Office actions

[geni]

On 12/15/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman@...> wrote:

> On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:18:43 +0000, geni <geniice@...> wrote:
>
> >Admins have rather a lot of other things to do. Admin only editing of
> >articles does not strike me as a good idea. In theory at least when it
> >comes to editing we are all equal.
>
> I'm not sure I agree here.  There is a bar to entry for admins, and it
> is reasonable to require, at least in the short term, that we allow
> editing only by trusted individuals.  Protection is a blunt instrument
> and certainly excludes many highly trustworthy individuals, but it
> does exclude most of those likely to perpetuate the problem. Hopefully
> if the clarification Jimbo gave is taken to heart, the protection
> period can be reduced as we fix the articles.
>
> Guy (JzG)

The divide between editors and admins should be as small small as
posible. At the moment most of the admin powers are ah procedural.
They are not really ment to be related to content. I would not like to
see that change. There are too many traps on that path.

--
geni
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[bbatsell]

On Dec 15, 2006, at 11:54 AM, geni wrote:

>
> The divide between editors and admins should be as small small as
> posible. At the moment most of the admin powers are ah procedural.
> They are not really ment to be related to content. I would not like to
> see that change. There are too many traps on that path.

I agree in principle and in nearly every other instance, but working  
in the legal profession myself, I understand how important and  
damaging certain actions can be to future civil action.  Looking at  
[[WP:OFFICE]], I see that 8 articles are under protection, and 1  
should probably be delisted and can't be fixed by anyone.  We're not  
talking about an enormous backlog of OFFICE-protected articles, and I  
think each article that needs editing could have that done by one or  
two enterprising administrators.  In my mind, it's not that big of a  
deal.
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[Sam Korn]

On 12/15/06, geni <geniice@...> wrote:
> On 12/15/06, Sam Korn <smoddy@...> wrote:
> > On 12/15/06, Guettarda <guettarda@...> wrote:
> > > Interesting.  I thought everyone newer than me was a rank newbie... (yeah, I
> > > know, I've been here a whole 3 months longer than you).
> >
> > Doesn't everyone think that?
> >
>
> After a while you adjust that to everyone who joined after you made it to admin.

You do?  Oh good.

--
Sam
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[Guettarda]

On 12/15/06, geni <geniice@...> wrote:

>
> On 12/15/06, Sam Korn <smoddy@...> wrote:
> > On 12/15/06, Guettarda <guettarda@...> wrote:
> > > Interesting.  I thought everyone newer than me was a rank newbie...
> (yeah, I
> > > know, I've been here a whole 3 months longer than you).
> >
> > Doesn't everyone think that?
> >
>
> After a while you adjust that to everyone who joined after you made it to
> admin.

The sad thing is that the ranks of people who joined around the same time as
me are starting to thin.  I've gotten used to the fact that most of the
regulars when I joined don't edit much any more, but it's sad to see that
the people who joined around the same time as I did (mid to late 2004)
aren't around much either.  What really makes me feel old is all the people
who have come, become stalwarts of the community, and then burned out...who
weren't even editing back when I had my RFA.  It makes you feel rather
ent-ish ;)
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[Michael Bimmler]

On 12/15/06, Guettarda <guettarda@...> wrote:
 but it's sad to see that
> the people who joined around the same time as I did (mid to late 2004)
> aren't around much either.  What really makes me feel old is all the people
> who have come, become stalwarts of the community, and then burned out...who
> weren't even editing back when I had my RFA.  It makes you feel rather
> ent-ish ;)

Hm. I'm on dewp since April 04 and I don't feel ent-ish yet. At least
on dewp, there are still a lot of people, who were regulars (as in
"sysops") when I joined...
Michael
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[Earle Martin]

On 15/12/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@...> wrote:
> I don't think Earle needs to be put on moderation, I think Earle needs a
> big hug.

Aw, shucks.

> Earle, I can tell you that nothing is approaching anything like the Open
> Directory Project.

I'm very glad to hear it. Speaking from bitter experience as ex-ODP...
but that's better suited elsewhere.

> It is not very helpful to accuse Danny or the Foundation of any sort of
> "memory hole" policies or of becoming closed like the ODP.

After subjecting earlier posts in this thread to a more careful
re-reading, it appears I missed the lines quoted in Matthew Brown's
original post, which made his comments appear to mean something very
different indeed when read out of context ("Danny doesn't want an
official decision of the Foundation on record") - hence my incredulous
reply.

I apologise for any offence caused by my misunderstanding. I certainly
wouldn't want anyone to compare a project of mine to the ODP. (Whoops,
there I go again!)

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Earle
(enjoying a hearty dinner of crow and humble pie)

--
Earle Martin
            http://downlode.org/
http://purl.org/net/earlemartin/
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[George Herbert]

On 12/15/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales@...> wrote:

>
> Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
> > Given the number of people who don't understand or don't care that what
> > happens on Wikipedia can have real-world implications, a suitable degree
> > of "HERE BE DRAGONS" /is/ needed.
>
> So I agree with you about that... to a degree.
>
> The problem is that far too often, when something is tagged WP:OFFICE it
> just sits there, for months, with everyone scared to do anything.  This
> is the opposite of what is intended.
>
> --Jimbo

I'm extremely glad you came here and said this, as the impression which has
been filtering out, as I saw it, was that OFFICE meant that even senior
trusted editors had to stay hands-off unless you happened to be "In the
OFFICE loop" on a particular problem.

I agree with something I think Guy said earlier, that even having the "This
is OFFICE because of reason XYZ" descriptor on articles, rather than "It's
OFFICE (implied don't touch)", would be a huge improvement.

I am perfectly willing to help with problem articles, IF I know what the
problem is and I won't get yelled at or blocked for doing so.


--
-george william herbert
george.herbert@...
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[Delirium]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
>  
>
>>Given the number of people who don't understand or don't care that what
>>happens on Wikipedia can have real-world implications, a suitable degree
>>of "HERE BE DRAGONS" /is/ needed.
>>    
>>
>
>So I agree with you about that... to a degree.
>
>The problem is that far too often, when something is tagged WP:OFFICE it
>just sits there, for months, with everyone scared to do anything.  This
>is the opposite of what is intended.
>  
>

That's what I am unclear on (and I imagine some others are too).  My
original understanding of WP:OFFICE was that it was a quick-fix
lockdown: while the Foundation is trying to sort out an imminent
problem, the page gets stubbed or blanked and has a WP:OFFICE banner on
it, giving the Foundation a bit of temporary breathing room to do the
sorting out.

But it seems that's not what it's *actually* being used for, since the
banner sometimes stays for months and there doesn't seem to be any of
that "sorting out" activity going on in the meantime.  So what is
actually intended?  That the article be rewritten cautiously from
scratch?  How long does the WP:OFFICE banner (and protection) stay on in
that case?  Basically I'm unsure what, as a normal editor, I should do
with regards to such pages.  My original understanding was that I should
just leave the page alone for a few days, pending someone figuring out
the situation and re-opening editing from a new starting point.  But
maybe that's not the process?

-Mark

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[Ray Saintonge]

Stone age??  That was only three years ago. :-)
Ec

James Hare wrote:

>I may be senior to many Wikipedians but I wasn't around in the stone ages!
>:)
>
>On 12/15/06, Angela <beesley@...> wrote:
>  
>
>>On 12/16/06, James Hare <messedrocker@...> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>He may have been the first permabanned user to become elected to the Board of Trustees!
>>>      
>>>
>>Erik wasn't exactly "permabanned", and neither was he the first
>>trustee to be elected after being blocked. I wonder how many people
>>remember that Jimmy blocked an account Anthere was using many years
>>ago. :)
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mediator&diff=1570530&oldid=1569877
>>
>>Angela
>>

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[Ray Saintonge]

Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Earle Martin wrote:
>  
>
>>In this case, it was an "office action", which appears to generally
>>equate to "putting stuff in the memory hole".
>>
>>Is it Foundation policy to hide official decisions of the Foundation?
>>Or is it Danny policy? Either way, it appears that the management of
>>this project is asymptotically approaching that of the Open[sic]
>>Directory Project.
>>    
>>
>That's grounds for moderation, citizen.
>

While Earle's interpretation may be debatable, this kind of reaction
tends to put a chill on the conversation.  The suggestions are at least
possible, but easily rebuttable.  The kind of questions asked are
predictable in an environment where only limited real information is
made public.  If they are kept open without answers they are too easily
taken to logical conclusions of cabal and conspiracy.  A threat of
punishment only catalyses such a conclusion.

Ec

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[Ray Saintonge]

James Hare wrote:

>Yes. We all know what happened to Erik Moeller.
>
>And now let's not speak of that incident ever again.
>
That would not be remedial.

It was an instructive incident about how quickly things can develop
badly.  To be instructive it needs to be depersonalized.  That Danny and
Erik were the persons involved is of no consequence.  It's evident from
the present thread that the incident did have a broader effect, because
some senior editors have become excessively cautious about being bold.

Ec

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[Ray Saintonge]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>But that's a problem that everyone wants to fix in an open, transparent,
>and loving way.  It is not very helpful to accuse Danny or the
>Foundation of any sort of "memory hole" policies or of becoming closed
>like the ODP.
>
>Please, let's all always move forward by assuming good faith.  
>
"Memory holes" strike me more as a by-product of negligence than of any
assumption of faith, good or bad.  The person who lurks at the problem
article but does nothing to repair it may also operating on the
good-faith intent that he should not be meddling in a situation that he
knows nothing about.

Ec

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[Erik Moeller-4]

On 12/15/06, Parker Peters <onmywayoutster@...> wrote:
> ... to get the answers he needs so that he doesn't step on the toes of
> OFFICE.
>
> If those answers aren't provided, if OFFICE isn't willing to tell an ..

As an aside, could we stop writing "office" in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS?
It's starting to kind of creep me out. ;-) The office is not _that_
impressive; believe me, I've been there. :-)

I don't think it's likely that an editor will be indef-blocked for
good faith edits anytime soon -- and if it does happen, we'll try to
straighten it out ASAP. Most of the articles under office protection
end up there because they were written by people not familiar with our
policies of verifiability and neutrality, or those deliberately
violating them. In general, the process is: stub it down and start
from scratch, with more trusted editors taking the lead.

I think the office process is still one we need to eventually reform
(make more transparent, scalable, etc.). But right now we're in the
middle of a major fundraiser and other organizational reforms, so it's
not the highest priority for Board+ED+Legal Counsel.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik

DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
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[Jimmy Wales]

Parker Peters wrote:

>> The point is, mistakes are made, errors are reversible, assuming good
>> faith and trying to listen to each other is always better than the
>> alternatives.
>>
>
> Precisely, Jimbo.
>
> And assuming good faith, and asking what the boundaries are before doing
> something when OFFICE is potentially involved, would seem to be a good
> course of action, would it not?

Yes.
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[Jimmy Wales]

Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>> I would recommend protection or semi-protection at this point, but with
>>> the idea that even if protected admins are (as compared to normal
>>> protection) actually encouraged to come help with the article.
>>>
>> Admins have rather a lot of other things to do. Admin only editing of
>> articles does not strike me as a good idea. In theory at least when it
>> comes to editing we are all equal.
>
> Jimbo said protection *or semi-protection*. Perhaps more OFFICE
> articles should be semi-protected, rather than protected.

Probably, although the cases vary widely and assuming good faith of
Danny and Brad seems to be in our best interest overall.

> Especially not when [[WP:OFFICE]] says:
>
> "The following pages are currently under full Office protection and
> full page protection and must not be edited by anyone not explicitly
> authorised to do so."
>
>>From following this thread, I think what that means is the article
> should be edited on a temporary subpage and then get explicit
> authorisation to move the subpage to the main page. If that's what's
> intended, it should be made clearer.

Given that we have seen that things tend to end up under office
protection for rather longer than we would like, I think we should try
to come up with gradations, at a minimum.

--Jimbo
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[Jimmy Wales]

Delirium wrote:

> That's what I am unclear on (and I imagine some others are too).  My
> original understanding of WP:OFFICE was that it was a quick-fix
> lockdown: while the Foundation is trying to sort out an imminent
> problem, the page gets stubbed or blanked and has a WP:OFFICE banner on
> it, giving the Foundation a bit of temporary breathing room to do the
> sorting out.
>
> But it seems that's not what it's *actually* being used for, since the
> banner sometimes stays for months and there doesn't seem to be any of
> that "sorting out" activity going on in the meantime.

Right, but this is not intended.  We who do not work in the office (and
I do not work in the office, remember) need to remember that those who
do are overwhelmed.  They have good reasons for flagging things, but
they can't always follow up on everything themselves... it's too much.

We, good experience editors who have a sensitivity to both legal
situations and human dignity, should stand ready to carefully try to
help make NPOV articles when there is a problem, without a lot of
ludicrous accusations of bias and whatnot.

> So what is
> actually intended?  That the article be rewritten cautiously from
> scratch?  How long does the WP:OFFICE banner (and protection) stay on in
> that case?  Basically I'm unsure what, as a normal editor, I should do
> with regards to such pages.  My original understanding was that I should
> just leave the page alone for a few days, pending someone figuring out
> the situation and re-opening editing from a new starting point.  But
> maybe that's not the process?

I think right now we don't know.  This needs to be fixed, so that we
have a better system.

--Jimbo
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[Jimmy Wales]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> I don't think it's likely that an editor will be indef-blocked for
> good faith edits anytime soon -- and if it does happen, we'll try to
> straighten it out ASAP.

Precisely.

> Most of the articles under office protection
> end up there because they were written by people not familiar with our
> policies of verifiability and neutrality, or those deliberately
> violating them. In general, the process is: stub it down and start
> from scratch, with more trusted editors taking the lead.
>
> I think the office process is still one we need to eventually reform
> (make more transparent, scalable, etc.). But right now we're in the
> middle of a major fundraiser and other organizational reforms, so it's
> not the highest priority for Board+ED+Legal Counsel.

:)

--Jimbo
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[Thomas Dalton]

> I think right now we don't know.  This needs to be fixed, so that we
> have a better system.

So, we're all agreed that it's broken and needs fixing. That's an
excellent first step! :-) How do we want to do the second step?
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[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 12:05:33 +0000, "Thomas Dalton"
<thomas.dalton@...> wrote:

>So, we're all agreed that it's broken and needs fixing. That's an
>excellent first step! :-) How do we want to do the second step?

Jimbo already answered that.  We discuss every change really
thoroughly and ensure that all changes have broad consensus and are
impeccably sourced and neutral.  As long as we do that, there should
be no pressing problem.

But...

We still have the odd cases like Gregory Lauder-Frost where the office
action was the result of his legal advisors stating that we could not
mention his conviction for fraud because of the UK's Rehabilitation of
Offenders Act.  That demands actual legal advice.  As it happens, the
Act only prevents "spent" convictions being mentioned in a defamatory
way, there is no apparent restriction on coverage in a neutral,
independent biography, and his friends did not help his case by
initially including the case but claiming that he had been cleared on
appeal - it was possible (though certainly not trivial) to verify that
this was simply not true, and it was only when we included the
citations to back up the conviction and failed appeal that they pulled
the office stunt.

In these cases it is good to have feedback, even if the feedback is a
weekly "sorry, no progress yet".  And it would be good to know if
there is a particular issue which needs to be addressed.

In other cases, the one which prompted this thread being Pacific
Western university, there is no question of verifiable facts for which
there might be a legal basis for forbidding inclusion.  It's all about
tone, sourcing and above all scrupulous fairness.  So we can verify
that PWU cooperated in an investigation into diploma mills, we can
verify that it was discussed in the same breath, but we cannot say
that the GAO director actually called it a diploma mill, because he
did not, not in so many words.  So as long as we set the bar high for
sourcing, and ensure that we attribute every statement which might be
perceived as questionable, I think we can proceed with improving the
article.

Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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[theProject]

On 12/17/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman@...> wrote:

>
> We still have the odd cases like Gregory Lauder-Frost where the office
> action was the result of his legal advisors stating that we could not
> mention his conviction for fraud because of the UK's Rehabilitation of
> Offenders Act.  That demands actual legal advice.  As it happens, the
> Act only prevents "spent" convictions being mentioned in a defamatory
> way, there is no apparent restriction on coverage in a neutral,
> independent biography, and his friends did not help his case by
> initially including the case but claiming that he had been cleared on
> appeal - it was possible (though certainly not trivial) to verify that
> this was simply not true, and it was only when we included the
> citations to back up the conviction and failed appeal that they pulled
> the office stunt.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. How would Wiki[m/p]edia, in the United States, be subject
to a law in the United Kingdom? Just because some country has a law that
would prevent Wikipedia from stating something about some particular topic
doesn't mean Wikipedia has to follow it. If we followed North Korean or
Chinese or Iranian laws on free speech, I have the feeling some of our
articles would be pretty blank. :-)

Or should we even try discussing that, because most of us aren't lawyers?

--
theProject
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