Crowdsourcing justice
Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 11:07 am
Exactly. Any appeal to the govcom is met by silence or ignorance, and if you do establish a line of communication, usually with a member of the committee who is familiar with the case, the deliberation is secret and you have no idea why they came to their decision. There is always a degree of humiliation involved, of course. The committee members are terribly self-important and regard themselves as a sort of high court of justice. It can take months. Twice they came back with 'come back in six months'. Some of the arbcom members, when they were not being self-important or sanctimonious, could be quite rude ('you are a nasty piece of work').Malleus wrote: I've seen more and more of these indefinite blocks applied under the ruse that indefinite does't mean infinite, when for any clear-headed self-respecting individual it most certainly does mean infinite. ... So, to get back somewhat on track, that's why so many editors are tempted to go down the "sockpuppeting" route.
Alternatively, twice in my case, someone emails you and offers to put a notice up on the 'community' noticeboard, which means a lot of people can queue up to insult and disparage you, often on grounds that are quite weird (see the 'Saruman' comment below). Often it's just plain abusive. Remember you are not allowed to be present and defend yourself against these slurs.
" I've fogiven [sic] the others (yourself included) but I will not, nor will I ever, likely forgive him. He is a troll. Plain and simple."
"Peter Damian is a jerk. The project is better off without him. "
"For those who weren't around, if you happen to be familiar with the Lord of the Rings, it may help you get the picture if I say that Peter Damian is our version of Saruman -- intelligent and erudite, but not to be listened to at peril of your soul. "
"His past behavior showed a level of malice of the sort that does not go vanish over time, and his capabilities make him too dangerous to fool around with. "
"Are we not yet tired of having our chain yanked by people like this? "
"This individual is utterly unfit to be a member of this community. "
Or they will ask to correct ideological deviation or ask you to 'reform', like Stalinists.
"Peter needs ... to make appropriate commitments . "
"There seems ample evidence that this is somebody the encyclopedia does not need ... it's blatantly obvious that he has not reformed in the least".
"There are some who are able to learn from their mistakes and change themselves, and some who aren't, and Peter Damian has sadly demonstrated he's in the latter category."
Or they will appeal to the community/interests of the project, on the grounds that you are 'harmful to the community' or some such. Quite why you are harmful to the community by writing articles on medieval philosophers is not explained.
"What PD still doesn't understand is that "the project" is more than just the encyclopedia; it is also the community of people creating the encyclopedia. Good editors who are harmful to the community do not constitute a net benefit, in my opinion. "
"the interests of the encyclopedia are not why he wants to edit the article in question. "
"If he's not willing to follow the "don't edit when banned" rule, what other rules is he not willing to follow? "
"This is not a teenager who has now matured. This is someone whose effect on the encyclopedia has been overwhelmingly negative, and I see no reason to think that would change. "
"Socking during a ban is just the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of the iceberg is Damian's bad faith towards the community. "
Many of the comments, probably most, are on the lines of 'rules are rules'. There is actually some sense in this - of course any organisation needs rules - but no one questions whether the rules make any sense.
"Quality contributions do not make up for disrupting the site and ignoring it's [sic] policies. "
"Bringing up his quality contributions as a mitigating factor acctually convinces me more to oppose, we cannot be seen to give someone a 'pass' for civility/PA/sockpuppeting/whatever because they made some good edits."
"The socking is evidence that Damian can't let it lie and serve a sentence; that fixation isn't helpful. We don't give passes for good contributions; there's a tacit agreement that he has continually broken".
"We can't allow socking or what sense does it make to block someone? "
"Socking is either bad, or it is not. "
"Yes, we need more quality editors. No, we don't need more editors who think their contributions justify their actions. "
"He may be a valuable contributor, but he needs to follow the rules "
"I never buy the argument that x is such a good editor that their bad behaviour doesn't matter: no-one is that good, and no-one is indispensable. "Helpful socking"? don't think so."
"On the benefit side is that he wants to edit here, he's been variously a good editor, he's made featured quality articles, etc. On the cost side is that he used a sock to promote an article to featured quality. "
"Sockpuppeting is dishonest"
"Although I agree we need more good writers, researchers and philosophers, I have to oppose unbanning this user or any user who flouts Wikipedia rules in such a manner"
"We definitely don't want to set a precedent here, that banned users can freely sock with good editing and then be forgiven by the community. "
Even in the French revolution I believe they had a kind of court system, with proceedings held in the light of day, selected representatives, a formal procedure and so on. As far as I know, they did not allow the gossipers and knitters who gathered round the guillotine to be judge and jury (I may be wrong).
Of course if you challenge Wikipedians on this they will rehearse platitudes like 'Wikipedia is not fair', 'there is no justice on Wikipedia' etc. Which suggests Wikipedia is not a very nice place, doesn't it?
