AP295

thank you

Thanks for spotting META:Requests for comment/Violating the Neutral point of view in Arabic Wiki. It'll take me a while to read, but I am curious if you are going to be posting this topic on the ucoc discussion here at foundation. Unfortunately I am blocked at META (and many others too) so cannot participate in discussions there. Ottawahitech (talk) 23:53, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

"but I am curious if you are going to be posting this topic on the ucoc discussion here at foundation." Why would I do that? I didn't post the RFC to begin with, I only obliged the request for comments. Being somewhat tired at the moment, I'm struggling to come up with a glib summary of the RfC for you. The complaint against arwiki is more than a bit loony, and that's putting it charitably. Morally bankrupt is the phrase that comes to mind, though with the proviso that I cannot read Arabic. I suppose I should say something about it in the policy discussion though. A few editors in the RfC have dolled out the usual round of thought-terminating clichés. I don't mean to make it look like that's stopping me. Rather, I haven't the energy for it right at the moment. AP295 (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

re: "I haven't the energy for it right at the moment."

Tell me about it! I am also going through something similar. I guess we all do. I miss your fiery attitude at wikiversity. Hope you recover soon.

btw I did not see your response until now, even though I have been checking this page periodically. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech: There's also this RfC. Remarkable how easily the dubious principles of "neutrality" and "consensus" are abused in order to confect such rhetoric, isn't it? AP295 (talk) 01:44, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I've had this thought for some time now. Part of what enables this is that on wikipedia and other wikimedia projects, the concepts "neutrality" and "consensus" are applied as aphorisms or dogma. It's entirely well and fine to say that encyclopedic articles should be objective and unbiased. Yet "neutral" is not a perfect substitute for "unbiased" or "objective". It does get the point across e.g. as in w:WP:NPOV but words like "objective" or "unbiased" would do just as well in that case. I get the sense that "neutrality" is more easily abused, for instance, to enforce a sort of apolitical quietism and this works all the better when the term "neutrality" is aggrandized and treated as a principle (aka "fundamental pillar" or "one of the five pillars" or some such shamanism). Such appeals to "neutrality" are really just question-begging nonsense. AP295 (talk) 02:39, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey, Nice to see you back here. Thanks for the link to the Community consensus for blackouts and other advocacy rfc on META. I guess this topic is/was not dead as I had assumed. It also linked me to a short discussion on the enwp village pump Ar-Wiki breaking neutrality on homepage which I assume you are aware of? Pity that one was closed prematurely.

I have been following a different kind of RFC on META: Global ban for Slowking4 (2). This discussion is about Slowking4, who is a prolific wikimedia contributor, who has been indef blocked on 3-4 wikis, and some believe this is reason enough to lock him/her out of all online+real life activities organized by the Wikimedia Movement (how will this be enforced if supported by the META community?)

I personally find this discussion more interesting and mature than other discussions I have witnessed on META before. YMMV. I think it is not expected to close for another week or so, even though it has been going strong for weeks.

Note: I only got notified 3 days ago about your post here, and only saw the notification for the first time earlier today.

Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 00:08, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

From what I've seen in general, global ban RFCs are poorly-run and lack reasonable due process. They typically amount to a plebiscite, mostly involving the same couple dozen editors each time around. Often they're padded out with bogus complaints like "incivility". It's not clear that there's a need to issue global bans in the first place. All that said, their global ban RfC is not the worst I've seen and does seem to include reasonable supporting evidence. I'm not familiar with the editor Slowking4. A cursory search shows dozens (if not hundreds) of copyright notices on their Wikipedia talk page. Breaking the copyright rules can cause problems for wikimedia. They can't just let users upload copyrighted material. AP295 (talk) 13:07, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting points...

Re:"mostly involving the same couple dozen editors each time around."

I have noticed the same thing on META RFCs.

• It appears that many of the participants are those who watchlist the RFC page and then participate in any RFC that turns up, no matter what.
  • It seems that some of these contributors do not even care to do any research and simply vote with the majority without providing any rationale, or simply saying "per x-user"
    • The above is just my impression - I have not done any homework to check if this is so
• There are others who have had a previous unpleasant incident that involved the potential-banee who vote Support for the ban
  • It would be interesting to follow some of these contributors to see if the logic they use in their rationale is the same they use in other discussions
• Some vote because they believe it supports a principle, in this example slowking4 edited as a sock puppet, something that many view as the ultimate wiki-sin.
• In general the participants are mostly current/wannabe functionaries, not a cross-section of the general community
  • Not sure how this can be fixed because many content contributors shy away from these toxic RFCs
  • This RFC is unusual as some of the participants come from Wikisource, where it appears that other contributors do not want to lose Slowking4. Would be interesting to see if copyright is an issue there
    • I have not seen this kind of behavior of supporting a person who is not a functionary. However my experience in this area is limited
• I know he/she is also involved in outreach-wiki

... to be continued when time permits Ottawahitech (talk) 16:47, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

"In general the participants are mostly current/wannabe functionaries, not a cross-section of the general community." This appears to be more or less how "consensus" works on Wikipedia and the other projects. Decisions about content, users, or whatever else are often made by a small clique of regular users. The phrase "community consensus", often summarized as "consensus" (another of the five-mystical-pillars-that-must-never-be-questioned) does not seem to amount to much more than a clever PR slogan. AP295 (talk) 06:55, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

As an example unrelated to those RfCs, consider v:Wikidebate/Guidelines. I wrote a critique of the wikidebate guidelines (which is unfinished and really just a set of notes, but should suffice to explain the problem with wikidebates). As another example, I suggested that wikinews allow editorials, and "non-neutrality" seems to be the basis for most of the objections [1]. Presumably most newspapers and online news organizations include editorials, why not wikinews? I could probably find more examples (or better examples) of circular arguments involving NPOV, but you get the point. The RfC makes it particularly apparent how facile, absurd and morally/intellectually vacuous such arguments can be, and while the RfCs don't seem to have much momentum at present it's perhaps also worth considering the many lesser instances where "neutrality" is used rhetorically. "Look to the language", Hitchens often advised on the matter of propaganda. Not being a writer, nor a linguist, nor multilingual, I've found it challenging to describe the problem in precise terms but I'm getting there, hopefully. AP295 (talk) 04:32, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech: Another discussion of interest: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Requests_for_deletion#Joint_Statement_on_Palestine I'll repeat part of my comment here since I think it's a good one-line description of the problem, not just with this issue but with the word "neutrality" as a whole: The word "neutral" is being applied as euphemism to conflate objectivity and political quietism.AP295 (talk) 09:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Adding to the above, I'm reminded of this section of Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language: "Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly even expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality’, while another writes, ‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness’, the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. [...]. Many political words are similarly abused.[my emphasis] The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. [...] Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.". Add "neutrality" to the list. It and most of the other idolatrized nominalizations of the form *tion, *ity, and *ism. I find I'm quoting this essay often, and I understand it more and more each time I go back to it. I didn't recognize it at first, but this part is possibly the most important. Perhaps I'll go over this in more detail in an essay of my own. I strongly recommend Orwell's essay. One of my main interests is developing effective countermeasures to the interminable, mind-numbing propaganda forced upon the public, mostly in the form of dialog or short essays. Things a person can communicate to others easily. I have no background in writing or propaganda, so it has been an uphill fight. I digress. AP295 (talk) 11:05, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Slowking4 RFC finally closed

m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Slowking4 (2) closed "there is not yet sufficient consensus to enact a global ban on Slowking4" by the token woman Steward, and as I suspected, opened a possibility for another RFC in short order. No allusion to some unusual elements, such as how to prevent a globally banned Wikimedian from showing up at real-life wiki-meets, and nothing about irregularities such as "Someone has made stealth edits to the original proposal". I wonder if the Signpost will cover this RFC?

At least consensus was not treated a a simple vote-count (doing this would have caused a wikiwide-revolution imio :-), but I don't see much progress otherwise. Of course now we know what the opinion of the closing admin is. What do you think?

Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 22:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

You'll have to pardon me, I didn't really look closely at that RfC nor Slowking4 himself. I'm not in favor of global or indefinite bans, though I didn't weigh in. In any case, long term puppeteers/evaders seem to fair well, generally, so I wasn't terribly concerned. Meanwhile I was blocked for a month, apparently for my counterarguments in the RfD [2]. Are editors obliged to let falsehoods/distortions about ongoing war crimes stand uncontested? If not then there was no reason to block me. If so, I'd like to see it added to site policy. Maybe I should be asking the blocking sysop. I wrote a bit about this sort of censorship on my meta userpage [3] before I was blocked. AP295 (talk) 03:35, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

RE: "Meanwhile I was blocked for a month"

I checked your blocklog and it shows this is the second time you were blocked. Here is your full blocklog on META;

• 13:41, 21 April 2024 Ajraddatz talk contribs blocked AP295 talk contribs with an expiration time of 1 month (account creation disabled) (Cross-wiki issues: Continued disruptive editing on RFD and refusal to get the point, after similar blocks on two other projects and a previous block here.)
• 03:17, 23 January 2024 Billinghurst talk contribs blocked AP295 talk contribs from the page Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat with an expiration time of 1 week (Intimidating behaviour/harassment).

The most recent block: "Continued disruptive editing on RFD and refusal to get the point, after similar blocks on two other projects and a previous block here" tells me that you have been blocked before on META (for one week according to the block log), and that you were also blocked on two other wikiland-wikis. It tells me that the reason for the current block is:

1. Cross-wiki issues:
2. Continued disruptive editing on RFD
3. refusal to get the point

It does not tell me:

1. where else you were blocked and why
2. which RFD on META you were disruptive on (let alone a diff that demonstrates the accusation)
3. same for refusal to get the point

If one wanted to find out why you were blocked they would have to go to a lot of effort. Do you know any wikimedians who can help you out? ime the accusation of:"Intimidating behaviour/harassment" is by far the more critical accusation. Ottawahitech (talk) 20:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ottawahitech: The first block on meta seems to have been retaliation for my comments and frank assessment of another global ban RfD. I had no familiarity with the editor nominated, but rather I was displeased with the lack of due process.[4] The pair of editors not happy with my dissenting opinion created a thread on WM:RFH accusing me of "trolling". [5] I gave my own side of the story on RFH and for that I was banned from WM:RHF for one week. In short, Billinghurst made the charge up. I was only speaking in my own defense, and quite irritated at that point from the antagonism of the opposing editors. That's perhaps why I hesitated to get involved with another global ban RfC, in the case of Slowking4. The wiktionary block is explained in my appeal, which is on my wiktionary talk page and has been ignored for months. ([6] may also provide some background) My wikipedia block is explained on my wikiversity talk page in the section Dan Polansky made to ask about it. They're all essentially nonsense, which is why the blocking sysops make vague charges and cite essays rather than official policy. I have no ill intent but I do question hypocrisy and incongruities in policy when I see it. After several appeals, one admin (or whatever they are) put it to me pretty broadly that appeals are not seriously considered unless one admits wrongdoing, which I refuse to do. And if I ever lost my patience, it was at the provocation of others. AP295 (talk) 23:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll add that while they were all unjustified, I particularly resent my my wiktionary block (again, explained in my appeal [7]). TheKnightWho (and probably also -sche) should be de-sysoped for his obvious antagonism, his debasement of my contributions (e.g. propaganda laundering), and general impropriety such as blocking me from my talk page while I was composing my appeal, which despite his interference is still strong enough to support my case. AP295 (talk) 02:11, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

To answer your question though, I do have a few general points. First, behavior/civility complaints in general may or may not be valid. Again, see my short essay here [8]. Without specific diffs or sourced quotes I'm not inclined to take someone's word for it. Secondly, I don't care about sockpuppeting (in the sense of ban/block evasion) in and of itself. One can be handed a long-term or indefinite block without having violated site policy, for any number of bullshit reasons, and I cannot blame someone for evading such a block. Again, the point about copyright violations is valid but a literal interpretation of the rules (how else can one interpret them?), specifically w:WP:IAR, would seem to permit it (the takeaway being that the rules should be more clearly defined and consistent). I suppose I should have read it in more detail but I was more concerned with the RfD. " and nothing about irregularities such as "Someone has made stealth edits to the original proposal"" What were they, out of curiosity? "What do you think?" My cursory impression is vague. I'd have to look more closely. Am I missing something? AP295 (talk) 04:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Re:"I didn't really look closely at that RfC"

• ..and I did not look at any of the RFCs you had mentioned, yet. This is something I have been wondering about since the accusation of disruptive editing is mentioned frequently. I have checked the pageview statistics of the Slowing(2) RFC and at the end of yesterday there were 14,358 (unique?) views of this page. Multiply this with the number of all other META RFC + all the contributors actually checking some of the diffs which has been providing by the RFC-op + etc. Does not this count as disruption?

All this energy could have been directed to content building instead, sigh...

re: "long term puppeteers/evaders seem to fair well, generally"

• Not in my experience. Actually one of the reasons (I speculate) I am viewed as a weirdo is my tendency to come to the defense of blocked/banned members of the wiki-community. Doing so is a no-no in most corners of wiki-land. My sin was mentioned by a well-meaning admin on enwp shortly before I was indef blocked in 2017.

Now I am under attack for the same behavior on enwq, where I have not been blocked (yet). A prolific sock puppeteer on enwq keeps adding (good IMIO) content there, and has to constantly change their log-in ID because the Stewards continue blocking all their sock-incarnations every few days. There are now hundreds of those globally locked/blocked socks, and a whole industry of contributors has sprung up of those who do nothing else other than the pursuit of socks. As far as I can tell, this particular sockpuppeteer has never gone through a META RFC, and was simply globally blocked on the says of a somebody, I think.

Again, all this energy could have been directed to content building instead, sigh...

RE: "Someone has made stealth edits to the original proposal"

• This was mentioned by the third contributor in the section Proposal to close. I believe one such "stealth" edit refers to the addition of wiki-links to the original Criteria confirmation section which changed the associated checkmarks to a wiki-links.

I personally agree with the assessment of this edit as "stealth":

• • the edit was made a month after the RFC was opened (14 March 2024‎), so were not available to all the who "voted" before 13 April 2024‎.
  • The "stealth" edit was added later by an IP not by the Op
  • I doubt too many contributors noticed that the checkmarks have become clickable and actually followed up (If I had the time and energy I would check pageviews) to see if there was a noticeable bump Such "stealth" edits are unacceptable IMIO.

... to be continued when time permits. Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 23:51, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

"Disruptive editing" is frequently a euphemism for "insubordination", an invalid charge since editors are not subordinate to sysops/admins themselves but to site policy, supposedly. I probably ought to simply vote "no" to global ban RfCs in most cases, since, as one editor put it, they really just amount to a "tar-and-feathering by mob rule". Appeals never seem to be taken seriously. My appeals are always rejected out of hand, usually with a glib and insinuating quip. AP295 (talk) 05:44, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

There's really only one reason anyone ever gets blocked; some of their contributions are a nuisance to the powers that be. Some people are a nuisance because they write truths. Other people are a nuisance because they write falsehoods. The remainder are just plain nuisances. @Slowking4: which sort are you, if you don't mind? Ottawahitech seems to find you interesting. They seem to think I'll find you interesting. In all seriousness, people can be blocked for all manner of BS nonsense, as well as for a variety of legitimate reasons, obviously. But where are my manners? How do you do, I'm AP295. AP295 (talk) 23:11, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Also FYI, Slowking4, I tried to read a few of your essays here, but the pages don't seem to exist so I presume they were either deleted or moved. Do let me know. AP295 (talk) 23:55, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Blocks

@Ottawahitech: I have a suggestion that I think would greatly mitigate the whole problem of abusive blocks: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_talk:Universal_Code_of_Conduct#Admins/sysops_issuing_a_block_should_be_required_to_cite_the_offending_diff(s)_and_the_specific_(official)_rule/policy_violated_in_the_block_log_message I suppose it should have occurred to me sooner, it's pretty obvious. If you want accountability and oversight then keeping a usable record is pretty important. If I don't get much discussion on the UCoC talk page (and I'm sure I won't) then I'll make and RfC on meta. I'm pretty interested to hear what they all have to say about it. There's really no excuse not to require this. AP295 (talk) 07:47, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts to address this issue. I personally agree it is something that affects the community in a negative way. I doubt though that many share our opinion, and if they do, I doubt they believe it is that simple to fix. See my comment at:

Admins/sysops issuing a block should be required to cite the offending diff(s) and the specific (official) rule/policy violated in the block log message Ottawahitech (talk) 00:05, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

I feel extraordinarily thickheaded not to have had this thought sooner. I've considered the problem for some time now.