Re: [WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
On 1 July 2013 20:47, Carl (CBM) wrote: > On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 6:38 AM, David Gerard wrote: > > > tl;dr: voting creates winners and losers, and losers are unhappy and > > disengage. > > > This is exactly why Germany announced that their next presidential election > is going to eliminate voting entirely, and let the voters just argue about > it until they come to an agreement about the next president. If they can't > agree, the current president will be kept as the status quo. But at least > nobody will feel like their candidate lost. > In fairness the chapter does accept that democracy is okey for countries (because you can't leave them) although I would tend to disagree as to its reasoning as to why democracy was historically adopted. > The "voting is evil" idea has a kernel of truth: when a small number of > editors are working on an individual article, it is better to come to > mutual agreement on article content than to have lots of tiny polls about > the content. > The slogan is pretty useful in keeping things that way. > But somehow "voting is evil" spread to situations where consensus-based > decision making is well known to fail, e.g. on community-level issues where > hundreds of editors want to voice their input. Well, actually we do have a > sort of vote on those, but we claim it "really" isn't a vote, and then we > try to find someone with enough gravitas (a bureaucrat or arbitrator, in > extreme cases) to judge the "consensus". > > I would argue regardless of the wording used what is actually going on there is an attempt at an informed democracy which is probably the best we can hope for. -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
On 1 July 2013 11:38, David Gerard wrote: > Rick Falkvinge has been writing a book, "Swarmwise", on how the Pirate > Party organised. He's been posting it a chapter at a time to his blog. > > You know how Wikipedia/Wikimedia has (or had) the meme that "voting is > evil"? This sets out why. > > > http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/01/swarmwise-the-tactical-manual-to-changing-the-world-chapter-six/ > > tl;dr: voting creates winners and losers, and losers are unhappy and > disengage. > > > Okey having now read the thing in full I'm still going to disagree. Obviously there is the general concept that when people near the top of a project start to oppose democracy its time to get worried however that doesn't really apply to Wikipedia. What does apply is that its quite possible to create winners and losers without messing around with voting. This is a problem in that at least democracy is generally seen as a fair conflict with inherent promise that on a different issue you might win. By comparison people who feel they have lost without a vote tend to start feeling that the system is rigged against them. Sometimes they start blaming admins for everything. His vote avoidance procedures also don't work to well in the context of wikipedia. The consensus circle would be incredible resource intensive by wikipedia standards and would hit the problem that generally 25 wikipedia editors have far less in common than 25 high level pirate party activists (monkey spheres and all that). The resource use issue is the depressingly pragmatic one when it comes to wikipedia votes. Generally votes on wikipedia happen when we need a result either within a fairly short time frame (AFD FPC) or when the resource cost of the ongoing conflict is less than the cost of people being upset over the result (Danzig, Republic of Ireland). -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 6:38 AM, David Gerard wrote: > tl;dr: voting creates winners and losers, and losers are unhappy and > disengage. This is exactly why Germany announced that their next presidential election is going to eliminate voting entirely, and let the voters just argue about it until they come to an agreement about the next president. If they can't agree, the current president will be kept as the status quo. But at least nobody will feel like their candidate lost. The "voting is evil" idea has a kernel of truth: when a small number of editors are working on an individual article, it is better to come to mutual agreement on article content than to have lots of tiny polls about the content. But somehow "voting is evil" spread to situations where consensus-based decision making is well known to fail, e.g. on community-level issues where hundreds of editors want to voice their input. Well, actually we do have a sort of vote on those, but we claim it "really" isn't a vote, and then we try to find someone with enough gravitas (a bureaucrat or arbitrator, in extreme cases) to judge the "consensus". - Carl ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
On 1 July 2013 19:11, David Gerard wrote:
> It's not like he has an existence proof, like founding a successful
> political party or being elected to parliament with this stuff. {{cn}}
>
The parliament in question was the EU parliament. Even the BNP managed
that. In addition during his time as leader the party was a single issue
party which effectively allowed to to freeze out most ludicrous ideas by
limiting the field to IP and making things highly unattractive to copyright
maximalists.
However you of all people should know that there are more than two
scientologists out there.
--
geni
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Re: [WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
On 1 July 2013 18:18, geni wrote:
> "My approach for a very basic sanity check was to have three people agree
> on an idea as good for the swarm. One person can come up with ludicrous
> ideas, but I’ve never seen two more people agree on such ideas."
> Umm not consistent with beening involved in a project of any size.
It's not like he has an existence proof, like founding a successful
political party or being elected to parliament with this stuff. {{cn}}
- d.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] intimidation on wikipedia editing
Dear Luke, One problem with you handling it this way is that we don't know whether the problem was a misunderstanding, a contentious subject or a difference of opinion about referencing. May I suggest that you either ask the editor who reverted you why they did so, or at least tell us the reason they gave in their edit summary. What I've observed but not statistically quantified is a drift from tagging stuff with citation needed to simply just reverting unsourced additions; So it would be helpful if you could tell us whether you cited your sources when you made your edits. Apologies if your edits were sourced, but my experience is that editors who source their edits rarely encounter the sort of problem that you report. That isn't to say I defend those who revert unsourced edits on sight, I actually think that the community is in a bit of a mess where a proportion of recent changes patrollers are working to a different standard than we are communicating to our editors as being required. But the solution is either to change the editing interface to prompt people for their source, or to clarify that uncontentious but unsourced edits should not be reverted on sight. Our current compromise whereby many patrollers impose a higher standard than we officially require is a guarantee of endless newbie biting Regards WSC On 1 July 2013 17:58, Martijn Hoekstra wrote: > On Jul 1, 2013 11:26 AM, "luke.leighton" wrote: > > > > folks hi, > > > > i am a long-time wikipedia user and long-time and low-volume editor, > > and a significant contributor to the strategic roadmap of wikipedia > > which occurred a few years ago. i returned to edit a page and found > > that the IP address of the HTTP proxy that i use had been blocked. i > > was reminded of an extreme intimidation incident which clearly > > violated the spirit of trusting people to contribute to wikipedia, so > > thought it best to alert you of this. > > > > the editing last year was carried out - accidentally - anonymously and > > using my usual style of making several incremental edits in rapid > > succession so as not to lose track of the information being added. i > > was unpleasantly surprised to find that in the middle of the editing > > the *entire* set of edits had been reverted. > > Deplorable. Has it been fixed yet? > > i had encountered the > > user who carried out the blanket reversion before (when logged in) and > > he's what one might call a "wiki nazi": very experienced at "the > > rules", and uses them to bullying effect rather than works *with* a > > less-experienced contributor, usually by doing total-revert in a > > highly disruptive manner. > > > > things escalated and a number of idiots piled in, citing the anonymity > > as a means to "attack" wikipedia, whereas in fact it was purely > > accidental, but the bullying and the lack of trust shown was the > > reason why i chose to *remain* anonymous. > > Using an account under a pseudonym makes you more anonymous than editing > while logged out. > > > > > the article in question i refuse to name publicly because it will > > identify me instantly to the bullies from whom i still wish to remain > > anonymous. > > > > While I understand the sentiment, it does make it virtually impossible to > address what's been going on here. > > > it was a corner-case technical article full of technically inaccurate > > technically unsubstantiated and speculative "wishful thinking" on the > > part of former editors. i.e. former editors *wish* that the > > technology would be successful, but are unfortunately dreadfully > > misinformed on basic maths and physics. the problem is: the lack of > > success of anyone to create a commercially successful version of this > > technology in over 100 years makes it very difficult to provide any > > kind of "wikipedia-acceptable" citations as to why there are no > > commercially successful versions of this technology. > > > > the article therefore continues to mis-inform people rather badly. a > > quick check shows that the page has since been updated, but the core > > concerns remain as the page is completely lacking basic math and > > physics references, as well as having since been marked as requiring > > citations. > > > > so there are several things that need to be resolved - bear in mind > > that i am *not* prepared to help publicly resolve this unless the > > people who carried out the intimidation are taken to task first: > > > > 1) the people who carried out the intimidation and accusations need to > > be reminded of the spirit of wikipedia to *trust* contributors rather > > than automatically assume that they have malicious intent > > > > Sounds reasonable to look in to this, and maybe address it. who were they? > It is rather naive to hope they are on the mailinglist reading this, and > assume this will change anything regarding their bwhaviour > > > 2) the IP address of my HTTP proxy is to be removed. it's utterly > > pointless to block IP addresses ba
Re: [WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
"My approach for a very basic sanity check was to have three people agree on an idea as good for the swarm. One person can come up with ludicrous ideas, but I’ve never seen two more people agree on such ideas." Umm not consistent with beening involved in a project of any size. On 1 July 2013 11:38, David Gerard wrote: > Rick Falkvinge has been writing a book, "Swarmwise", on how the Pirate > Party organised. He's been posting it a chapter at a time to his blog. > > You know how Wikipedia/Wikimedia has (or had) the meme that "voting is > evil"? This sets out why. > > > http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/01/swarmwise-the-tactical-manual-to-changing-the-world-chapter-six/ > > tl;dr: voting creates winners and losers, and losers are unhappy and > disengage. > > > - d. > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] intimidation on wikipedia editing
On Jul 1, 2013 11:26 AM, "luke.leighton" wrote: > > folks hi, > > i am a long-time wikipedia user and long-time and low-volume editor, > and a significant contributor to the strategic roadmap of wikipedia > which occurred a few years ago. i returned to edit a page and found > that the IP address of the HTTP proxy that i use had been blocked. i > was reminded of an extreme intimidation incident which clearly > violated the spirit of trusting people to contribute to wikipedia, so > thought it best to alert you of this. > > the editing last year was carried out - accidentally - anonymously and > using my usual style of making several incremental edits in rapid > succession so as not to lose track of the information being added. i > was unpleasantly surprised to find that in the middle of the editing > the *entire* set of edits had been reverted. Deplorable. Has it been fixed yet? i had encountered the > user who carried out the blanket reversion before (when logged in) and > he's what one might call a "wiki nazi": very experienced at "the > rules", and uses them to bullying effect rather than works *with* a > less-experienced contributor, usually by doing total-revert in a > highly disruptive manner. > > things escalated and a number of idiots piled in, citing the anonymity > as a means to "attack" wikipedia, whereas in fact it was purely > accidental, but the bullying and the lack of trust shown was the > reason why i chose to *remain* anonymous. Using an account under a pseudonym makes you more anonymous than editing while logged out. > > the article in question i refuse to name publicly because it will > identify me instantly to the bullies from whom i still wish to remain > anonymous. > While I understand the sentiment, it does make it virtually impossible to address what's been going on here. > it was a corner-case technical article full of technically inaccurate > technically unsubstantiated and speculative "wishful thinking" on the > part of former editors. i.e. former editors *wish* that the > technology would be successful, but are unfortunately dreadfully > misinformed on basic maths and physics. the problem is: the lack of > success of anyone to create a commercially successful version of this > technology in over 100 years makes it very difficult to provide any > kind of "wikipedia-acceptable" citations as to why there are no > commercially successful versions of this technology. > > the article therefore continues to mis-inform people rather badly. a > quick check shows that the page has since been updated, but the core > concerns remain as the page is completely lacking basic math and > physics references, as well as having since been marked as requiring > citations. > > so there are several things that need to be resolved - bear in mind > that i am *not* prepared to help publicly resolve this unless the > people who carried out the intimidation are taken to task first: > > 1) the people who carried out the intimidation and accusations need to > be reminded of the spirit of wikipedia to *trust* contributors rather > than automatically assume that they have malicious intent > Sounds reasonable to look in to this, and maybe address it. who were they? It is rather naive to hope they are on the mailinglist reading this, and assume this will change anything regarding their bwhaviour > 2) the IP address of my HTTP proxy is to be removed. it's utterly > pointless to block IP addresses based on an *individual's* assessment, > when there are things such as "Tor" and other truly anonymous proxies. > anyone wishing to truly vandalise wikipedia could do so with extreme > prejudice in an automated fashion, and they would certainly not use an > HTTP proxy where a simple reverse-DNS lookup would quickly identify > them. > Open proxies are generally blocked not to prevent a single specific user access, but to prevent vandals from hopping from proxy to proxy. This is not a theoretical concern, but has been amply proven in practice. Other open proxies and tor are also agressively blocked. In the case of tor we even have an entire extension to handle blocks. If your proxy isn't open, it shouldn't have been blocked as such - though at times the community has found that particularly problematic ranges from webhosts are blocked entirely because if the sheer number of proxies that have actively facilitated vandalism through them. Anyway, requesting unblock on-wiki should be the first step. While I understand in part why you aren't willing to divulge the blocked IP here, on the other we can't unblock unknown blocks. > once these things have been done then i am prepared to assist further > in resolving the subtly misleading parts of the article. i am happy > to provide the details *privately* to more senior individuals within > the wikipedia foundation such that an investigation can be made. > The foundation can't really do anything about this really. Fixing this problem lies with the community. >
Re: [WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
> Rick Falkvinge has been writing a book, "Swarmwise", on how the Pirate > Party organised. He's been posting it a chapter at a time to his blog. > > You know how Wikipedia/Wikimedia has (or had) the meme that "voting is > evil"? This sets out why. > > > http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/01/swarmwise-the-tactical-manual-to-changing-the-world-chapter-six/ > > tl;dr: voting creates winners and losers, and losers are unhappy and > disengage. > > > - d. And what is the difference when any Wikipedian with good sense avoids participation in any policy discussion unless there is massive consensus. Practical experience with anarchic decision-making shows that aggressive idiots rule. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] intimidation on wikipedia editing
The problem with open proxies is that anyone can use them; lists of them are published. They are blocked routinely due mainly to spambots which create many accounts and insert nonsense, usually with links to dubious commercial sources. I recommend you create an anonymous account and edit in that way. Fred > folks hi, > > i am a long-time wikipedia user and long-time and low-volume editor, > and a significant contributor to the strategic roadmap of wikipedia > which occurred a few years ago. i returned to edit a page and found > that the IP address of the HTTP proxy that i use had been blocked. i > was reminded of an extreme intimidation incident which clearly > violated the spirit of trusting people to contribute to wikipedia, so > thought it best to alert you of this. > > the editing last year was carried out - accidentally - anonymously and > using my usual style of making several incremental edits in rapid > succession so as not to lose track of the information being added. i > was unpleasantly surprised to find that in the middle of the editing > the *entire* set of edits had been reverted. i had encountered the > user who carried out the blanket reversion before (when logged in) and > he's what one might call a "wiki nazi": very experienced at "the > rules", and uses them to bullying effect rather than works *with* a > less-experienced contributor, usually by doing total-revert in a > highly disruptive manner. > > things escalated and a number of idiots piled in, citing the anonymity > as a means to "attack" wikipedia, whereas in fact it was purely > accidental, but the bullying and the lack of trust shown was the > reason why i chose to *remain* anonymous. > > the article in question i refuse to name publicly because it will > identify me instantly to the bullies from whom i still wish to remain > anonymous. > > it was a corner-case technical article full of technically inaccurate > technically unsubstantiated and speculative "wishful thinking" on the > part of former editors. i.e. former editors *wish* that the > technology would be successful, but are unfortunately dreadfully > misinformed on basic maths and physics. the problem is: the lack of > success of anyone to create a commercially successful version of this > technology in over 100 years makes it very difficult to provide any > kind of "wikipedia-acceptable" citations as to why there are no > commercially successful versions of this technology. > > the article therefore continues to mis-inform people rather badly. a > quick check shows that the page has since been updated, but the core > concerns remain as the page is completely lacking basic math and > physics references, as well as having since been marked as requiring > citations. > > so there are several things that need to be resolved - bear in mind > that i am *not* prepared to help publicly resolve this unless the > people who carried out the intimidation are taken to task first: > > 1) the people who carried out the intimidation and accusations need to > be reminded of the spirit of wikipedia to *trust* contributors rather > than automatically assume that they have malicious intent > > 2) the IP address of my HTTP proxy is to be removed. it's utterly > pointless to block IP addresses based on an *individual's* assessment, > when there are things such as "Tor" and other truly anonymous proxies. > anyone wishing to truly vandalise wikipedia could do so with extreme > prejudice in an automated fashion, and they would certainly not use an > HTTP proxy where a simple reverse-DNS lookup would quickly identify > them. > > once these things have been done then i am prepared to assist further > in resolving the subtly misleading parts of the article. i am happy > to provide the details *privately* to more senior individuals within > the wikipedia foundation such that an investigation can be made. > > my efforts to improve wikipedia's accuracy are genuine and sincere, > but as a very low-traffic part-time editor of highly-technical > corner-case articles i simply don't have time to go learning all the > "rules": i'm just not interested, to be absolutely frank. i'm happy > to work with people who are sincere and accommodating who truly > welcome technical input. > > l. > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
Rick Falkvinge has been writing a book, "Swarmwise", on how the Pirate Party organised. He's been posting it a chapter at a time to his blog. You know how Wikipedia/Wikimedia has (or had) the meme that "voting is evil"? This sets out why. http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/01/swarmwise-the-tactical-manual-to-changing-the-world-chapter-six/ tl;dr: voting creates winners and losers, and losers are unhappy and disengage. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] intimidation on wikipedia editing
folks hi, i am a long-time wikipedia user and long-time and low-volume editor, and a significant contributor to the strategic roadmap of wikipedia which occurred a few years ago. i returned to edit a page and found that the IP address of the HTTP proxy that i use had been blocked. i was reminded of an extreme intimidation incident which clearly violated the spirit of trusting people to contribute to wikipedia, so thought it best to alert you of this. the editing last year was carried out - accidentally - anonymously and using my usual style of making several incremental edits in rapid succession so as not to lose track of the information being added. i was unpleasantly surprised to find that in the middle of the editing the *entire* set of edits had been reverted. i had encountered the user who carried out the blanket reversion before (when logged in) and he's what one might call a "wiki nazi": very experienced at "the rules", and uses them to bullying effect rather than works *with* a less-experienced contributor, usually by doing total-revert in a highly disruptive manner. things escalated and a number of idiots piled in, citing the anonymity as a means to "attack" wikipedia, whereas in fact it was purely accidental, but the bullying and the lack of trust shown was the reason why i chose to *remain* anonymous. the article in question i refuse to name publicly because it will identify me instantly to the bullies from whom i still wish to remain anonymous. it was a corner-case technical article full of technically inaccurate technically unsubstantiated and speculative "wishful thinking" on the part of former editors. i.e. former editors *wish* that the technology would be successful, but are unfortunately dreadfully misinformed on basic maths and physics. the problem is: the lack of success of anyone to create a commercially successful version of this technology in over 100 years makes it very difficult to provide any kind of "wikipedia-acceptable" citations as to why there are no commercially successful versions of this technology. the article therefore continues to mis-inform people rather badly. a quick check shows that the page has since been updated, but the core concerns remain as the page is completely lacking basic math and physics references, as well as having since been marked as requiring citations. so there are several things that need to be resolved - bear in mind that i am *not* prepared to help publicly resolve this unless the people who carried out the intimidation are taken to task first: 1) the people who carried out the intimidation and accusations need to be reminded of the spirit of wikipedia to *trust* contributors rather than automatically assume that they have malicious intent 2) the IP address of my HTTP proxy is to be removed. it's utterly pointless to block IP addresses based on an *individual's* assessment, when there are things such as "Tor" and other truly anonymous proxies. anyone wishing to truly vandalise wikipedia could do so with extreme prejudice in an automated fashion, and they would certainly not use an HTTP proxy where a simple reverse-DNS lookup would quickly identify them. once these things have been done then i am prepared to assist further in resolving the subtly misleading parts of the article. i am happy to provide the details *privately* to more senior individuals within the wikipedia foundation such that an investigation can be made. my efforts to improve wikipedia's accuracy are genuine and sincere, but as a very low-traffic part-time editor of highly-technical corner-case articles i simply don't have time to go learning all the "rules": i'm just not interested, to be absolutely frank. i'm happy to work with people who are sincere and accommodating who truly welcome technical input. l. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
