"Vigilant" wrote:There's a reason the people at Sucks are at Sucks and not here.
It's because most of them are fucking nuts.
Sucks is where people who get banned from here for being too fucking nuts end up.
It appears this closet pedo has strong feelings about this place.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm only here because Wikipediocracy is apparently closed to new registrations. Alhough I am coming to realise there would not be much point being part of their forum anyway, given their tendency to offer opinions that are at best extremely preferential to Wikipedia.
It appears they have (quite wrongly) decided that the law cannot be used against Wikipedia, because of Section 230. This is a deep!y ignorant and indeed defeatist attitude. Although how much this is down to their forum being overrun with Wikipedia insiders, I cannot say (should we start a list?).
This is perhaps why I could find no trace on their forum of a discussion of the UK's forthcoming Online Safety Bill, my reason for renewing my long standing interest in Wikipedia criticism. A proposed law which, according to reliable sources, could present a massive pain in the ass for Wikipedia (and you will note, this is the case even though it would be entirely unenforceable in The Land of the Freedom Fries).
Seeing the trouble ahead is the reason why they are at this very moment trying to carve out their usual "beneficial to society encylopedia" exemption in said law, through lobbying. In their rank ignorance of other country's legal systems, they are targeting the UK's Upper Chamber, which is strictly advisory in nature. If there are no UK votes to be had in allowing Wikipedia to harm people, specifically chidren, then this advice will have zero effect on the Lower Chamber, which is where the law is either passed or rejected.
If I was aiming to combat that sort of malignancy using my own knowledge of Wikipedia, I think I would prefer to be at a forum that highlights things like the fact Wikipedia is full of what is in essence straight up pornography and plenty other content you really don't want your kids seeing. And it still hasn't addressed its massive problems with entrenched asshole editors and editors who display overtly hateful views.
A forum whose members are smart enough to point out that if you did want to make a legal case against the WMF, you do so in full awareness that there is just as much value (and likelihood of achieving your aims) by using that legal action to generate negative head!ines, than there is in winning a lengthy and costly legal battle. Over there, they don't even seem to have noticed the aggrieved party has been aware of this all along, as they sow derision on his plans.
Call me nuts, but this is how you fight for the rights of the victims of Wikipedia. Frothing at the mouth about how much you want to kill paedophiles, not so much. Makes you look like a fucking loony.
That forum's terribly bad advice has already successfully got the aggrieved party to drop their legal action. Even though he has not been told that he was blocked for issuing a legal threat, and has not been told he will be unblocked if he withdraws it. He has simply been told the usual Wikipedia enabling lie that it is right and proper that someone with a pending legal action against Wikipedia, shall not be allowed to edit Wikipedia. He has lost all his leverage, lost any chance of gaining media attention, in return for still being blocked and some minor changes being made by people who do a really good impression of not really giving a fuck either way.
This apparently makes sense to the people over there. It can only make sense to people it benefits and protects. The crocodile tears about how terribly sad it is that this is the reality of Wikipedia and you just can't change it, are unconvincing.
Since they seem to dispute the charge, to further prove the point that Wikipediocracy seems to be purposefully giving out bad advice to benefit Wikipedia and to the detriment of the victims of Wikipedia, here is the current state of play with this issue on their thread....
1. Multiple "insiders" have admitted the aggrieved party has a valid reason to be upset, but they have done absolutely nothing to help them, and their time on Wikipediocarcy has been spent insulting the person's approach to the dispute. In the process presumably forgetting that most people have no clue how to best to about resolving a dispute with Wikipedia because IT'S A FUCKING ANOMOLY THAT DOESN'T WORK THE SAME WAY THE REST OF THE WORLD DOES! There is a reason it doesn't work the same way as even Facebook (and it sure as shit isn't because this way guarantees a fantastically useful encyclopedia).
2. The article has begrudgingly and belatedly been edited by one of the insiders to correct one instance of source misrepresentaition. No apology has been forthcoming. And certainly no admission that once you are blocked and you don't threaten legal action, the likelihood of such an edit really is zero. It seems highly likely therefore that the mere threat that someone was going to get sued, or at the very least the WMF was going to be forced to look into it to the level needed to decide if identities do need to be handed over, which admittedly might only take an hour or so, was what motivated this response. Proving at a stroke that those who are claiming legal action is pointless are at best, deluded.
3. It has been suggested by an insider that the article probably shouldn't even be there because the company might be non-notable. There has been no reflection on the fact that having an article about you on Wikipedia even though you are non-notable is usually a sign someone is deliberately trying to harm your reputation, which is one of the aggrieved party's grounds for legal action, or is otherwise a pretty good way to make sure Wikipedia ends up giving an entirely misleading if not deeply unfair account, right at the time when it could be most harmful. Again, no apologies for this abject failure to ensure well established policy is followed.
So, all apologies to our friends at WikipediaSucks, but being a criticism site doesn't require us to tell people to start fights they can't win just because it might cause the WMF legal staff a few minutes' worth of inconvenience that we'll never even hear about. The responsible thing for us to do here is to tell the guy who employs lots of people to do the smart, practical thing — not the thing that brings us the most "lulz."
Unless I missed it, your smart, practical advice was essentially for the guy to just accept it and go away. I see no push back at all against the sort of things being said there that would also be said on Wikipedia.
I'm not sure why this has escaped Wikipediocracy, but Section 230 does not give complete immunity beyond a few well defined exceptions (copyright etc). It does not protect the WMF from legal action if it can be shown that it is their own negligence that is to blame for cases like this being extremely common.
Who else is to blame for the fact source misrepresentation and non-notable articles are common on Wikipedia, and the victims who try to correct the resulting harm invariably get blocked? It is the institution that allows it. Knowingly facilitated it.
The Wikipedia community isn't sovereign. Their power to select Administrators and block editors, is given to them by the WMF. There is no law that says this is how a website must discharge its responsibilities under Section 230. There is nothing to stop Wikipedia paying people to enforce site policy. Which would be a darn site more reliable way of ensuring basic issues like source misrepresentation and notability are dealt with correctly and expeditiously. The volunteers can still have a role if they want. A role the more accurately reflects the fact being volunteers means they really don't give a shit what happens, and if they ever do get passionate, it will only ever be in a way that helps Wikipedia make money and harms victims. An attitude on full and unchecked display in Wikipediocracy.
As it stands now, the way "Yamla" declines an unblock request can be fairly said to be institutional, making the WMF liable. I have seen him screw people over a thousand times. Nobody else there seems to have a problem with it, or there is something about Wikipedia that makes them afraid to call him out. Either their love of the wikijuice, or the exceedingly high bar (and general hassle) that is even getting as far as Case Acceptance, never mind prosecuting it. At this stage, the Wikipedia community institutionally defends and protects Administrators whose violations of policy are clear and obvious (but ironically, are not the so called " bright line" violations).
The path to legal liability under Section 230 is clear. The WMF cannot claim ignorance of these potential harms, because they wrote a Code of Conduct that says don't do this. Or anything like this. Ever. Not because they are nice, but because they genuinely fear laws like the Online Safety Bill. They are afraid.
They become liable when it becomes clear and obvious that they wrote the Code, but they have no intention of enforcing it. That their chosen model of operation, practically ensures it cannot be enforced.
This forum has actual critics, people smart enough to identify strategies using their knowledge of both what Wikipedia is but how it (and the world) is changing. It is no longer considered acceptable to let the owners of a website stand back and allow rampant harm to be the result of their (ab)use of their freedoms. The is not what Section 230 is for. Wikipedia editors feel differently, for obvious reasons.
This is no different from how people with a sexual interest in children oppose sensible and proportionate laws to protect children (such as the UK's Online Safety Bill). No surprise that the WMF wants to argue that the law has the opposite effect and endangers children. No surprise perhaps to see Wikipediocracy being unable or unwilling to highlight what is yet another example of the WMF engaging in Argumentum Ad Bolloxio. To do so would presumably make many of their members feel distinctly uncomfortable, since they are by definition, willing enablers of this harm. Being a Wikipedia editor is endorsement of Wikipedia, warts and all.
That forum has people who are not just Wikipedia insiders, willing if uncomfortable enablers of harm, some of them are at the very heart of the community sentiment the says that if the WMF even think about enforcing the Code of Conduct, they will rain helfire on them.
This is the practical means by which Wikipedia is protected by Section 230 without having to carry any of the responsibilities of Section 230. The lawyers are doing their jobs. It's the volunteers who make it appear as if their job is to be Evil. The Supreme Court was never going to take away the right to run a website in the way Section 230 allows. But that is not where this ends. It is the beginning. No rights without responsibilities. And if you cannot discharge your responsibilities, here, have a lawsuit or ten, and spend the next decade trying to argue in the media that you should be allowed to get away with handing off your responsibilities to unpaid assholes who really don't give a fuck, and still don't even now the Code of Conduct has been passed.
The WMF will eventually be forced to start applying the Code, and in a meaningful way. Serious crtics know where that could go. Do we even need to ask which side Wikipediocracy will be on?
For reference, here is the Wikipedia insider view.....
The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) defines a minimum set of guidelines of expected and unacceptable behaviour. The English Wikipedia has developed policies and guidelines (PAG) that add to this minimum that take account of local and cultural context, maintaining the UCoC criteria as a minimum standard and, in many PAGs, going beyond those minimums. Therefore, the Arbitration Committee, as an identified high-level decision making body under the UCoC enforcement guidelines, may choose to evaluate compliance with English Wikipedia PAG, while still respecting the UCoC.
It is, in a word, bullshit.
The local context is that Wikipedia can and will ignore any and all terms that expect and require its volunteers to be diligent and respectful in their dealings with people like this aggrieved party. The local context is that it is not just acceptable it is long established tradition, that you shall treat such people with thinly veiled contempt for even daring to think they have any right not to be harmed by Wikipedia If preventing said harm would threaten their hobby. You can and shall use every low down dirty trick in the book to ensure they go away, or are left with only an expensive and lengthy legal route.
It is expected that holding Wikipedia to account will make you unpopular with Wikipedia insiders. They like their hobby, not inspite of its obvious flaws, but because of them.
If they disagree, then I would be most interested to see them defend their participation in a website the doesn't, for example, give much of a shit about age verification, but has "educational" content like Bukkake. I would very much like to see if "Vigilant" is capable of a nuanced and ethical debate with said people, or whether his secrets take him in an entirely different direction (was it perhaps a Freudian slip that he reached for his "fucking nuts"!?!). Tug away, you delightfully impotent little man, who can apparently do nothing to harm or indeed affect Wikipedia in anyway, in defence of the victims, even though plenty of its insiders are right there beside you, in touching distance. Leave the criticism to the experts.
