I'm insulted! You guys are having a party and you didn't invite me? How rude!

Hey, Mel. If you're looking for the dystopian future that features a violent warlordish gang slowly running out of gas, that would be over at Wikipedia, not here.

Ha! I hadn't thought of it like that but your characterization of the environment there DOES seem to fit. Perhaps that is why I subconsciously chose this avatar! It seems a particularly apt reflection of my on wiki persona.

Mel --> GoRight
Warlordish Gangs --> [Fill in you favorite Cabal]

No, no, no, no, the dastardly duo looks more like this.

OK, I see the dastardly duo of AGW fame but where are you? Are you the flea there on the dog's behind?

The Plot Thickens:

Having seen the hero in our little drama, Hipocrite, take an exit out of view to stage right we now see another bit player, one Tony Sidaway, entering the fray from stage left.

Tony is a complex character who never seems to sleep. It is almost as if he were on both sides of the Atlantic simultaneously. He also has a curious propensity for showing up in a variety of AGW discussions with Cabal aligned viewpoints.

Let's watch how this develops, shall we ...

He's probably been reading this thread (though I don't see how that's possible, having tried myself), and must have decided that the controversy has finally reached his arbitrary "drama threshold."

So far, he just wants to "community ban" Abd indefinitely:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...er:Tony_Sidaway

In effect, he's acting as a surrogate for Connelley and Co., who presumably want to continue maintaining the pretense that they're "uninvolved" in the underlying content dispute(s). I could be wrong, though - Mr. Sidaway has a way of just showing up and doing things that he believes will keep him in good graces with the high mucky-mucks, and there's always been some question as to whether he does this on his own volition or at the behest of others.

In my experience, Tony (and I've known him for fifteen years now) doesn't really care a whole lot about staying in anyone's good graces. He enjoys poking at people just to see what will happen. Tony is drawn to drama, enjoys being involved in it, and enjoys stirring the pot. He's a decent person otherwise, and can be rather insightful when he stops to think, but his insatiable need to be "on the stage" makes him as much a detriment as an asset. At any given time, there's no way of knowing whether an idea of his represents an honest, valuable insight or just some silly nonsense that he decided to throw out to see who, if anyone, would salute it.

True to form, our new player seems to have stuck his nose firmly up the collective behinds of the Cabal members with his proposals and they are showing intense interest in his advances. And so soon after his arrival on stage, almost as if they anticipated it.

As is all too common in these sorts of plays, I think we can anticipate an artificial snowfall to begin any time.

Note to the director: Please show more imagination. !votes are only symbolic in this act.

Note to WR administrators: We need an emoticon for eating popcorn.

Back to the show ...

I agree.

Ahh, well this explains his chosen profession as the chief sniffer of Cabal behinds. That helps to insure that his lines make it past the director's cut.

Ah, thanks for directing me to the concession stand. Much better.

I note that one of the director's favorite actors, KDP, is strangely absent from this act. I have yet to discern the significance of that, if there is any. Perhaps the director plans a dramatic entrance near the end to save the day? Or possibly just a small Cameo appearance this time around to avoid too much media exposure.

If an editor wisely decides to stay out of a fracas, perhaps it's best to let it stay that way?

Unless ArbComm decides to block the whole lot of them -- and to express the the odds on that I have to start using metaphors like grains of sand on the beach, we'll have to end up cooperating with the remnants of the cabal. I reserve "asshole" for ... assholes, people who are grossly uncivil and who have power, and who use it to bully and intimidate. It has a very clear technical meaning, it's much stronger than "dickhead" or other lightweight comments.

One might notice that I only named cabal members who had played some active role in this mess and what led up to it, not everyone who might be reasonably part of it.

One of the problems with entrenched power is that good people, more or less, will cooperate with it. That's why destroying all the vestiges of the old guard, as happens too often in violent revolutions, is a very, very bad idea. To me, the problem isn't the people, it is the system, that brings out the worst in people and perhaps suppresses the best. Give people a chance, even assholes will do better.

Usually. Not necessarily always, but we never know unless we try. This is not the way the cabal thinks. To them, once a bad editor, always a bad editor, ban them and keep them banned, even if we have to block half the internet.

My devious plot is to enable consensus. It will take some time, but it can be done, and consensus is more powerful than even a much better organized cabal, not to mention this Keystone Cops assembly.

Reading through some of the earlier posts, one of grep's initial comments:


Somehow brought this to mind:



Creepy similarity.


On this first part, I am merely noting the fact and wondering why. From the looks of things he seems to be playing the role of the kindly storekeeper in this episode.

On the second part, this is clearly understood but it then goes back to the first part.

Back to the play ...

Yes, we ourselves refer to it as the Connolley Lidless Eye (CLE). Do not question the warming of Mount Doom, or the Nazgûl of Science will be visiting you shortly.

Poor old grandad must have forgotten to take his pills.

On-wiki he has declared in an edit summary on the talk page of his very own ArbCom workshop:

I withdraw my voluntary acceptance of the ban from cold fusion

He edited the talk cold fusion page this morning and has been blocked for 24 hours by WMC.

We'll have to see what he's up to off-wiki - I hope he's not trying to annex the Sudetenland again.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!

So WMC thinks it a good idea to block Abd while they're in the middle of an ArbComm case? A case about an allegedly improper block of Abd by WMC?? A pretty clear two-fingered salute to the whole concept of Arbitration, then.

It was neither a good idea for Abd to edit the talk page during the case nor was it a good idea for WMC to block him.

It's now Rlevse that seems to have tied himself up in knots . Then again that's what boy scouts are trained to do.

Carcharoth and Cool Hand Luke are acting as the voices of reason.

It's turning into Alice in Wonderland a little bit.

Who's the mad hatter?

mathsci = misc hat

Godwin.

For reasons that you can all work out, Abd and I will probably stop commenting here.

Please ban us! We have committed the ultimate wikipedia crime.



The off-wiki venue that dares not speaks it name.

Wilde allusion! (Almost as bad as Godwin).

Actually the purpose of WR is so that the people on WP will have someplace "off Wiki" to escape the danger of becoming totally insular anal self-inspectors. Which is what happens to the people who stay on WP and never see themselves from the outside. Aren't you glad, Mathsci, that you've been saved?

...

What's wrong with this 2004 Oberwolfach picture?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...lain_Connes.jpg

Happens. I know they are here somewhere....



Yes. Brilliant, eh?

I must say it was a bit like shooting a fish in a bucket. No, bad metaphor. You realize you need to demonstrate that a bull is dangerous. Nobody believes you because, after all, he's sitting there placidly smiling and joking. So you wave a red flag and he charges at you, breaking the furniture as you, ready for it, leap out of the way.

Did I make the edit to "wave a red flag." Not exactly. I made the edit because it was there. The question was asked, I had an answer, and I gave it, as I would normally. The edit was not disruptive and the only thing that made it disruptive was WMC's threats. So I ignored the threats. Carefully. No wall-of-text. No tendentious argument. Not even any incivility.

And ignoring the threats of a bully is sometimes the one thing guaranteed to make him act. He's committed, he's got to prove he was right and that he has the power and to hell with everything else.

This time, I didn't even know I was blocked. Boy, was that one painless! I was prepared to have to deal with the rest of the RfAr, if needed, with a common unblock based on "don't edit anything but the case," or even something more cumbersome, and, of course, I wouldn't have begun this thing if I were not prepared for the possibility that the cabal would win.

It's not over yet, as I write this, though the decision is starting to appear in round outlines. Let's just say that, so far, I'm thrilled. It could hardly be better. I get admonished for errors, which is absolutely fine with me. I get a mentor, which sounds wonderful. WMC may get desysopped, which is sad, but which certainly was what he asked for, effectively, and his supporters, by not warning him, have helped bring this about. WMC may be site-banned for a while, which is more than I imagined, I don't think I support it, I'll have to think about that.

I do not, in fact, consider his behavior the most egregious in this case. But maybe I'm wrong. He certainly did defy ArbComm.

(To an editor heavily committed to a high opinion of himself, being required to have a mentor could seem humiliating. But what I'm trying to do is difficult, I'm trying to change the way the community functions, and, believe me, it's not only difficult, it's impossible to do it alone. My whole theory of delegable proxy could be construed as "routine mentorship.")

So far, it's looking very good indeed. I was, indeed, worried, because the cabal had piled in, it was attracting peripheral supporters, and the sensible neutral editors weren't appearing, and I'm not sure why. (Obviously, it could be because I was Wrong .... but I don't think so, I'm not just running on a few weak inferences ... the biggest worry was Big Silence from the arbitrators. WMC's block, totally outrageous and effectively defiant, mooning the jury, was sufficient to bring several out. It may have been a complete coincidence that Bainer started drafting the same day, but what Bainer drafted was certainly affected. Misbehavior during an RfAr is the surest path to sanctions.

(It's possible I'll see some consequence to that single edit to Talk:Cold fusion; I think I can defend it adequately, but I can also be wrong... I did announce my intention to disregard WMC's ban, and nobody of weight said boo!)



That plan depended on nobody noticing, I guess I'll just have to do something else. I've got it! I will allow the Sudetenland to annex me. Hand them the keys.

The result is the same.

Mathsci, my plan involves enabling consensus to function. It does not involve my personal power or POV. That's why, in my second RfA, I mentioned that, while I had ideas, an agenda if you will, admin tools would be useless in furthering that agenda. My agenda depends on convincing people, not on coercing them, and it takes place one person at a time, until that's happening in parallel, one person at a time becoming many.

You are invited to annex me. Need help? Ask. I'll do what I can.




Great minds think alike.

Actually, the "salute" had been going on throughout the case, with the edit warring in the request and the Workshop page. I do think I understand what was happening then.

Essentially, nothing. The arbitrators weren't paying attention to the case. Would you bother reading all that crap until it was time to actually work on it? I wouldn't! The cabal, though, imagined that the silence meant that they were being favorably received. The cabal is not an organized conspiracy, collaborating with secret collusion. It happens right out in the open -- mostly.

I know Godwin from the W.E.L.L., by the way. My introduction to on-line community, much of Abd Thought comes out of that experience.



Speak for yourself. I trust the Committee; the finding of fact is accurate, we were uncivil to each other here. They haven't yet proposed making anything of that. And even if they did, I value my freedom of speech in RL, and compared to Wikipedia this is RL, more than I do my participation in Wikipedia. When in Rome, do as the Romans do; I used the local idiom; on Wikipedia, if necessary, I'd call an editor "uncivil." Here, I'll call him an "asshole." Those words mean the same thing, in fact.

Consensus process requires setting that crap aside, hence Wikipedia has rules, and eventually we will see the incivility policy enforced even more tightly; it will be, outside of necessity, just as prohibited to call an editor uncivil as to call him an asshole. I don't mind being admonished even for outside incivility, I'm not going to wikilawyer it away with "but that's outside and rule 237 says that editors can't be sanctioned for outside actions." Besides, see, I like it that Raul quoted what I said about you and him.

The really crazy thing is that Raul seems to believe that the community would immediately be shocked! shocked! at this.

I've learned a trick from ScienceApologist. It's a dangerous one, I won't use it often. Say what people are thinking but they have been afraid to say.



Oh, it will be mentioned and linked. My action will be to ask that the link be to the full discussion, not just to a piece abstracted from it. The specific posts can be shown, that's fine, but anyone who's worth his or her salt as a critic will want to see the context. In spite of claims that this is the highest pile of bullshit ever on Wikipedia Review, I did, last night, reread the whole thing. There is lot here, this discussion actually lays out and exposes a great deal.

Yes, if someone wants to understand what is actually going on with the complex ad-hoc structure that is Wikipedia, it might take some serious study, some serious time. My perspective is just one, I'd suggest noticing what got some traction here and what didn't.

The link was already in my evidence when you posted this.

On WR everybody is made fun of, that is par for the course. I can live with simultaneously being Charles Matthews, William Connolley and myself. On Mondays I can be clean shaven, on Tuesdays have a moustache and on Wednesdays have a funny beardy thing. In all cases I can retain my spectacles and be some kind of Cambridgey mathematician. This can be repeated for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Sundays I can choose to be any member of the cabal or the mathsci team. Since I have now enrolled ChildofMidnight (he is not aware of the perforated underpant initiation ritual which he passed with flying colours on his talk page), I can also assume the identity of younger wikipedians. Multiple body piercings and green hair are optional.

How liberating and refreshing.

Although of course not in thebainer's book, that book in which there is no rubbing out.

You're not the only user flexi-timing their true identity - I'm thinking of auctioning the honor of me wearing a tag with someone's name on it.... any takers?

And this is the interesting original research that emerges from the phenomenon of Wikipedia. Most observers agree that what is going on is a lot of drama and gaming the system.

Which begs the question: Can the "system" be modeled with enough analytical precision to characterize it with scientific accuracy yielding useful insights?

I credit Kelly Martin with proposing and advancing the model of Wikipedia as an ad hoc ochlocracy, comparable to tribalistic strongholds that arose in the days before the advent of functional systems of governance.


If nobody takes you up on the offer, you can channel me for a day and see if anyone buys it.

Yesterday's episode was action filled and full of surprises. Typical of the material we expect from this director. It takes a careful eye to follow all the nuances of this little play. For example, amid all the confusion it may have escaped the notice of many that one of the chief antagonists in this drama, Raul654, went silent after being rebuffed in his attempts to paint GoRight as a meat puppet. (Note that this was his last post as of the time of this writing: 03:17, 4 August 2009.

This raises another interesting question regarding the arrival of our bit player, Tony Sidaway, who entered the stage with this edit: 11:38, 7 August 2009. So it appears that a couple of days after Raul654 fades into oblivion Tony suddenly pops to the forefront eager to enter the fray.

Now we see him diving straight into the heart of the case, keyboard afire, as he attempts a rescue of our misunderstood patriarchal figure, WMC, by boldly asking why the Aribters are even considering something like desysopping WMC. (See this.) This seems the type of thing usually reserved for Raul654 who is nowhere to be found. And as part of the exchange Tony offers up this curious question: "It is really worrying to me that, without public evidence, at least three of the arbitrators are treating William M. Connolley as an involved editor. Is there some hidden evidence suggesting socking?" (See this.)

This is a very curious question from our bit player, again, more reminiscent of Raul654 but without the caustic verbiage. Sort of makes me say hmmm. Actually it's a rather ironic query for this bit player to make under the circumstances. Why, exactly, might Tony (who never sleeps and seems to edit from both sides of the Atlantic) care to know if there is hidden evidence of socking?

[Aside: I've been analyzing the timing of our bit player's editing. Most of the edits would suggest he resides in Western Europe, perhaps Britain. But every so often, every few days or so, he seems to edit straight through the night. His edits during these times seem quite innocuous. Just enough to keep any statistical measures of his editing habits within the plausible deniability range. No hard evidence, mind you, but there is much to be researched so who knows what might turn up?]

So let us review the plot thus far at a high level.

First we have our hero, Hipocrite, who swoops in from nowhere to do battle with the villain, Abd, by calling him out into an edit war. A bold plan, and one that might have worked on a lesser villain. At first it seemed as if it might be working and who should appear? Why the patriarch, WMC, who sternly wags a finger at the two edit warriors and valiantly protects the page.

Some time later, Hipocrite again tries to draw our villain into an edit war only this time Abd refuses the bait. Still, not to be dissuaded, our hero fights on with whomever he can find until the page is once again protected, completing his mission.

Then, curiously, our patriarch reappears from the shadows having long forgotten his previous actions there and, taking a fortuitous cue from the hapless GoRight, boldly restores the page to a version that just happens to give our hero everything he wanted while denying the villain his spoils. Being a man of good character, our patriarch knows that he cannot punish just one of his wayward editors as that would show bias, a bad thing all around for any kindly patriarch, so he bans them both. (Cheers from the peanut gallery).

(Time passes)

Our hero, Hipocrite, having duly gone on about his business with nary a care to the world stops by out of the blue to ask our patriarch to suspend his sentence for good behavior, and thus clearing his good name. Our patriarch agrees, leaving our hero unharmed and leaving only the villain with his justly deserved punishment. (Again, cheers from the peanut gallery!)

(Time passes)

Having served his purpose our hero suddenly and mysteriously decides to commit wikisuicide and retires over some lame argument never to be heard from again (at least not any time soon). Why does he do this? Does he wish to lie low for a while for some hidden reason? But our dastardly villain shall have none of this, and he tries to add him to the ArbCom case so that he can further besmirch his good name. Oh, whatever shall we do? Our hero is already dead and gone.

But wait, there is still the kindly patriarch. Let him do battle to clear our hero's name, again, and in full view of ArbCom. Surely a risky move to be avoided except under the more dire of circumstances. But what could those circumstances be? And do they have anything to do with Raul's later disappearance or the sudden appearance of our new bit player, Tony? And what of Tony's curious question about hidden sock evidence when the Arbiters have made no such indications?

Oh what IS this tangled web that has been woven before us?

Stay tuned as the saga continues to unfold before our very eyes ...

Tony is known to live in the UK and has in the past freely admitted having a girlfriend in Florida who he travels frequently to see. I don't know what, if anything, he does for a living; to be honest his behavior is consistent with having enough wealth to not have to work.

He is also known to have traveled to multiple locations in order to picket Scientology, often dolled up as his drag persona, "Sherilyn". Tony's a true drama queen in every possible way.

Wow, TS. Tony sez: "In what sense is William M. Connolley an "involved admin"? Even arguably?"

Uh, well, these two users have had a significant dispute with each other. In fact it was so significant that ArbCom took a freaking case about it and they're both named parties. Then in the middle of this acrimonious case, one of the named parties blocked the other one. I think that's at least arguably involved!


Oh, GoRight: I think there's zero chance that Raul654 and Tony Sidaway are socks, share accounts, or any such thing--I don't recommend you continue that line of thought. You might think Tony is a "bit player" in global warming, but he's not a bit player on ArbCom pages. He's attracted to controversy and drama, and he usually comes down on the side of the older elite on Wikipedia.

Well perhaps you can understand why I found the query a bit, shall we say, suspicious? Is there any other user would would typically be making such bold statements in defense of WMC which are so obviously counter to, umm, reality? I know that I can certainly think of one, your assessment of the probabilities aside.

Some things in the world really do make sense.

I understand. Many people know both of these individuals. Tony Sidaway was a clerk for a while when Raul was arbitrator. They're both unreasonable, but they are certainly different people.

For what it's worth, Raul's style is more patronizing, and Tony is more likely to ask ridiculous questions where you would swear he's trolling you, but he is apparently sincere. They've both gone to meetups on their respective continents. Tony has deep roots in USENET. Different people.

Gee, thanks for giving me the image of Mark Pellegrini in drag.

The voice of reason.

These kind and thoughtful people are not members of the mathsci team as far as I know.

They are fine upstanding wikireviewians.

Interesting to see that Mathsci have apparently withdrawn their evidence.

And long fingernails in Wikipedia.

"Please click here for evidence"

It's that grey amorphous/morphous liquid again, isn't it.. Have you thought of buying a mop?

A nematode worm could have done better than you.

It seems to have confused the clerks as well -- I'm sure they'll appreciate being compared to worms. Still, there now seems to be no limit on the length, or relevance, of the evidence, which should make the ArbComm's task a lot more hilarious.

If you could navigate wikipedia better - the temporary clerk's talk page for example or for that matter edit histories - there might still be a little hope left for you.

At the moment I'm not overly optimistic.

In reptrospect, in comparing you with the nematode worm, I was doing that organism a great disservice.

After all Caenorhabditis elegans did help in gaining John Sulston a Nobel prize and a knighthood.

Another Cambridgey person.

Probably part of the mathsci team - his wife does know me, he has spectacles and sports interesting facial hair.

An interesting contribution from BozMo (T-C-L-K-R-D) here. In the section where Mathsci try to have the evidence from Ikip (T-C-L-K-R-D) struck on the grounds that they don't like it, Bozo argues that it's a good thing that WMC throws blocks around at random because otherwise WP would be overrun by vandals. Since Andrew Cates is yet another Cambridge Maths Ph.D. (so he says) it's possible that he is trying to support the Mathsci line. But I prefer to think that it's a clever ploy to undermine WMC by comparing his judgement as an admin to a batty old lady's gooseberry bush. Double-bluff or performance art? Hilarious anyway.

Wow! My respect for Mathsci just went up a few notches. He actually gave a reason? I thought that cabal editors didn't give reasons. When you are in charge, you don't have to give reasons. WMC doesn't give reasons, except cool ones like "boring." Or "let's stir them up," for his nice, noncontroversial edit under protection. The comment that this was like shooting fish in a bucket has been considered serious evidence of my bad faith. I'm not sure why. Something wrong with shooting fish in buckets? Should I take them out of the bucket first? I do warn them before shooting them.

Is WMC a helpless fish?

Whatever, the splash from that immediately transformed the case. Mathsci is starting to make sense, among other amazing phenomena. Looks like he might get troutslapped, something he thought entirely preposterous. I might get banned from this or that, who knows? If I were attached, I'd never have been able to confront the cabal. Other editors have told me that they wanted to present evidence, but they were afraid it would harm their future on the project.

That's okay. It takes all kinds.

Written by Abd to the clerk on his talk page just yesterday. Promises, promises ...

Ikip puts on a pretty good show.

Indeed, to the extent that Mathsci were reduced to lobbying a clerk to have it removed. It probably didn't help that they had compared the clerks unfavourably to a nematode worm, but it was also a mistake to refer to the way the A.K.Noll case ended up in the Mathsci parallel universe. In our universe, it was a review of a bad block by WMC, there was no conclusion either way and the discussion degenerated into a first-rate display of personal attacks, lies, outing, horse-flogging and general hilarity. In the Mathsci alternative, it was a case against Noll in which she was found guilty while WMC and Mathsci were triumphantly vindicated. Mathsci wisely didn't trouble themselves to give a link to the actual text of the discussion, I suppose diffs don't work through the trans-dimensional wormhole. As it happens Hersfold's non-admin twin wasn't fooled -- probably still annoyed by the worm thing.

The clerk suggested that I add evidence about what Ikip has claimed. Feel free to read it. I've just added direct quotes since all the diffs come from the same thread.

Oh yes and here's the youtube video I mentioned to Hersfold - might this help satisfy your insatiable appetite as a stalker?

Mathsci, if you are a professional mathematician as you say, then why on earth are you still at Wikipedia bickering with all manner of kooks?

Give it up. Move on. You know you can't win.

Do a statistical analysis on that.