User:Tznkai/desk/sandbox: Difference between revisions
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{{notice|Not live yet. Mulling it over for a night}} |
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To the members of the Arbitration Committee, |
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Recent events have proven that my priorities and beliefs are in conflict with those of a significant portion of the membership of the Arbitration Committee - perhaps even the majority - as well as that of several of my fellow functionaries. I believe strongly that a diversity of viewpoints is a good thing - but only to the point that diverse views illuminate a discussion more than they cloud it in disagreement and acrimony. |
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I am resigning from the Audit Subcommittee and from being a functionary effective Jan 31 2010 00:00 UTC. In accordance to my [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Tznkai&oldid=329281856#Personal_policies previously expressed preferences], I wish for my mailing list access to Oversight-l, Checkuser-l, Functionares-en lists to be removed upon my resignation, along with my checkuser and oversight permissions. In addition, I also wish to be removed from the Clerk-l and Audit-l mailing lists, as well as access disabled to any work products or private documents. All private logs, if any, will be destroyed. I will also cease patrolling Arbitration Enforcement indefinitely. It is my recommendation that MBisanz, currently the alternate, be appointed to the Audit Subcommittee upon my resignation. |
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I resign to protest to the recent events surrounding the deletion of several articles tagged as unreferenced biographies of living people, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents/Rdm2376%27s_deletions subsequent discussion on the Administrator's Noticeboard/Incidents], and most especially the motion at Arbitration/Requests/Case. My take on the events is simple: a political dispute between two opposing groups of like minded editors in ideological opposition to one another has erupted over a genuinely divisive issue. To achieve victory for the partisan positions, individuals within these camps have escalated to using administrative tools, inflated rhetoric, inappropriate moral scolding, and threats explicit and implied of blocks, summary desysoppings and worse. The action at hand, the deletion of certain BLPs, is not even all that effective in and of itself as I have already argued- but it seems to be some sort of partisan victory on principle. In otherwords, we have many editors, many admins and functionaries, treating Wikipedia as a partisan battleground over their conflicting ideologies surrounding the BLP issues. |
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All this perhaps, inevitable - and it is hardly fair of me to expect the Arbitration Committee to come down on all those who have been naughty when the issue is genuinely difficult and divisive. I do however, expect the Committee not to take sides, and I feel that it has done so tonight. |
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By commending a series of administrators, and implicitly their supporters, for under taking a rash action which had little more urgency tonight than it did yesterday, and likley a similar amount tomorrow seems beyond the pale. These administrators and supporters have been rude and nasty to their opponents, for no other reason than that they were on the wrong side of an argument. Their opponents have been rude and nasty as well to be sure, but they don't deserve to be patronized by the Committee: |
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<blockquote> |
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The administrators who interfered with these actions are reminded that the enforcement of the policy on biographies of living people takes precedence over mere procedural concerns. |
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</blockquote> |
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I do not believe that one can fairly encapsulate all of the disagreements with the deletion as editors putting process over the substance of the BLP policy. There is such thing as a legitimate disagreement, and I expect the Committee to recognize it. I cannot continue to work for a Committee that I believe has taken sides in making Wikipedia a battleground. The Committee has not only endorsed an interpretation of policy favored by one side of a battle, but has implicitly claimed that all those opposing them have no legitimate understanding of policy, or are just in too love with process to care. All of this, without having bothered to explain what their policy interpretation is. |
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I maintain no illusion that I am in the majority here. I have no doubt that my position on the merits of the BLP problem will be incorrectly inferred and seen as the source of my discomfort. It is not. |
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The BLP problem is a serious one - and it deserves to be taken seriously. It should not serve as carte-blanche excuse for poor behavior or poor thinking. Caring about BLPs is not the same thing as caring about living people. There is no tangible gain here for the living people out there who were in danger of being harmed. Wanting to win a battle is not the same thing as finding a way solving the problem. Living people are threatened because of the open access editing, countless mirror images, and the gullibility of the reader - deleting 58,000 articles that have been tagged as unreferenced and a biography of a living person does not help, not on its own. 58,000 blue linked time bombs have not become 58,000 redlinked time bombs unless they are salted, along with their likley redirects. Full protection after removing all libelous material would be far more effective. Something is not better than nothing in this case. There are over 3 million articles on Wikipedia. There are at any moment, less than 1000 "active" admins. I would guess maybe a few dozen admins who actually pay attention to the goings on, and they've been given ammunition for their argument six-shooter, and it does not help. A fanatic is someone who has forgotten where they are going - but has redoubled his efforts to get there. A partisan is someone who has forgotten that the goal is to win the war, not to beat the enemy. |
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The BLP problem is huge and the stakes are incredibly high, and this decision and ArbCom's endorsement has not helped solve it. It has instead struck out on some fuzzy principle about the relative importance of. It has struck a blow to the straw men and the political opponents and it has not help solve the problem. This is a difficult, complex, weighty problem and it is not as black and white as "deletion" versus "bureaucracy lover." |
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Josiah Barlet, my favorite fictional president once said |
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<blockquote> |
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"Every once in a while, every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many un-nuanced moments..." |
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</blockquote> |
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In between those days, it is our duty as human beings to give each other respect and perhaps even charity in our disagreements. I do not believe the Committee holds that priority - or at least the way I see it - as closely to their hearts as I need them to. It is my fondest hope that I have misinterpreted the situation. I wish the Committee the best, and thank them for their best efforts and thankless service in continuing to deal with difficult situations. |
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Respectfully, |
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Tznkai |
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