Thursday, 20 March 2008

ArbCom list leak

Posted on my talk page:

Here's what they think about you

"He's been prone to more than his share of drama, and acts (as he himself openly admits) as a bit of a drama magnet." - FT2

"I have significant doubts about his judgment. I think a lot of the drama that focusses around him is a result of his habit of over-reacting to minor issues. I have significant doubts about his judgment for a tool as sensitive as CheckUser." - Sam Korn

"Communication skills and temperament are important given that most checkuser and oversight work involves dealing with angry people. See also his current RFB where there have been quite a few negative opinions expressed." - Thebainer

"Majorly has extremely poor communication skills. His involvement in a situation consistently makes its worse by adding drama. If I could change one vote that I ever made, it would be my vote for Majorly as 'crat on meta. I originally opposed him due to bringing off site personal issues into his Foundation decisions. (While the vote was open, I observed him changing a RFA vote on Commons after he had a personal spat with the user who was a friend of his.) But after discussing it with him I changed my vote because he promised to never do it again. I had never really known much about him before that incident but watched him closely afterward. Unfortunately the pattern has continued with him frequently getting into spats with other users including other 'crats. He has resigned different tools on different wikis several times in a huff. He also had issues related to using multiple accounts himself that cause some users to question his trustworthiness. I can think of ten or twenty of people that I would rather give the tools to then him. I see no upside to giving him the tools and loads of problems." - FloNight

"He has poor judgment, and prolongs/inflames disputes more often than he resolves them." - Mindspillage

"His responses to the opposes [in his RFB] have been even more telling." - Dmcdevit

"He's suitable to be a checkuser. He can be very confrontational, which is not something we need in checkusers. He just won't be an effective checkuser. This is not the kind of person we want to say "This person such an outstanding Wikipedian that we feel we can give him checkuser". - Deskana

It sounds genuine. Some of it I'm not at all surprised to read, but some of it is. Users I respected, who play nice and lovely to my face, appear to have sides I never knew. Some (former) arbs I'm surprised to not see are Newyorkbrad and Raul654, but no matter. I think the point has been made.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're behaving a bit like Caine in that movie Menace II Society right about now.

"Man, you know what nigga? You acting like a little bitch right now! You ain't gonna do shit? Man, fuck that, I ain't letting that shit ride!"

Jonny Cache said...

My tables,
My tables — meet it is I set it down
That one may smile and smile and be a villain.

— Hamlet, 1.5.107–109

Anonymous said...

Congratulations. You've discovered people may be more free in their criticism out of earshot of the subject.

Now, perhaps you might want to consider whether some of the points made were valid.

--
WPMouse

Anonymous said...

Heed the advice of WPMouse.

Somey said...

I've been told by various people that I "lack communication skills." The problem with that is, usually, that the people saying that are usually the same people who put me in a position of having to choose between lying to customers about the capabilities of a product (or our company in general), vs. telling them the truth and having them walk away from a sale, or worse, dump us completely as a vendor. In those cases, your best bet really is to avoid sticking your neck out.

Any Wikipedia admin is always having to choose between giving credence to someone who's claiming that some article or user is causing a serious real problem, vs. the high mucky-mucks who will consistently claim that it's not Wikipedia's problem at all, and that you should deal with it by simply getting rid of the disputant who showed up last, and/or who is liked least. Usually, they choose the latter approach - it's the path of least resistance, after all.

Taking a stand when important moral or ethical issues are being disputed is a good thing - it shows you have good ol'-fashioned critical thinking ability, and a well-defined sense of right and wrong. You might still "lack communications skills," but so what? In the end, that's really just a code-phrase for "he's not effectively covering our arses for us." You don't really need that anyway, unless you want to be someone else's shill the rest of your life.

Giggy said...

"I think the point has been made."

Just FYI Majorly, I think posting this might have had the opposite effect to what you wanted. Since, you know, everything they say is true, and all...

Anonymous said...

From arbcom-l, today:

I don't think we should [emergency desysop him] only because I don't want to draw attention to the Amorrow mess, etc., but this certainly is not praiseworthy behavior [from Majorly].

Newyorkbrad

EVEN OUR LOVING AND CARING MAHATMA NEWYORKBRAD HATES YOU.

Alex said...

It doesn't shows he hates me, he says he says what he thinks I am doing/have done is wrong. There's a difference you know. And typing in all caps is bad form.

ft2 said...

There's a perennial problem with dishonest people trying to score points. They don't always quote honestly. (As with the faked log in the IRC case, and as with a couple of quotations that don't appear in any emails I have seen.)

There were three paragraphs in Brads email. Since the poster obviously has all of them, there is no reason he shouldn't post it all in full.

One reason he hasn't is that the snip quoted -- with the strategic replacement of Brad's fairly mild words, "I don't think we should take any action" by the more sinister "I don't think we should [emergency desysop him]", and complete omission of all context, was deliberately chosen to mislead and stir.

Anonymous said...

Fine, I will post it all. It'll only serve to highlight Mr. Newman's childish and vindictive character.

"While on IRC last night I received a PM alerting me to another recent action by Majorly. Apparently a few months back, another admin had posted something on Majorly's talkpage revealing some personal information. He realized a little later that he had done that and, with Majorly's consent, had deleted four revisions in which the information was visible. The other night, Majorly restored the four revisions with the log summary "because I can."

(I've been asked to oversight the revisions, which can no longer be deleted because of the 5,000-edit rule, but I'm leaving them for now. They are pretty well buried in the page history.)

I don't think we should take any action because I don't want to draw attention to the Amorrow mess, etc., but this certainly is not praiseworthy behavior.

Newyorkbrad"

This will continue until Alex realizes why his actions regarding Andrew Morrow were improper and leaves all Wikimedia projects as penance.

ft2 said...

Good. That's more honest.

So here's the thing.

I'm glad you posted that. What it shows is, Newyorkbrad says he's had a possible concern brought to his attention (which frankly is not exactly shocking to hear; Majorly has had mood stuff, as everyone knows and he openly admits and people know it), and says that since Majorly has other stuff going on, he doesn't think stress is appropriate or that taking circumstances into account action's necessary this time... but that doesn't mean he condones it.

Now, your starter for 10 points...

How exactly does that become anything to do with "emergency desysop"? How exactly does it become "Newyorkbrad hates you"? And why, after this, would Majorly (or indeed anyone) care?

Your entire posts so far have basically shown to any thinking being:

1. Members of the current Arbcom, even in private and even when they don't expect to be overseen, are factual, honest and speak fairly without exaggeration of people, their good points and their human failings, and take account of circumstances to try and help people if able, without condoning their actions.

2. You have access to the list and use it for malicious purposes. Shameful.

3. You (and others perhaps) will edit, manipulate and mis-context leaked material, to make people you don't like look worse than they were, or hurt the feelings of your "targets". And you'll present it as authentic when you do.


Even anonymously, can you give a reason why people who joined WIkipedia to write an encyclopedia should take something of that kind seriously? Its just wasteful. All it signifies is that Majorly is okay enough that even trawling private archives you couldn't find Arbcom saying anything bad, and had to mislead, and rewrite as you wanted it to read...... to hurt him and make Brad look bad.


If you have a serious point, I'm open to honest discussion as always. But I don't really go off-site so I'm not sure what to suggest in practical terms.

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute. FT2 just goaded someone into posting more from a private piece of correspondence than they already had, specifically revealing that there was some recently undeleted private information on Majorly's talkpage which was probably otherwise being overlooked, and he's glad that they posted it? What's going on here?

Also it's nice to know that "even in private" Arbcom members speak factually and honestly but it would be even nicer if they could follow the same standards in public instead of talking out of a different side of their mouths.

ft2 said...

Hardly "goaded". I reviewed the original and concluded that it was rather obviously going to be better fully disclosed, than allowed to lie (in both senses of the word) on Majorly's blog as a misrepresentation of Majorly and Newyorkbrad, and a deception. So I made a request for the full item to be posted, which it was. Given that someone has chosen to selectively leak it, which is reprehensible, it seems better to make clear the nature of the leaker, than to allow it to serve a deceptive purpose. Sadly it seems most leakers mix up genuine and tampered material. The fake irc log anonymously circulated and intended to incriminate Tony Sidaway in December (see: RFAR/IRC) was likewise falsified.

Unfortunately we seem to live in irregular times and things like this don't help. But it seemed important that Majorly was able to see in the leaker's own words, that the leak was in fact, misleading, and that users who might mistakenly judge Newyorkbrad by it were aware it was misrepresentative.

AGK said...

What can I say, but "lay off, folks"? This has went too far—the situation is humiliating enough, but we now have torrents of malice being sent Majorly's way.

You clearly won't be happy until he's on his last legs. For shame, all of you that are leaving these horrible comments.

Please go and do something constructive.

Lar said...

AGK has it just right. Leaking stuff (valid, invalid, schmalid) to be malicious just isn't appropriate. And dancing around after the leak is even worse.

Go ahead and laugh at me, anons, I don't really care.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I just found out about it (and your blog) today...

The least I can say is that this sucks :(

Talking freely in a private mailing list is good, and encouraged. That's better than having people not speaking their minds and holding grudges afterwards because the "right" decision was not reached... But leaking these conversations in order to hurt you (and arbcom) is just... sick...

Just hold tight, that's not something I'd like to hear about myself :x

Captain panda said...

I guess that I am getting in on this a bit late, but Majorly, where did you get this?

Alex said...

Captain panda: it was posted on my talk page.

 
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