Get someone to put up some prize money for the Bingo and I'm in.

(This would be so easy for us cabalists to game with a bit of IRC and a few sticks)

As usual, the prize shall be a bowl of Wotsit nibnobs.

I'm wondering about this one, and the IRC conversation. For the e-mail part, DG claims he told FT2 when it happened, but admits to not digging around his own e-mail for a record of it...so it's DG's memory versus FT2's memory, and at least FT2 claims to have scrutinized every bit of email, IRC log, etc. that he has.

Which brings us to IRC, and the dueling logs posted by FT2 and Thatcher. FT2's just shows choice quotes of his own (in line with his proclaimed standards of privacy, I don't expect he'd post anyone else's comments in the logs without permission), whereas Thatcher's shows a different bit of the conversation with FT2 and FloNight. Both, to me, destroy a lot of context...I'd rather just see an uninterupted chunk of log from when that whole chat started to when it ended, with nothing edited out.

Right now, my impression is FT2's story boils down to a lot of head-in-the-sand behavior any time Peter Damian gets mentioned around ArbCom, which led to him missing 99.994% of any mention of the oversights. I see some bouncing around on the RFC talk page that some people feel it's foregone now: he lied! He lied! I don't think he lied, or purposely tried to deceive anyone. I think he just tried so hard to distance himself from it all, he missed some truly important goings on. Fingers in the ears, and 1,000+ verses of "La, La, La, I can't hear you!" that go on so long, it almost makes Moulton seem brief.

I'm just waiting now to see them go after his other bits. Like happened to Kelly, I'm sure certain people won't be satisfied until he's given up Oversight, Checkuser and access to the mailing lists. The Admin bit might be the only thing he's able to hold on to, in the long run.

InkBlot

Damn, I hate those things.

A conversation with Thatcher that FT2 has now archived. FT2 was complaining that Thatcher had quoted him from the IRC logs out of context. So FT2 supplies 9 lines that preceded it, together with 3 lines that overlap with Thatcher's version.



------------ Thatcher


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:FT2...nce_of_IRC_chat

FT2 argues as follows



FT2 is claiming that the discussion is about what philosophers call a 'counterfactual' - a hypothetical case that has no reference to reality. This makes little sense to me. If anything, FT2's version is more damning. Thatcher says " if his argument is you made naughty edits". Not the subjunctive " if his argument WERE you made naughty edits". But then he says "if you grant him oversight access and the edits aren't there, he'll just say a dev removed them". No subjunctive "if you WERE to grant him access". And he uses the definite article 'the edits'. This sounds entirely like they are discussing not a hypotethetical case, but an actual one. And the 'he'll just say a dev removed them'. No subjunctive, no hypothetical.


[edit] And here is FT2 further up discussing this IRC again.



This makes it absolutely clear that this was not a hypothetical example, but a reference to edits that Thatcher and Flo believe have been oversighted. (Note according to Thatcher's claim, he knew about the oversights at the time they happened, because he read my blog post). "Both make clear by their conduct, they hold this belief" that the edits were oversighted.

The subsequent conversation makes it clear they are discussing what to do about this.

Also, this whole episode now proves what I long suspected. I was unblocked in April without appeal (to my surprise). I surmised then that they had gone through the possibilities above (as I had) and come to the conclusion that the only safe way out was to unblock me unconditionally (on 2 May actually) in the hope that I would keep quiet.

[edit] What is astounding is (1) just how bad a liar FT2 is. Liars need a very good memory. (2) The gullibility of the many people who believed him for so long.

But he admits to not reading a fair few mails he gets, and not remembering some stuff.

That's a lot to hang on a simple word choice. I read Thatcher here, and it reads pretty hypothetical to me. Or, more accurately, I can see it both ways....perhaps Thatcher knew a specific example existed and FT2 didn't, they could have been talking past each other.



(1) is why I tend to believe him, because he does seem to have a very good memory and documents everything. So, I tend to believe he's being honest here, which doesn't necessarily excuse things, just explains them.

Why do you think this - just a gut feeling or can you expand a bit?

On reflection, this is impossible. FT2 himself mentions the same conversation earlier:



So FT2 has described himself as acknowledging the Damian claim that edits were oversighted. It's not that they were 'talking past each other' at all. He adds that 'no detail' was given of the edits. But that doesn't matter. He later denied any knowledge of this at all.



If he had said that he had heard mention of this (i.e. at IRC) or heard it ''claimed'' that there was an oversight, fair does. But he denies any mention at all.

On the claim that obsessively recording links is proof of a good memory, I suggest the reverse is true. Old people write lists of things. Why?

I went back to read it again, and again I have to disagree. I think FT2 is saying, the conversation was about your 'campaign' at the time lacking any credibility, so when the topic of oversight came into the conversation, he took it as writ that that too was fabricated. Thatcher and FloNight didn't seem to think it significant, and he took it to imply they felt it was fabricated.

It goes back to my earlier suggestion...I don't think he's lying, I think he's got really big blinders on where it comes to you. He was so averse to actually discussing the merits of your arguments (trying, at that time it would appear, to stick to the topic of you receiving a private or public case), he completely missed the distinction between hypothetical and real questions being asked. He thought (and still insists) it was all hypothetical discussion because he adamantly refused to engage in real discussion in any sort of private channel.

It's semantic wriggling, I suppose, because I don't think it's any better behavior as such...I just don't think it's intentional lying. But while "steadfastly missing the point" may not be a reason to step down from ArbCom, I think it's good move on his part. Bishonen stirred up plenty of drama with her block, but he hasn't been able to defuse or deescalate it and I think it comes from having become deeply entrenched in his position.

You have GOT to be kidding. Read the rest of the threads in the FT2 section.
He's got a long history of this sort of manipulation.

Damian just gets special treatment, because he's an effective critic of FT2's
activities AND still has access to WP.

Official statement from ArbCom is now in. Readallaboutit here.

Hooray!

One crap artist admin down, 20-30 to go.

The committee appears to be politely telling FT2 "Thanks for your service, but you haven't convinced us that you didn't do anything wrong. Thank you for resigning on your own so that we wouldn't have to ask."

Hopefully, Jimbo will appoint the next highest vote-getter in the recent election to fill FT2's seat. That would mean that SirFozzie would be the new arb.

Actually, they did ask; " ... continued participation as an arbitrator had become untenable, and FT2 was advised of this ... "

I meant, "ask publicly."

I have a question.

Why is FT2 so verbose?

I've hardly ever been able to make it through one of his essays, including the resignation piece on Jimbo's talk page. I work on a lot of software projects, and if someone tried to turn in code with that bad of a signal to noise ratio their virtual ears would be ringing. In programming one tenet is to solve the problem in as few keystrokes as possible. (This somewhat conflicts with another tenet in that your code has to be understandable by your peers).

His lack of clarity is what I think is his most important fault as an arbcom guy.

ps. What kind of odds does SirFozzie have to be his replacement? I'm rooting for ya Foz!

Because he has so little to say.

I could do without another arbitrator who wants to see me drawn and quartered. I'd rather that Jimbo just left the seat vacant. There are enough arbitrators now anyway, considering that he appointed three more arbitrators than anticipated in December.

Concur.

SirFozzie isn't man enough to offer me and others a cup of WP:TEA.

It must be that horrible dark beer the English are so fond of.
It causes damage to the verbal centers of the brain.
"'ere's sumpin wrong wit' me mouf, innit"

There are lots of WORSE people than Fozzie he could put in there....
don't complain too much.

Yeah, right. But if Sir Fozzie should step on a rusty nail and perish, perhaps JW will really scrape the bottom of the vote-barrel and appoint the 12th-place finisher.

What's far more likely is that he'll leave the seat vacant or call a special election.

*chuckles* A while back, I did, and you threw it in my face complaining it wasn't hot enough and needed lemon and cream

And EK, I don't want to see you drawn and quartered, I just thought the one remaining restriction wasn't that big a deal and you were making a mountain out of a molehill.

But to set minds at ease, I have not heard anything like that from Jimbo or anyone else really. If something happens and I do get offered it? Well, I think the odds are low enough that I won't speculate.

Which editors have you had adversarial dealings with? I don't mean just right now, I mean at any time during your wiki-career. I propose that you be permanently barred from editing any pages previously touched by those editors. I mean, it's no big deal, and if you think it is, well, frankly I'm going to have to suspect that you're secretly plotting to harass those editors. Why else would you object?

Let's see. Filll, JB96, Mantanmoreland.. Ok, I can live with that, EK.

Laughable--no one would tolerate it. Remember, the restriction is not mutual; if any of these users edit a page that is important to you, you can no longer edit it, but they are free to edit whatever they like.

I think I remember a proposal once by ArbCom to have less active members in order to get through cases faster. It would mean a little change in how cases are accepted, but I think they wanted basically two teams of 3. The topic came up on WR too, I think.

We aren't and never were talking about whether FT2 believed the claims of oversighted edits were fabricated. We are talking about whether the issue came up at all. Whether there 'was any mention of such'. There clearly was mention of oversighted edits, there clearly was mention of the fact Damian was making claims about these, and clear evidence that FT2 was conscious of that as the issue.

You see he is still raising the issue on Thatcher's talk page, and Thatcher has now released some more logs of a conversation in early May.



You have a point there. There is a strong element of denial in FT2's approach to matters, i.e. being unable to admit a fact to himself, and I think this is directly connected with his verbosity. People who are disposed to lie often talk most about the things they are lying about, but without directly addressing the epicentre of the lie.

You notice how many times FT2 mentions how 'fair' he wanted to be about the Damian case. His argument was in order to be neutral, he would ignore all Damian-related correspondence from Arbcom. The reality is he must have read all the correspondence. How could anyone who has read every single one of my edits, and every single post, fail to ignore that? To hide his own dissembling from himself, he constructed this elaborate fiction about appearing neutral.

The impulse towards verbosity is often closely related to the impulse towards perfectionism - a depressive characteristic. You want to ensure that there are no "holes" in your argument, so you try to cover all the bases, which takes a lot of verbiage. In many cases, it's initially borne out of the fear of failure, harsh criticism, and exposure (usually of self-perceived, but not admitted, lack of competence or expertise).

And if being verbose (particularly in writing) helps to reduce the amount of negative attention you get, simply because people tend to give up in frustration over the amount of time it takes to read your stuff, then it becomes a self-reinforcing habit.

Unfortunately, some academic disciplines reward written verbosity to such an extent that some people become habitualized to it without having such psychological inclinations at all, which makes it difficult to generalize.

I'm often guilty of it myself, of course, as this post probably demonstrates.

This thread seems to have deviated from FT2, so perhaps now is the time to say that he was not totally 100% in the wrong - the trouble at Wikipedia was - no one knew how to help him or P Damain out of their hole without being accused of partisanship. Because of this, the problem grew, it was also hugely assisted by a complete lack of communication (please no cracks about FT's verbosity) - I only recently understood how bad that communication was - what I thought was known by the Arbs appears not to have been known at all - and yet I can't quite believe that. I have tried to help both, but there was a mind-set, an implacable mind-set on both sides - and I only now realise, I was being stuffed in trying to sort this in other areas. Once Gerard moved in, oversighting and running rampant and seemingly only conversing with Jimbo the whole thing became confused, everyone protecting each other. I doubt anyone other than Jimbo himself, who was ignorant on the matter of who was on which side, and who was on neither, could have sorted it. Ultimately, FT2 had to resign, he had confused and prevaricated for too long - and justice has to be black and white, but sometimes the truth is rather more honest but very confused. In this instance there was no one with an ounce of nouse to sort the problem and so like Topsy it just grew.

Giano

The seemingly intractable problem that Giano alludes to above — bridging the chasm between two irreconcilable adversaries — is an age-old problem.

Just now, on National Public Radio, I was listening to a sound byte from Martin Luther King talking about how both Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi were slain for the crime of trying to heal the wounds of a divided nation.

Studying what divides antagonistic factions in the Wikisphere seems to me to be an important research issue for those of us who have long made a career of studying the perplexing dysfunctionality of cyberspace communities.

FWIW, in FT2's brief sojourn here, he PM'd me to explain that every post he made took him a long time to craft - perhaps an hour. He was obsessive about being misunderstood or misrepresented - yet the result was that he was often incomprehensible or ambiguous - the very result he was seeking to avoid.

I'd always assumed that he was very into his NLP stuff, and deluded himself that he had exceptional mental powers - therefore any failure to communicate was other people's problem.

So, my theory of mind, if you like, is that analysing FT2's behaviour as a normal, balanced person might lead to some faulty conclusions. If someone has to work that hard to try and put together posts, then perhaps he is not as bright as people might assume, and assumptions about his comprehension of matters might be misled by this.

I am especially concerned that he often makes comments about the amount of time he spends on things - that makes him sound obsessive, but he might just not be very good at stuff. It might also fit with his comments that he has read lots of stuff but didn't realise what the issue was.

My guess is he has a degree on a suspect course from a suspect university like Media Studies at Lincoln University and he thinks it means he is educated.

Oh he has his problems allright, and was totally unsuited to be an Arb, but his problems also extend to defending himself. Late in 2007 he received a threat that would have scared me shitless - the sender should have been banned for life by the Arbcom, but the sender was not. Even when I emailed Wales telling him to keep that sender banned he was allowed back- you see all is never as it seems.

Giano

This is a good nuanced view. There's a lot of truth to it.

FT2 has been selfless in his efforts to help the ArbCom. He didn't try to cover it up. I don't doubt that for a second. The problem grew to the point where his status is not tenable.

Speaking personally, of course.

FT2, if you're reading, the way to do that is with less words, not more. Besides the simplicity, it also means that you end up not saying some things.

NewYorkBrad is one of the few people at Wikipedia capable of the opposite.



This is where excessive secrecy can really screw things up, even though it is sometimes needed. Now I'm wondering if I took a stand in ignorance on this editors unblocking. Any chance you can PM me the name, Giano

Oh - he did try to cover it up, but for reasons that were confused and which made sense to him. I don't think he is a person who can be guided, his own worst enemy I suspect. He should never have been an Arb and now he has paid the price for being in the wrong position. He actually needed protection and advice on dealing with the bear pit, that is Wikipedia. Keeping order on God know's how many 1000s of editors needs a certain tough type, with a rational ruthless streak - a tough cookie. I would not be surprised if he is not happier free of the responsibility - I hope he is. The Arbcom with Jimbo could have saved themselves all this bother if they had acted over a year ago with a quick iron fist, stopping FT2's candidacy and banning Peter Damian for life. They did not - they dither and chat and worry if I am being polite. Funny place Wikipedia, nothing is ever quite what it seems, and that is what the chattering peanuts never quite grasp.

Giano

He received the same advice from me and others but he decided not to follow it.

If they suddenly came over all "decisive",
you might be the next one they ban indef.

A number of users here will be fairly bright. They say bright people can sometimes get in their own way in communication, and without great self-analysis, that's surely true. I've never figured out the line of what to assume others need telling or don't, and between saying too little (and people misunderstanding) or too much. In that, I get cautious - "one (many times) bitten, twice shy" - I figure if I am open about everything, and consider the matter completely, then some will go tl;dr, but those who really care will have the information they need to work it out. Better sensing of "what needs saying and what doesn't" is a skill I don't have and wish I did, despite advice like Tarantino's (which believe me I'd gladly take if I knew how). Consolation: I figure there's worse if you have to choose a weakness. That said, any offers of help -- yes please

I care nothing for politics, which is a good or bad thing depending how you see it. For me I see it as a plus. YMMV. I've mostly learned to avoid drama and its hounds quite well; in this case ultimately I haven't. Its a skill I learn mainly the odd times I don't succeed; I take it philosophically. I went into Arbcom "eyes open", knowing it shreds reputations. The job needed doing; the 2007 committee was failing the community badly, and nobody else seemed very likely to try changing that in any meaningful way. Personal cost of it? Meh. Important, but less of an issue.

Other wordiness stuff - 1/ People playing games tend to gloss over the detail (old saying - "the devil's in the detail"). Spelling it out might bore some, but it's advantage is being explicit as to exactly what's being said and what's not. Case in point, people were amused at the idea a 105 K statement of evidence might be needed, but when the microscope came round it meant not one thing raised hadn't been disclosed fully and such, which would have been a huge mistake. Also, 2/ arb writings tend to get very heavy weight|reliance|examination. I don't like my words being misrepresented, as Dogbiscuit says, and there's also a responsibility to think more carefully in a role like that. Not every post is difficult, but some are (eg, responsibility to people who will be judged by what's said, of being fair to them); and those talking about myself more than most. Not unusual.

Oddly, one of the main blockers on a public discussion of OM and the oversighted edits was that I simply don't know how to write the short statement necessary. Might seem trivial or laughable to some, but not to others. I asked more than once and set about doing so three times - June 29-30 (after OM), November, and again December. The notion of "Write anything but just write something" doesn't work well with sensitive and privacy-related issues, and the advice how one might do so was itself very uncertain. I'm not that sure even now what I'd do differently second time round. Probably told the more conservative voices on Arbcom after OM "you explain what happened or I will" a bit more strongly. I was offline most of July, consensus was firmly against, I was told it would be done "eventually" but it never was, and I didn't. Meh; lessons.

Apologies for the delay in replying; of course discussion was going on here but I only just got round to checking it out.

And of course the net result is Damian is now the evil bastard who got FT2 cast from the Arbcom, with his vile and reprehensible accusations. Amazing how quickly the tide turns.

Sherlock Holmes was bored when he was not working on a case.

He was fascinated by a good mystery, and went about solving it methodically and scientifically.

It was up to Watson to manifest the hidden emotions of confusion and perplexity.

A good thinker displaces boredom by finding something to focus on that balances the fascination of a mystery with its complexity and it perplexity.

Now that FT2 is liberated from the banal liminal political drama associated with a rather pedestrian breach of expectations, perhaps he will put his analytical mind to higher-order problems than disciplining the incorrigible miscreants of IDCab.

All you have to do is to answer straight questions with straight answers. You were asked whether you knew about the oversights in July. The very long answer you gave suggests the answer 'no'. Why not just say that?

As another example of this, you were asked on this forum whether User:TBP was a sockpuppet of yours or not. You simply didn't answer the question at all. Why not just say 'no'?



Use of the words 'yes' or 'no'.

Which is to completely disregard the context, that you are a user with a history of spurious claims. I don't have much interest in that. I forget the exact wording but there's a saying to the effect that the internet is full of 14 year olds with infinite time for whatever view they hold. You have to learn to not react to such things. For me, the matters you raise fall in that category no matter your real age; they were raised much more for the drama and point than from genuine good faith (sorry about using wiki-isms!). Had it been otherwise, you would not have acted as you did; the way you acted was not someone seeking answers, that was a rationalization that came far later. You have no information on my personal life, but you spent most of 2008 assuming it anyway and spreading your assumptions to others as your truths. Those actions get you and the drama-oriented "questions" you tried to raise for "political capital" purposes basically, ignored. What you might have asked, you asserted instead and I'm not usually inclined to engage a pissing match with someone who seems to have an endless supply of urea. Sorry. C'est la vie.

Question for you though. Do you really believe I've studied or been involved in most of what I edit in depth on? Do you believe I'm a lawyer because I authored a number of law articles and added in-depth on a range of others? A historian because I wrote on specialist historical matters? A psychologist because I wrote articles on 3 or 4 types of psychology and therapy? A movie fan because I wrote plot summaries for many movies? A weird sex practitioner because I worked on weird sex articles? A Christian or Jew because I wrote on judeo-christian articles? A politically involved person because I used to spend so much time on US political articles? That I know a thing about using Linux because I researched and authored the article on its start-up process? I don't think you really thought any of those things, did you?



Oddly, Moulton, that's exactly been my thinking since stepping down. I'm now free to work on a couple of more structural dispute issues that need addressing and that I couldn't easily do "within arbcom". On the other hand I lose the option of arbcom decision-making (2009 style) if they are viable, as well. No idea if it'll happen or not - we'll see.

Not at all, FT2 was totally unsuited to be an Arb and got himself cast from the Arbcom, with not a little help from David Gerard. Your mistake, in my book, was sending FT2 an unacceptable threat before the edits were oversighted. Had you not done so, you would have my respect. They either lied of were deliberately evasive concerning those oversights, and that was wrong, they attempted to cast you as a liar rather than explain the truth. However, people should remember that had you been instantaneously kicked off Wikipedia for making your threats much of what followed would have been avoided.

However, writing about bestiality, or whether it is now called, is perfectly legitimate. You may not like it, but coverage of the subject is lawful. There is not one scrap of evidence to suggest that FT2 was anything more than a writer on the subject, and had FT2 had better communication skills this matter would have been brought to a better conclusion months ago.

You wanted the truth out, and now you have it; you surely don't think it should stay buried? that's the sort of thing that happens on Wikipedia - create a diversion and put the heat elsewhere, as is currently happening there - and Gerard's role has been largely forgotten as attention has been re-focused on me. Only on Wikipedia does Nemesis seem to turn a blind eye. The "FT2 affair" is over now, but it needs to be put to bed with explanation and conclusion, otherwise history repeats itself. You're a historian, you must know that. So please cut your self pity, you are far from the poor little man who was wronged - you played your part and that part needs to be clear.

Giano

No, and ditto the others. My claim was that certain of your edits were biased and slanted. Having been through many of your edits, I can confirm absolutely that there is no evidence whatsoever you have practised any of the things you talked about. I already said this while discussing the issue in private with WJBScribe last year. But you nonetheless put a positive and (to my mind) biased slant on many of those edits.

Many people will no doubt disagree about the bias (Giano already has). But the point is the authorship of the edits should not have been disguised as they were. If there was nothing wrong with them, why couldn't the community make its own mind up? Most people, including Thatcher, think that the community was liberal-minded enough to see past that.

My main concern at the time and afterwards was the Neurolinguistic programming articles, and I bitterly regret having brought the other matter up at all.



See my comment above. I will publish my correspondence with Scribe if necessary. My disagreement was with the way the edits seemed to promote the subject. That is a matter of editorial judgment, and also a matter relevant to the 2007 elections. I put forward the view (on a page which is now unfortunately also oversighted) that having someone promoting these views in this way on the Arbcom would turn out to be a public relations disaster, and would split the community.

A view which turned out to be entirely correct.

[edit] If it helps, can I apologise to FT2 here and now. I am sorry for the intemperate comments I made during the week of Dec 4 2007. I have an appalling temper and should know better. I bitterly regret all those remarks.

Nonetheless, I stick to my claim about 'positive promotion' of a controversial subject.

Should we not move on? There are other issues that have not been put to bed. If my private discussion with Scribe had not been completely derailed by the oversights, if Jimbo had bothered to reply to my complaints the following week, the whole matter would have been closed in a matter of days. The rest is history, of course.

It is Gerard and Jimbo whom the focus should be on now.

Your splitting hairs now, twisting and turning, and it befits you not. You issued a threat before the oversighting which was unacceptable. For that you should have been severely dealt with. That threat biased the way the whoe matter was subsequently handled.

Giano

See my apology just above. And remember I apologised and was unblocked two days before the oversights.

And I am not splitting hairs. The distinction between accusations about 'promotion' and 'practice' is about as important as you can get. It would be impossible to get any traction at all on difficult articles like pederasty and the like, if we ignore that distinction.

I have admitted the blame for the intemperate remarks. I apologise. I retract nothing else.



Of course, and another reason for regretting it. Any follow-up on the issues that concerned me - pseudoscience and all the rest - were thereafter treated as 'harrassment'.

No, FT2, it doesn't play that way. Answer the question. Attacking the interrogator just demonstrates your own unwillingness to answer the question.

Throughout this matter FT2 has received the worst possible press, his reputation has been torn to shreds and he has been villified. Now that the matter is about to be archived it seems wrong that it goes into the annals of history incomplete. Implying that you were informing the sort of people who would burn his house, dig up his dead grandmother and do God know's what to him, must have been very scary. That was not intemperate, it was pure intimidation. There is never an excuse for such behaviour no matter what the crime - real of imaginary. "Woops sorry" is for standing on someone's toe while dancing. You were fortunate it was FT2, not me, who won the election. You should have read my first emails to you a little closer at that time. I suggest now you let this story come to its final end, but please don't gloat, no one comes out of this with too much credit.

Giano

This statement reinforces my belief that David Gerard was, and remains, a primary target of the Giano-Bishonen axis.