If you're talking about Area 51, you're obviously not playing with a full deck (hides ace in sleeve)

Last night Wikipedia Weekly recorded Episode 51, where we joked about Area 51 and had a serious talk about cyberstalking. The two concepts are not comparable.

Reposting something I wrote at the Digg page on David Shankbone's article:

So what's behind this? Some of Wikipedia's systems are seriously flawed and we've got negative feedback loops. That doesn't cause the problem but it makes it worse. Wikipedia is counterintuitive in a lot of ways, but it's counterintuitive in more ways than it needs to be. And in the long run it does not help us that our blocking and banning policies are constructed in the way the presently are.

Because it's flawed we get uneven results. Obviously uneven results. We leave people in a poorly defined limbo between indefinite blocking and banning. Often we block first, then decide whether to ban them, and shut the person out of the discussion. Our usual template (the unblock request) implicitly encourages people to say they've done nothing wrong at all, when obviously there have been problems, and sets up a binary discussion when an open-ended one would be more appropriate. And some of our best contributors have been so frustrated and overworked that they've gotten rude. It's one thing to show a person the door, which is sometimes necessary. It's another thing to kick them on the way out.

None of this justifies the stalking David endures or the harassment I face. Yet it contributes to poisonous atmosphere that makes our problems happen. Those factors (and a few others) leave people who might otherwise accept a lengthy hiatus frustrated and angry. It defies elementary expectations of justice and fair play. It is easy to construe that situation as bullying or corrupt, from the point of view of the person on the outs. And unfortunately the site's regulars fail to appreciate that in sufficient numbers. We also need a clear path back to good standing for banned users. Not for ones who threaten violence, but for most of the people who get banned—the situations that just didn’t work out. I have volunteered for over a year and a half to work toward a better system in those areas.

So what that means is the pool of people who have been ejected from the site is angrier than it needs to be, which encourages them to network. Some of them might adjust to site standards, more wouldn't, and a minority are really deviant people. When a person who cannot think rationally gets shown the door politely, that person may go quietly. But the chances of a quiet departure are significantly diminished if a Google search quickly turns up a series of sites that complain about the individual who showed that person the door. Whether those complaints are sound or baseless, it's very tempting to a person in that position to believe the complaints are true.

We need to stop joking around and fix this stuff.

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Image credit:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Joker_red_02.svg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Area_51_640x480_grey.png

J'Accuse or jacuzzi?

Received two posts last night that I rejected for a particular reason. One had alternate ways of contacting the person so a slight modification on the comment could be published afterward. The other didn't provide a way to solve that problem so I rejected the post--not because it was a rude snark (although it was) but because it used my name. At this blog call me Durova. I reserve the right to reject rude snarks too; this time it just wasn't the deciding factor.

So to reply to the snark, the reason why my (ahem) investigative instincts went off regarding Mantanmoreland in September 2007 and not sooner is because...

...drum roll...

...it was September 2007 when I first paid any attention to l'affair Mantanmoreland. The matter already had plenty of eyes on it; I had been busy with other things that were in need of help.

And, heck, California is a pleasant place to live; I'm not a slave to Wikipedia and I'm especially not a slave to snarky people who insinuate that a nonprofit charity's volunteers are incompetent or corrupt unless we drop everything else at the snap of an imperious pair of fingers. I enjoy lavender bath salts; I make my own. Herbal soaps, too. Nice people sometimes get them from me as gifts.

What caught my attention was in late July 2007 when an absurd conspiracy theory about Wikipedia's editor SlimVirgin got published in a little citizen-journalism venue. It claimed that she was a spy for MI5 because, among other things, Wikipedia's Operation Entebbe article wasn't open for editing.

That's known as page protection, bub. We do it to stop edit wars. Wikipedia articles get full protected at the behest of MI5 just about as often as penguins go diving for orchids. The edit war had ended so I unprotected the article, then posted a comment at the silly conspiracy theory blowing holes through that and several other really gaping and obvious lapses in the fellow's research.

To the conspiracy theorists: MI5 did haul me out of the jacuzzi for questioning, much to the chagrin of my FBI boss, until I bribed the MI5 operatives with lemon balm body lotion.

Like any true conspiracy theorist, rather than abandon the ridiculous fantasy the fellow simply plugged some but not all of its most obvious holes and republished. And then--truth being much stranger than fiction--the thing made it all the way to the front page of Slashdot.

SlimVirgin wasn't exactly my favorite Wikipedian; she and I had disagreed vigorously on several policy and process debates. But this Slashdotting was too much. So I set aside our differences and stood up for her. And in the aftermath I looked into the Mantanmoreland thing; she was heavily involved in that also and the same set of people who had been claiming that she was a spy were also claiming that Mantanmoreland was Gary Weiss. That didn't do wonders for their credibility.

So to the gentleman who sneered at my investigative skills for suspecting that Mantanmoreland was a sockpuppeteer in September 2007 and not sooner, a little basic research into my Wikipedia posts regarding this matter would have shown that September 2007 was just about as soon as I started to look into to the case. Taking the low road slowed things down; both SlimVirgin and Mantanmoreland had been targeted by malware. It was strong distaste for those methods that led me to deprioritize the Mantanmoreland sockpuppet suspicions for several months. A lot of people tug at my sleeve regarding Wikipedia matters. Those who tug politely get what they want.

And for the record, every Wikipedian I encountered who supported Mantanmoreland (other than Mantanmoreland himself) appears to me to have been a sincere volunteer acting in good conscience. Mantanmoreland had superb people skills and was very talented at garnering sympathy--not that it would have taken particularly much skill to distract attention from one's own behavior when e-mail attachments arrive with embedded scripts and conspiracy theories make the front page of Slashdot. In the end I developed at least as much distaste for Mantanmoreland as for his critics, because Mantanmoreland joined a list that had been created to deal with cyberstalking and he exploited it. He joined it under two different names and agreed with himself. He called upon our good faith when he didn't deserve it, and what I find obnoxious is that he played me at a venue where I had come to protect my family. Which is lower, that or malware? For some reason I don't entirely understand, not many of the list's participants resent him for the deception and that's why I say he has superb people skills.

Funding Wikipedias in Underserved Languages

Today's Not the Wikipedia Weekly discussion dealt with developing Wikipedias in African languages. The recording itself should be available for listening shortly, so a few issues I'll refer to the discussion there. One bottom line question is how to fund the starting effort for underserved populations.

I brainstormed one solution during the recording and I'll float it publicly now. The basic idea is this: it costs $50-$80 a month to hire a person full time to create basic content in a starting Wikipedia in a developing country. We're talking about seeding a project with basic articles so that it begins to get traffic and a community of volunteers. Question is how to raise that money.

I'll use my volunteer skills to help generate that funding. Here's an example of the work I'll do--Photoshopping Cary Bass of the Wikimedia Foundation onto an Albrecht Dürer painting. In return for a donation to a dedicated fund (and with no share of the money for myself), I'll edit a photograph onto a famous public domain painting.

If you like this idea, please comment and/or e-mail me. We need to set up the place to accept the funds. As a starting donation level I'm looking at $25 per picture. So two to three images would fund a full time person for a month to develop Wikipedia material in Africa.

A good cause, with a fun benefit in return. What do you say?

Interview with a young Wikipedian

When discussing the small Southern town where I went to high school, people have asked Was it the buckle of the Bible belt?

I've always answered It was more like one of the holes.

I still remember a particular afternoon when I opened the school newspaper. It was around the time when Madonna's "Like a Virgin" was getting maximum airplay. And although nobody's parents objected to her performance at the MTV Music Awards writhing on her belly while wearing a wedding dress, a brief item in the school paper stated that The Scarlet Letter and The Catcher in the Rye had been removed from the school library shelves due to pressure from a local church.

I did a very slow double take. The Scarlet Letter I'd already read, and I couldn't see how Hester Prynne's embroidery had beaten out Madonna's midriff-baring gryations on a gondola in the inappropriate-for-teenagers department. So...

• Madonna's okay.
• Dallas is okay.
• Dynasty is okay.

• Nathaniel Hawthorne ain't okay.
• J.D. Salinger ain't okay.

Huh? Well, that was 1984. We didn't have Wikipedia then so the best I could do was head to a bookstore. I read The Catcher in the Rye that very night. And in some miniscule way I think of myself as a better person for having spent the evening with that book instead of whatever cattiness was happening between Krystle and Alexis on the boob tube.

I would have really enjoyed if someone had asked my opinion of the matter. Nobody did.

So after Chelsea Schilling published "Is Wikipedia Wicked Porn?" in WorldNetDaily where she complained about mature content I asked one of Wikipedia's younger volunteers for an interview. He's an articulate person with a good record as a Wikipedian who edits psuedonymously, and out of respect for his privacy I've removed potentially identifiable details from this interview.

Would his opinions be anything like mine had been? I wasn't sure, but I wanted to give him the opportunity I hadn't had.

----
Durova says: So you're one of our younger editors. Is that correct?

Young Wikipedian says: I would assume so. There are younger though.

Durova says: Would you share your age?

Young Wikipedian says: 14 years old.

Durova says: And you've written a couple of good articles.

Young Wikipedian says: Yeah, 3 of them.

Durova says: To protect your privacy I won't name the titles. I've read them.

Young Wikipedian says: Okay.

Durova says: Do you think it's fair to say those articles are on serious subjects?

Young Wikipedian says: No they are just about sports.

Durova says: "Good article" has a particular meaning on Wikipedia. Could you describe what a good article is, and how it's selected?

Young Wikipedian says: A good article is, an article of relatively good quality but is not up to the standards of Featured Article status. They are selected through a nomination process called, WP:GAC.

Durova says: What sort of standards apply to good article selection?

Young Wikipedian says: Sorts of standards that apply to good article selection are; good prose e.g. flowing sentences. Fully referenced from reliable sources, that it covers the majority of its aspects. That it isn't biased and doesn't have edit wars regularly, and images are always helpful.

Durova says: Would you say that you learned something about writing composition and research and referencing, when you worked on these articles? Or were the skills you needed at a level you'd already been taught in school?

Young Wikipedian says: Yes, I would definitely say I have learned a lot about referencing. I have learned about passive and active voice through this. Some of the skills such as writing with continuous prose I had learned at school.

Durova says: Have the skills you've picked up from editing Wikipedia helped your school work?

Young Wikipedian says: I would say so, I now write things with better grammar and more focus to the matter. And to research things which I need for homework/coursework.

Durova says: You've seen the recent articles in the conservative press about some of Wikipedia's content. As a young person, do you have any comment about that?

Young Wikipedian says: Yes I have seen the controversy surrounding certain content, and I think that if a child searches for that page, then he holds the responsibility for what he looks at, unless it is determined by Special:Randomarticle, which cannot be helped.

Durova says: How long have you used Wikipedia, as a reader and as an editor?

Young Wikipedian says: I have been registered on Wikipedia since 2006, yet only started editing in late 2007, I had read Wikipedia for research long before registering however.

Durova says: And what sort of topics, generally speaking, interest you?

Young Wikipedian says: Well my main topic is most definitely sports of which I create most of my articles on, though I do try to help other people with articles, which could be anything really. I am also interested in geography of countries, specifically European countries.

Durova says: You've also written some articles that made the "Did you know" selection on Wikipedia's main page.

Young Wikipedian says: Yes I wrote a DYK that got featured on the main page, though I do not generally focus on that area.

Durova says: I'm wondering what opinion your parents have of your participation at Wikipedia?

Young Wikipedian says: My parents don't really know much about Wikipedia, but they now know I'm an editor and just think it's a good place to get information.

Durova says: Have they expressed the kinds of doubts about the site that are in the recent news? I mean, are they worried about what you'll see and read here?

Young Wikipedian says: They very rarely read Wikipedia, so I doubt they would care as they know I am responsible for what I click on, and know I probably won't click anything daft.

Durova says: This interview is going to get published in my blog, as you probably know. Do you have anything that you'd like to say to adults who are concerned about this issue?

Young Wikipedian says: Hmm... I would say that the people that are concerned about the issue don't really trust their children, because chances are they probably won't try to access pages with innappropriate content.

Durova says: Interesting thought. Now sometimes my blog may contain questionable material. I don't think it does right now, but it may in the future. If you ever want a copy of this interview in its published form, you're welcome to contact me directly.

Young Wikipedian says: Cool.

Durova says: Thanks very much for sharing your opinions, and best wishes with your editing.

Young Wikipedian says: No problem, thanks.

An interesting development

The account that started the Obama thread has been blocked as a sockpuppet of a banned editor.

Anemone of the state

With apologies to Moulton for the technical glitches of Not the Wikipedia Weekly, Episode 11, here's the transcript of our text chat that ran concurrently with the voice recording. Moulton has given reprint permission, and he's agreed to the tongue-in-cheek title for this post.

Moulton (who appears as Barry Kort in the transcript) is currently sitebanned from Wikipedia (or indefinitely blocked; the distinction can be a little vague). He's a highly educated fellow--the sort of person I'd like to bring back if it's possible. Not to get into the details of that here, I think he offered some of the best questions in the session. The "Brian" we're referring to is Brian Bergstein, a reporter for the Associated Press who joined the Skypecast. So here's our correspondence.

Bear in mind with the text below that I was doing the hosting for the Skype chat at the same time: inviting people to speak, bringing back people who dropped out due to weak connections, and monitoring a second text chat simultaneously. Plus I could only type while my microphone was muted.

[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:49:52] Barry Kort: In doing investigative reporting, Brian, a journalist has to be competent at finding and examining the evidence, determining how reliable it is, and reasoning accurately to whatever conclusions and insights are revealed by the evidence. How would you rate Wikipedians at doing that, either in writing articles or in investigating conduct cases?
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:51:03] Durova: I've read that to Brian.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:51:09] … Good at the latter
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:51:09] Barry Kort: Thank you.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:51:16] Durova: all over the map on the former.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:51:26] … Some things have weak evidence and it's duly noticed.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:51:53] … Wikipedia is getting better at - as a reader - getting tipped as a reader that evidence might not be there to support every point an author has made.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:51:59] … Maybe the latter part varies too.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:53:24] Barry Kort: Thank you for mediating that, and his response. I appreciate it.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:54:57] Durova: gah
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:55:04] … I think our recorder was off during it!
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:55:08] … sorry...
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:55:26] … so much to keep on top of.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:55:30] … He had a good answer.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:55:40] … talking about how he learns about Wikipedia stuff.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:56:56] Barry Kort: Oh, bummer.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:57:17] Durova: Try another?
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:57:20] … We're recording now.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:59:18] … We're taking a question from Brian about why we participate in Wikipedia,.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:59:26] Barry Kort: OK. Similarly, in journalism, there arise conflicting views about what constitutes a professional level of storycraft before breaking a story. Can you compare how AP editors hash out what's publishable vs how WP editors resolve their editorial conflicts?
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:59:27] Durova: What brought us in, why we stay.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 15:59:30] … ok
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:00:10] … good question!
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:01:54] … He says it's similar but simpler.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:01:58] … fewer people weigh in.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:02:57] Barry Kort: I can ask one more, if there's time.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:03:32] Durova: sure
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:04:28] Barry Kort: Professional journalists have a code of ethics that they follow. How would you compare the ethical guidelines to which professional journalists adhere to the level of ethics manifested within the WP community?
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:06:43] Durova: hard to say
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:06:53] … every day things get written on Wikipedia that would get him fired
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:07:01] … but other editors take evidence extremely seriously.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:07:06] … very broad category.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:08:14] Barry Kort: Should editors who write WP BLPs be obliged to pledge to a normative standard of journalistic ethics?
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:09:14] … ... Such as the one Doc Glasgow proposed, for example. (If he is aware of that.)
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:09:50] Durova: very interesting question
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:10:07] … Brian says it's not just some arbitrary nebulous code
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:10:17] … whether a lawsuit could happen
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:10:33] … if he writes about a living person, it could be a career killer to do it wrong.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:11:15] … Wikipedia hasn't been sued yet, so the boundaries aren't fully defined.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:11:30] … Filll is adding that he goes by what's been published previously in mainstream media sources.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:11:40] … He's cautious about being too innovative, especially on biographies.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:11:46] … He's rather rely on their filters first.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:12:01] Barry Kort: This might not be a suitable Q, but consider it... Does Brian think WP is likely to be sued over defamatory BLPs?
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:14:11] Durova: Brian has to go in a moment. We've run over.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:14:27] … We were talking about where the limits of journalistic standards are, and where they sometimes fail.
[Thu Apr 24 2008 16:14:46] Barry Kort: Many thanks for relaying those Qs. I appreciate it. And give my thanks to Brian for his thoughtful answers.

Thanks, Moulton, for being a good sport. At Not the Wikipedia Weekly we're learning as we're going.

We got mittens too!

One of my heirloom trinkets is my great-grandfather's World War I German Army cigarette lighter. It's a big round hunk of brass with the words Gott mit uns inscribed on the side. Depending on how you translate it, that comes out as God is with us or may God be with us. It's an open question how much good that did; the Germans lost the war.

Another relative of mine fought on the American side. When he was well into his nineties he showed me how he used to mock that slogan. He and his buddies would stand with their hands held high and shout, Yeah, we got mittens too!

Both of those relatives were infantry, and for a few months their units actually faced each other, and they both got wounded during that war. I wonder how that mockery looked to my great-grandfather. The Americans joined the war late and were well supplied. By the war's final months, my great-grandfather's children back home were so hungry that they were stealing turnips from the trucks that carried food to the front. When my great-grandfather got discharged from the hospital he was still too weak to hold a job and his children had to go to work to support him until he recovered. When he tried to demand a pension the government threatened to throw him in jail. He took his family out of the country in the 1920s because he didn't want his sons to end up in the next war.

Gott mit uns.
We got mittens too!

It may be surprising that both of those men come frome the same side of my family. 13 years after the war ended they became father-in-law and son-in-law. To the end of their days they both personally blamed each other for their wounds, but they found a way to be jocular about it.

Yesterday I was talking to a Serbian editor about ethnic/national disputes and learned, to my amazement, that the Serbian and Croatian Wikipedias actually get along pretty well. Basically some editors piled into a car and drove over to Zagreb, where they shook some hands. Then some other editors piled into a car and drove to Belgrade, where they shook more hands. Once they got to know each other a little and could see that they were all basically normal people, relations improved.

This is the kind of local solution that I'm really interested in replicating. I'd like to try it globally. Smaller steps first. And in this instance, a small step is still a pretty big step.

Over at the English Wikipedia Israeli-Palestinian disputes I mentor one of the participants. It isn't easy, as you might imagine. The case has been through arbitration and is up on the arbitration enforcement board right now. This isn't the first time it's been there. The thread is long and bitter and frustrated on both sides.

So last night I posted to the talk pages of ten editors who had participated in that thread, sharing the experience of the Serb editors and the Croat editors and inviting these people to a voice chat on Skype. If some of them aren't comfortable with the suggestion, that's understandable. Voice does help communicate nuance and I hope some of them are willing to give this a try. Maybe they'll negotiate; maybe instead they'll talk about their favorite movies and falafel recipes. If it humanizes things enough to bridge a few gaps then it's worth it.

It isn't easy, but it can happen.

Not the Wikipedia Weekly

Over at Not the Wikipedia Weekly we had an interesting time today. Brian Bergstein of the Associated Press was our guest and we were lucky to have him. He was an excellent guest, yet a few things came up surrounding this episode that I'd have to call lessons learned.

First is communications. I thought I had communicated well enough with other people about when this Skypecast would be, and who our guest would be, and about seeking additional people for the panel. Some wires got crossed and a few balls got dropped. Part of that was due to my own time spent on other commitments: I had been in a conference for two days. So although I'd been e-mailing some people, I really hadn't spent the normal amount of time on follow-through.

So I actually discovered, much to my surprise, that on the morning of our best guest to date he knew about the Skypecast and I knew about it but practically nobody else did. I messaged some people, hoping to draw in enough guests to fill the room adequately, and some pretty good people joined. We wound up with so many that there were some concerns about the room's stability. During the time when I was seeking participants I also put up messages on administrative noticeboard and on the Foundation mailing list.

Two of the people who asked to join us have been banned from Wikipedia. This came up at the last moment and the NTWW organizers hadn't really anticipated how to handle this. Two of our previous episodes had included banned users at the invitation of the chat host, but in terms of running a recorded chat that's a very different environment from when banned users aren't expected and they just want to hop in at the last moment.

And one of those two individuals who wanted to join us today has taken a very public dislike to me. To put the matter politely, he and I are like oil and water and just haven't been able to hold a productive conversation. I might be willing to try again on neutral ground in some way, but to foist that upon a prominent guest on the spur of the moment just wouldn't have been quite right. Mr. Bergstein could have had a few things to say, but he hadn't come prepared for the discussion this person wanted to hold and, frankly, neither had I.

The informal "Not the Wikipedia Weekly" chats had a proviso that they were for trusted members of the community. Skype is not a totally secure online environment, so that's a legitimate concern. And unfortunately, both of these people were active at a forum where some of the membership had used - I hope the accurate term is malware - and that method of collecting information had not been condemned. In fairness to these two people, I do not know of either of them ever having used that themselves. Yet those of us who don't participate there are skittish about the company they keep, and I hope that concern is understandable.

A decision had to be made quickly, and the decision I made was to shut one of the two out of the conversation entirely. I welcomed the other into the text chat, and because the voice connection was large enough that it was unstable he texted his questions for the voice recording and I read them off. They were very good questions. For technical reasons I didn't get the first one into the recording. The others went off quite well. Post-recording, once the room was a little smaller, he joined us in voice for a while.

So the Not the Wikipedia Weekly regulars are having a discussion today about how to improve the way we handle these things. People deserve to know what the rules are (and sometimes things that haven't been anticipated just have to be resolved on the fly). We're a new project that's been running for less than two months, and a few kinks are inevitable. We'll be straightening them out.