What percentage of donors do you think know or care about adminship, adminship review, or the Arbitration Committee?

The donors have the Wikipedian Disease themselves and probably agonize over all the boring Wiki-crap pertaining to ArbCom that dominates this thread. The wider public does not care about ArbCom although they would be appalled by the prospect of pornographers and extreme libertarian advocates of practice such as bestiality being put in positions of influence over content in a project both used by and created, in part, by children. This is why small donor (Wikipedian) funding is so bad. It further isolates the project from the kind of pressures that over the long haul the serious funding community would never tolerate.

What do percentages have to do about anything?

I'm not talking about the steady trickle of 'everyday' people who Wikimedia are currently squeezing for even more money via email only just after they've already given (you rude, insensitive and greedy bastards). No - those people largely donate small amounts for the 'convenience factor' of Wikipedia . That is largely down to Google and its current page rank system - a factor which must must weigh extremely heavily on WP's mind: the fear of still being financially dependent, combined the income being for a shared service, with ever-increasing overheads, when the charity well starts to dry out.

No - I was referring to the 'important benefactors' that all charities have - whether they are genuinely charitable, or (as will no-doubt happen in WP's case) if they are getting something back in return. It's a simple fact that very few large benefactors in the corporate/charity world simply give their money with no questions asked.

...aaaand out.

I do believe a daily dose of ginkgo biloba is prescribed for cases like these.

is it just me, or does anyone else's eyes glaze over trying to read FT2's drivel?

I figure most people know better than to try.

Some of it is quite clear.



This explains an email I got from Scribe (07 December 2007 21:14) suggesting that FT2 had contacted him about the post.

The really odd thing is that anyone believed anything so frankly implausible for so long (namely, that FT2 had prevailed upon several administrators - including Will Scribe and David Gerard - to 'do something' about the edits, that Gerard confirmed the oversights back, that Jimbo emailed about it as well, and yet FT2 forgot about them.

But of course the rest of the Arbcom were complicit in covering everything up at the same time. The discussion in April-May 2008 was completely in private, and I am only now piecing together the events that went on. (This latest revelation for example).

[edit] The arbitration committee members as of April 2008

Active Arbitrators
Blnguyen (talk • contribs • email)
Charles Matthews (talk • contribs • email) (charles.r.matthewsntlworld.com)
Deskana (talk • contribs • email) (djgwikigooglemail.com)
FayssalF (talk • contribs • email) (Fayssal Fertakh, szvestgmail.com)
FloNight (talk • contribs • email)
FT2 (talk • contribs • email) (public inbox: ft2wikipedia.inboxgmail.com)
Jdforrester (talk • contribs • email) (James Forrester aka "James F.", jdforrestergmail.com)
Jpgordon (talk • contribs • email) (Josh Gordon, user.jpgordongmail.com)
Kirill Lokshin (talk • contribs • email) (kirill.lokshingmail.com)
Morven (talk • contribs • email) (Matthew Brown, morvengmail.com)
Paul August (talk • contribs • email)
Sam Blacketer (talk • contribs • email) (sam.blacketergmail.com)
Thebainer (talk • contribs • email) (Stephen Bain, stephen.baingmail.com)
UninvitedCompany (talk • contribs • email) (Steve Dunlop, uninvitednerstrand.net)

Brief version: I'm screwed.

Longer version, I've spent so long bullshitting about this, I've come to believe my own drivel.

It actually reflects badly on the rest of those involved, some of whom must have been aware of FT2 being misleading and have previously decided to keep quiet.

Other possibility, arbcom and most of the community have been at tl;dr with this since the beginning.

I vaguely remember reading a lot of the public stuff at the time, being involved in some of the conversations, and following threads here and on wikipedia since, and I truly have no idea what the hell it was all about:

something to do with fetish edits, oversight and David Gerard and after that I lose the plot entirely.

Where Peter, John Van, and FT2's timezone fits in beats me.

I'm reminded of Palmerston's remarks on the Schleswig-Holstein Question

"Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."

And in the end, aside from Peter, who cares?

Who cares about a pack of lies, after all? Note that Doc was in on the Dec 22 IRC chat, and thus was one of those who knew from the beginning.

Rough timeline.

Dec 2007-April 2008 - FT2, Gerard + 1 other admin (possibly Doc?) + Scribe, + Cary Bass and Jimbo knew. Thatcher also knew from observing the edits disappear, but as far as I know was not involved in the email exchanges.

This was kept pretty well secret until April 2008, when Arbcom got to hear about it. There was then a wider conspiracy to keep the whole thing secret. Part of this was offering me a lift on the ban, which with hindsight I should never have accepted.

In July 2008, FT2 said he had never heard of such a thing happening.

In November 2008, Giano finally revealed what had happened (I don't know how he found out), saying publicly. “Over the last year I have known [about the edits], but been unable to prove it, I have been stonewalled wherever I turned and found myself unable to trust anybody. FT2 and Gerard were untouchable and had me blocked at every opportunity. … A week or so ago I obtained positive proof that Gerard had indeed tampered with FT2's edits during the election with an invalid oversight reason outside of policy, especially as they pertained to a subject about which FT2 was being questioned during his campaign for Arbcom. So basically Gerard and FT2 are disgraced and and FT2 is an Arb by fraud. "

People like Doc immediately were saying 'what's so interesting about that, everyone knows about that' and so on. Like they hadn't been conspiring for months to cover it up.

From November to January 2009, FT2 persistently stonewalled questions about why he said he knew nothing (and denied again in November) about the oversighting.

Finally in January he was blocked by Bishonen, there was an RfC, and FT2 had to resign.

To those like Doc who say 'who cares', I say 'yes, but if it is that trivial, why cover it up'. It's the official lying after the event, and the conspiracy to cover it up, that we should care about.

The oversighted edits were in themselves quite trivial. It's the three years of banning and blocking and persistent lying and resignations that are significant.

What paranoid nonsense.

I knew nothing, took no interest, and still don't follow the ins and out of all of this. It strikes me as pure obscurantism.

From what I gather, some edits were irregularly oversighted, in somewhat unclear circumstances. It's a bit muddy as to whether FT2 was involved in this or not - and he's evidently been less than forthcoming on the point, which is enough "smoke" that with or without the fire, I certainly didn't support his return to arbcom.

Beyond that, I think the issue has been that those semi-involved haven't looked too closely at it, and by the time they did, others, who cared all too passionately about it, had convinced themselves that there was some vast wiki-wide conspiracy. I suspect all there actually is is a somewhat embarrassed FT2 digging himself deeper into a hole.

So, he's in a hole. Whether there's fire behind the smoke, I've no idea: but the smoke will be enough to keep him off arbcom, and beyond that nothing really matters.

Indeed, had FT2 had the wisdom not to presented himself as an arbcom candidate, who would care? Maybe he lied - well, so what? What difference does it make now?

As I said, you are on record as discussing it with FT2 on Dec 22, so don't accuse me of being paranoid. As to FT2's involvement, Gerard publicly said that FT2 approached him to make the oversights, that and that he confirmed this back to FT2 on December 8.

Jimbo further emailed FT2 on December 11 to ask why the oversights had been made. This was the email that FT2 'found' on Dec 9th the next year. He says “in an unrelated search related to the RFAR case, I found an old email from Jimbo to myself. It was written during the election a year before in 2007 and stated that edits had been oversighted by mistake but this was going to be reversed.” He says he 'forgot' about this email, and also 'forgot' asking Gerard (and Scribe, we now know) to make the oversights.

Of course the original events were trivial. It's everything that happened afterwards. Plus the denial from people like you. You deny anything happened, and lie through your teeth persistently. And as soon as the truth comes out, you say either that you knew it all along, that it was trivial. Or that you hadn't really been following it.

And as for you not really following it, here you are all over Giano's page, talking about it and denying it. You are Scott MacDonald, yes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...ords_from_Giano



What difference does official lying and cover-up make, after the event? You tell me.



As I say, when a conspiracy is unmasked, there are those who disclaim all knowledge, and there are those who say 'this is old news and thoroughly boring'.

Wikipedians seem to have a tendency to take after their leader, Jimbo, which means that they will willingly spin lies of any sort in order to create a suitable fiction to explain away any evidence that doesn't comport with the reality they want to be true. Many of them also have the uncanny ability to believe those lies, once spun.

The only takeaway one can get from all this is that Wikipedians cannot be trusted to be truthful, not to themselves and not to anyone else, nor can they be trusted to keep their promises. There is no way to deal in good faith with such people; one must, at all times, assume that any offer made will be retracted, any deal struck ignored, and any promise reneged, for it will happen. These people have no honor, and honorable people have nothing to gain by consorting with their like.

Oh dear. They are are not trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent? That explains why I sensed something amiss. Though I myself am very occasionally irreverent. But all this doesn't explain Lar's high rank.

Eagle Scout Milton (get the action set)

PETA?

Kelly, even when you say something I disagree with, I have enough respect for your insight that I usually expect learn something from it.

This however is an exception. When did you become an uncritical spouter of the house paranoia?

The only thing one can say about "Wikipedians" is that they are a mixed bunch that defies most generalisations. (Other then they've got no life and too much time on their hands - but that goes for the regulars of WR too.)

This "guilt by association" is just the flipside of the same nonsense Sidaway tried on me when he told me to stop posting to the "troll site" because all the people there are hateful and those who associate with them must also be evil.

Wikipedia has a whole mixture of ideologies. It give just some examples of the problematic ones:
#There are some Jimbo devotees (but there number is relatively small, and mainly restricted to a few old-timers, as Jimbo's presence has declined).
#There are free-speech, "my right to publish", fanatics
#There are undogmatic power-trippers
#There are single-issue advocates

A more nuanced analysis is surely a better one.

I'm disclaiming nothing. I just consistently don't care.

When Wikipedia libels people, I care.
When Wikipedia treats real people unfairly, I care.
When the system has real-world consequences, I care.

But no, I don't care who got something over sighted and why. I don't care if FT2 lied. I don't care if there was a conspiracy to cover it up (although I don't believe there was).

Maybe I care enough to oppose FT2 in an arbcom election (indeed I did do that for precisely the reason you give), but then I also had to stop and think whether I even cared enough about who was on arbcom even to vote. I did vote, but I largely don't care.

Watergate this isn't. Tell me who it actually affects?

Q: FT2, what's with the oversighted edits?
FT2: What oversighted edits? There are no oversighted edits.
Q: But the logs...
FT2: Oh. Done completely without my knowledge and approval.
Q: But the emails to you from Gerard, and the Jimbeau?
FT2: Oh. I'm too ethical to read those emails.
Q: Yet you replied to them?
FT2: <a novel-length reply saying nothing>
Q: So, again, what about those oversighted edits? Did you know about them?
FT2: It's a very complex issue that requires consultation and research. Give me a few months and if you haven't forgotten ask again.
Q: <few months later>: ???
FT2: Still researching. Very complex matter.
Q: <few months later>: ???
FT2: I quit. I request that an independent outside panel of experts be convened to determine the matter of what I know and what I don't know, and when I didn't know what I don't know.

<few years later>

FT2: Running for arbcom!!!! Vote for me!!!
Q: About those oversighted edits....
FT2: I behaved with the utmost ethical standards. Simple misunderstanding. Banned harasser / stalker troll. Much hardship. Woe is me. Totally innocent.
<wikipediots>: Totally.
Q: Ummmmm..... about those emails and irc logs....
FT2: Stalker!!! Harasser!!! I am ethical!!!
Q: Remember those logs...
FT2: I quit. Turns out I knew what I didn't know before I knew what I know, if you know what I mean.

Its not the crime, its the coverup. Everything would have been forgotten if FT2 simply said he didn't know, and Gerard was doing his own thing. Indeed, Gerard manages to get by doing whatever he wants, remaining silent, and kissing Jimbeuas / Goodwin's ass when needed. Instead he invented story after story, none of them making sense or holding up to evidence.

You're just trying to rationalize your continued involvement with a fundamentally unethical organization. The characteristics I recited are definitive of Jimmy Wales; there can be no question of that. One thing I've observed is that organizations quite often take after their founder, and Wikipedia appears to be no exception in this regard. Just as Jimmy Wales places little value in the honorable treatment of others, so many Wikipedians have copied him in this regard. Jimmy has cashed so many overdrawn checks against Wikipedia's morality that he has driven it, too, into bankruptcy.

The fact that there are still a few Wikipedians left who have not surrendered to the groupthink does not mean that the groupthink does not exist or that there is not a lack of moral fibre in the entity. The simple fact is that Wikipedia lacks, from the top down, any steadfast commitment to ethical practices, and people need to keep that in mind at all times when interacting with Wikipedia and with individual Wikipedians. If you do not wish to be tarred by that brush, then step out of its way.

Of course, this isn't entirely just copying Jimmy's lack of moral fibre; it's also an entirely to-be-expected consequence of handing out anonymous power. Anonymity breeds contempt, as many have noted; it should come to no surprise to anyone that an environment in which most actors are effectively anonymous would quickly be overrun by unethical actors acting with gross contempt for ordinary social standards. It's hard enough maintaining those social standards in nonanonymous communities. Of course, I hold Jimmy to task for the decision to encourage anonymity as well, even if his main motivation for that was simply to maximize participation.

You know me well enough to know I've no interest in defending Wales. And yes, anonymity is a problem with BLP editing, which I've long observed. Structurally, anonymous editing of BLPs gives more scope for those who seek to libel or defame.

However, just because people edit anonymously doesn't necessarily mean they edit irresponsibly. So, the accusation it morally warps people is invalid. It just allows irresponsible people to hide among responsible people (who want to be anonymous for perfectly understandable reasons).

Your argument is also logically invalid. " that there are still a few Wikipedians left who have not surrendered to the groupthink does not mean that the groupthink does not exist " I am not arguing that groupthink doesn't exist, however I don't draw the conclusion that those resisting it are "few". Indeed, I think most Wikipedians espousing extreme libertarian free-speech views probably didn't develop them on wikipedia, but we attracted to Wikipedia because of them. I'd say many participants in Wikipedia have not in fact developed the capacity to think at all, never mind "group think" - they just do their thing because they want to.

LolWUT? What high rank? I'm a disgraced former steward, haven't you heard? Why am I getting dragged into this?

That said, Obviously all wikipedians are exactly the same. (disgraced former stewards, every one)

I think the issue is far simpler: an ethical organisation should seek to put in place processes and people in places of judgement who can be seen to be reasonable people operating responsibly. Wikipedia has this history of "we can invent a better way than the sad old ways of the real world" yet when it comes to the crunch, it repeatedly adopts the worst practices of the real world rather than the best. In this case we have Gerard (who as far as I am aware had no official role in the organisation aside from being an old hand who had acquired rights and privileges), who when someone whose face fitted was threatened with some nuisance of some edits which were recognised to be embarrassing in some way, felt it entirely appropriate to hide them from sight rather than let an open discussion about them derail a favoured candidate; then a series of people, when challenged on this, decided that it was better to dissemble than be open, over a period of years.

The group-think is one where, in the face of legitimate complaints, as a group, the powers that be chose dissembling over an honest review. It is a facet we see over and over again. In a situation where it is clear that someone without a constitutional role interfered in an election, the attitude pervading is "don't want to know". In this case, the herd simply accepted that Wikipedia was under attack from nefarious characters and assumed that there was no basis for complaint.

There is a Jimbo-like attitude here - craving the limelight but denying responsibility, even when the very role is one of responsibility.

I find it odd, that someone who had his buttons pushed on the issue of BLPs and sought to be a thorn in the side of the organisation to push for an issue he was passionate about should not see that the organisational failing of ethics were a more general problem that pervaded the whole organisation, and to solve the BLP issue, you need to solve the organisational issue. Instead, we have an organisation with a massively distorted set of ethics who we simply cannot trust to make rational decisions.