > For things like strange edits (eg Nuuk/Godthab), and users that have
made
> > POV changes, as well as other things.
> >
> > I like the idea of mediation by a select group of users, as well as
> > empowering these users, if the user-in-question does not change their
> > behavior, to orchestrate bans.
> >
> > - Vancouverguy
>
> I would keep the mediators and arbitrators two distinct
> groups. If you go in front of a mediator and know they
> have been or might be an arbitrator then you may not
> consider them your friend.
>
> Mediation and arbitration are two very different processes.
> Mediation is trying to get people to talk, communicate
> and come to some kind of compromise. Mediators allow
> people to take any position they want and then they try
> to have the parties see the position of the other side to
> appreciate it and see if there is any merit in the other side's
> POV. It is really a lot like the NPOV process we encourage
> here.
>
> An arbitratror (from ancient Roman origins) is a neutral decision
> maker who looks at the differentPOVs and tries to find the
> proper interpretation of the parties differing POVs to find
> the controlling opnion in terms of rules and events and
> the interpretation of those rules in relation to the events.
> While the arbitrator (or arbitration committee) must only
> come to one opinion it may not even be the opinions of
> the parties, they may decide on a third opinion. Also the
> parties going into arbitration basically agree that whatever
> decision the arbitrator comes to will be binding on both
> of them. Thus they are giving up their particular position
> in an appeal to the impartiality of the arbitration process.
>
> You can't talk to an arbitrator the way you talk to a mediator.
>  Also the arbitration process is open to some scrutiny
> (though it may not be public as in a court because it is done
> by the consent of the parties not through the coersion of
>  the state). Mediation cannot really work unless it is
> confidential and the parties do not fear a penalty for
> somehow failing in the mediation process.
>
> Sorry for goiing on but these are two incredibly complex
> processes that have very long histories and many
> different types of manifestation in the behavior of
> groups of people so it is very difficult to take all the
> knowledge I have about these two processes and
> condence them down into layperson nutshells. Please
> excuse my verbosity!
>
> Alex756
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Jake Nelson

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
Fuzheado's system:
> 0. NORMAL
> 1. WARNING
> 2. AUTO-REVERT (auto revert certain pages for the user)
> 3. TEMPORARY BAN (time expires automatically)
> 4. LONG TERM BAN (banned until talks to Jimbo)

...sounds good to me. I think 24 hours for temporary ban is reasonable...
and I'm not against there being a mechanism in code that auto-unbans after
that time, perhaps even by default.
On a side note... I think a lot of issues are conected to there being no
official level of authority between J. Random User and Jimbo. Though there's
certainly unofficial ones... *shrug*  it's definitely something to work out.

-- Jake


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikilists and GDFL

body:
Toby Bartels wrote:

> LittleDan wrote:

>>Maybe we should make it easier to include external
>>images. Then, in reprints from the server dump, it
>>would always either be linked externally or ignored.
>>No one's infringing, I don't think, especially if we
>>say that all externally linked images must be under
>>fair use. Externally linked images would also decrease
>>the server load.

> We used to allow these, but got rid of them
> after a rash of links to <goatse.cx>.
> That they could change without any sign on Wikipedia
> (that is, no detection by Recentchanges or a Watchlist)
> was also a motivating factor.

I also think it is fundamentally immoral to have inline links to foreign
images. It circumvents (probably illegally) copyright restrictions and
steals bandwidth.

However, I find it fundamentally moral to include a link to the site or
page which contains the wanted image. That way, the image owner gets
credit and web traffic.

Axel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK temp-banned

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

> Axel-
>
>>>He did so by vandalizing their user pages. I told him to stop. In response
>>>he vandalized mine.
>
>
>>And so you got angry and banned him.
>
>
> Wrong. I warned him, he continued his vandalism spree, I banned him.

After he had vandalized your user page he was banned by you immediately
and did not have time to continue his "spree" (consisting of four edits).

 > I did not even use developer privileges -- any other
> sysop could have, and should have done the same.

I disagree. There was no urgency. RK throws irrational fits about people
editing his user talk, so people try to talk to him on his talk page.
Why not switch off the computer and take a walk instead? Solves lots of
problems like that.

> Nonsensical accusations like that
> are poisoning the atmosphere of this project, and I would very much
> appreciate it if you would keep them to yourself.

I am certain of that, but you won't be that lucky.

Axel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
From: "Gutza" <gutza at moongate.ro>

> Alex R. wrote:
>
> >Anyway, this is just another legal beagle suggestion, and
> >as usual it is not "legal" advice, just a suggestion.
> >
> >
> >
> I'll say, judging by the length of your message, this not only looks
> legal, it looks like a full-fledged license agreement. I have to be
> honest here and say I could only go thorugh half of it (maybe less)
> before my attention span spanned to something else (such as writing this
> e-mail). I highly doubt the average Wikipedian's attention span spans
> considerably wider than mine. Can you please resume? For as long as I've
> been able to follow, you make sense, just KISS please!
>
> Gutza
>

That was the KISS version.
but the super kiss is as follows:
We have mediators who privately review disputes
with someone who is a complaint person and the
person who has been accused (they can have a
advocate).
If that private session is not resolved, then
they go to arbitratoin. Jimbo can always set it
aside (so it is not strictly speaking arbitration).
but there can be one or three arbitrators, the
arbitration is in writing, generally reviewable by
other members and results in a written decision
and submitted to Jimbo.

Alex756


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren at yahoo.com>

> > [lots of complex procedures]

Really, it is very simple I'll explain it to you so you
understand it and I bet you will agree it is not complex.
I am just writing three things at the same time and you
are getting to see what the mind of a lawyer is like
(and for free!) "Oh my do they really think like that!"

> Wikipedia's goal is to make an encyclopedia, not a
> judicial system. Any big debates that are not solved
> by mediation could just go on village pump, an article
> talk page, or, if it's really hard to resolve, the
> mailing list. A private messaging system would be
> useful (but possibly difficult to impliment), but more
> than that would be too much. The user talk system
> seems to work well currently; maybe I missed something
> about an actual problem with it that's come up.
> LDan

People need privacy to discover problems.
It does not need anything really complex.
I used a secure email service that is free.
There are also secure chat programs that you
can use. It does not have to be done "on Wikipedia"
just like this discussion list. And the mediation will
not be GFDL it is a private discussion between the
parties (one being a representive of the users).

Alex756


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikiquette "committee"

body:
From: "Angela" <sloog77 at yahoo.co.uk>

> Confidential mediation could be useful for resolving
> disputes.
>
> This would only involve those directly involved in a
> dispute. The advantage of it being private is that
> comments you make can not be later used against you.

> This is a simplified version of what the American
> Arbitration Association (see www.adr.org) do.
>
> There should be one person to represent the complaints
> by other users.
>
> Aim: more rational and reasoned process.
>
> You just need 12-15 users to spend a few hours a week
> on this to make it work. Lawyers, social workers,
> psychologists or philosophy types especially could
> help. You could vote for certain people to be given
> each post. The process would take about a month. Jimbo
> could still overrule it.
>
> This would calm things down and not be so time
> consuming.

Thanks for that Angela. Very good summary.
Alex756


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] RK temp-banned

body:
Jimmy-
> Since wikipedia isn't really accessible at the moment (sigh, new parts
> arriving tomorrow or Monday, though!), and also just for the
> historical record of the mailing list, can you give the mailing list
> some details of what RK was doing?

After one of his many flamewars (I sent you an email when I noticed I had
another inbox full of RK flames), he started accusing people - respected
Wikipedians including Angela and Martin - of "vandalizing" his *user*
page. What they did is post comments on his *talk* page. Both Angela and
Martin are exemplary, reasonable Wikipedians, and their comments were not
hateful in any way. (In fact I deeply admire Martin for his patience with
RK, if he had treated me like that I would have called for consequences
long ago.)

He then accused these people of hating Jews and replaced their user pages
with disparaging comments. If I remember correctly, he also blanked a
regular talk page. I put a comment on his talk page to the effect that 1)
there is a distinction between user and talk pages, and everyone was free
to leave comments on RK's talk page; 2) vandalism is absolutely
unacceptable, that if he continued blanking Martin's user page, that page
would be protected, and that he would be banned if he continued
vandalizing other pages. This, to me, seemed like a reasonable safety
measure to prevent this nonsense from escalating further. In response, he
inserted a disparaging comment on my user page. At that point I decided to
ban him.

> This might be an ideal case study for 'line drawing' in the case of
> temporary bans for vandalism.

In my opinion, this is a clear cut case of vandalism by a user who has
obvious psychological problems, and an enforced cooldown period was very
much within the "arsenal" of sysop powers that we should acknowledge.

It is correct that RK has made good edits in the past. He is very
knowledgeable about Jewish culture and has a healthy pro-scientific
attitude. But whenever he has a conflict of opinion, his usual course of
action is to revert -- completely. I spent weeks trying to find
compromises over a single article with an anonymous user, responding to
each of his arguments in detail. RK, on the other hand, will just write
something like "reverting anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish nonsense" in his
edit summary. When the other person doesn't back down or is a regular, he
will send a rambling post to the mailing list about evil persecution.
Because most of his "victims" are anons, they usually don't defend
themselves much -- but it creates a very negative impression of our
project.

Not that there weren't real anti-Semitic edits. But there's a difference
between anti-Semitism and criticizing Israel's current and past politics.
In fact, even if you accuse Ariel Sharon of being a murderer or a
terrorist, that has not necessarily anything to do with anti-Semitism. I
think we can agree on that. Yet, that has always been RK's accusation
against anyone. I was accused of being anti-Semitic by him months ago
because I oppose circumcision.

He lost it completely this time, and most people who are familiar with the
matter consider the response adequate. Whether he returns is his decision,
but I personally am of the opinion that he should apologize for this
recent episode before being allowed to edit again, not the least because
he insulted everyone working on this project and it would be a further
insult to just pretend that nothing happened. I for one don't like being
called a nazi, in rage or not, and I don't like to work with people who do
so.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK - various

body:
Angela wrote:

> *Axel Boldt wrote:
>
>>The issue could have brought up on the mailing list.
>>In the past, we have often discussed weeks and weeks
>>before banning long-term Wikipedians.
>
> The issue *was* brought to the mailing list, and to
> the "problem users" page, and to "RK/ban" and to
> "Community case RK" and to Meta. He has been discussed
> ad nauseum and it was about time someone did something
> about it. He has been given countless chances to
> reform and he hasn't attempted to in the slightest. I
> can't see how a temporary ban is going to change his
> behavior either and I fully support a permanent ban.

Maybe I haven't followed all those discussions. Here on the list at
least, I have not seen any serious discussion, and certainly nothing
approaching a consensus, on banning RK.

As it happens, now serveral people bring arguments for banning him here
on the list. I haven't made up my mind, but I want to make up my mind --
I want to discuss first and ban later, not the other way round.

Axel


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RK temp-banned

body:
Axel-

>> Wrong. I warned him, he continued his vandalism spree, I banned him.

> After he had vandalized your user page he was banned by you immediately
> and did not have time to continue his "spree" (consisting of four edits).

As Martin has pointed out, it were more than four edits; and yes, I banned
him before he could continue his spree.

> Why not switch off the computer and take a walk instead? Solves lots of
> problems like that.

I encouraged RK to do just that. I myself was not angry or excited at all
-- I wasn't involved in the flamewar so I considered myself a reasonably
independent third party to make a sysop decision. And I still consider
this decision to be correct.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] RK temp-banned

body:
Jimmy-
> It seems likely that he's angry enough to never come back anyway, in
> which case we can all just talk about how to best avoid this sort of
> thing in the future.

Ban faster? :-)

Seriously, I don't see how you can avoid dealing with problematic persons,
and I don't see how the persons attacked by RK should have acted any
differently, and I still think that a temporary ban was the best action in
this case. There are some people who believe that I am somehow working on
a grand strategy to usurp power on Wikipedia, which is kind of funny,
because the first thing I would do it if I had it is democratize
everything ;-).

We should avoid developing too much of a behavioral double standard. RK
was tolerated because he contributed good material. But how much good
material has not been contributed because of his well documented
behavioral problems? In my opinion, we need to set clearer rules on
Wikiquette and be serious about enforcing them, with a well-defined
protocol of warning, temporary banning, permanent banning etc. Maybe there
could be a 5-10 member Wikiquette "committee" where violations could be
reported and decisions would be made by voting. By making it proprietary
(totally unwiki, but so is reporting directly to you) we can avoid having
the lists and talk pages cluttered up with these complaints and can make
sure that users will not have to fear repercussions for reporting
Wikiquette violations.

Implementation wise, this could be a mailing list with non-member posting
rights (perhaps with a web-based submission interface to avoid spam --
this could actually be done inside Wikipedia by creating a fake user with
that email address and using the "Email this user" feature, how about
[[User:Mediator]]?). Right now, it's really difficult for users to deal
with insults and personal attacks. I would love to be able to say in 5-10
years that the discussion climate on Wikipedia is the best anywhere on the
Internet.

Regards,

Erik