Shiny happy people holding hands

Kmweber has been benched from this blog for turnovers.

First down Durova. Passing play.

As you might have noticed from another post around here, a lovely troll puppet recently made its way to another website, much to the chagrin of a particular person being lampooned. That fellow was indeed a troll.

Some people say Kurt's a troll too. I haven't decided.

Of course two factors make all the difference. One is caption. That last image sat around innocently for a month until properly captioned. That other puppet with a two inch ruler didn't mean very much until I suggested 'inadequacy complex'. This image isn't captioned yet. Won't it be fun to see what the caption would be? The other is license. This one's still under full copyright.

I'll probably take about five days making up my mind. Of course, if Kurt Weber just happens to write an article during that time--any article--and it happens to get onto Wikipedia's main page at "Did you know", then I'll be impressed. I might even be so impressed that I take down this whole post and give him a barnstar for good sportsmanship.

Meanwhile, here's Kurt's campaign song.

And here's my response. Never forget, Kurt, that when you come to this blog you're in my house.

A mandate from the community?

It's a surprise to see the shape of this year's arbitration elections, particularly the voting trends on reelection candidates. It's tough work deciding Wikipedia's most stubborn disputes. And in making those decisions, inevitably some of the people who care about a case will return at election case holding a grudge. But there's a big difference between last year's pattern and this year's.

In the 2007 elections two former arbitrators sought a return to the Committee. Although neither of them made it, they finished a respectable seventh and eighth in the overall results and tallied solid two-thirds support.

Rebecca
Support: 233
Oppose: 125
Percent support: 65.08%

Raul654
Support: 317
Oppose: 171
Percent support: 64.96%

This year three arbitrators are seeking a return. None of them are faring nearly so well. As of this writing here's how the vote is shaping up:

Charles Matthews
Support: 21
Oppose: 108
Percent support: 16%

Jdforrester
Support: 26
Oppose: 119
Percent suport: 18%

Sam Korn (candidacy withdrawn)
Support: 56
Oppose: 54
Percent support: 51%

What's even more interesting is to read the rationales for those supports and opposes. A good number of people articulate the desire for change, and it may be significant that the returning candidate who fared best ended his previous term before 2008.

So maybe it's time to ask if that big gray thing in the corner is an elephant in the room: are these results about the candidates, or are these results an informal referendum on the 2008 Arbitration Committee?

Look at this string of comments:

105. Oppose. I see you as the continuity candidate. Skomorokh 01:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

106. Oppose The current ArbCom is a disaster. We don't need more of the same. AniMate 01:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

107. Oppose sitting arbcom member --Random832 (contribs | signing statement) 02:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

108. Oppose. Let's have some fresh faces. --Wetman (talk) 02:28, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

109. Oppose. It's a change election. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Darkness is the best disinfectant?

The sun sets on California as this occurs. Was I unfair?

SirFozzie for ArbCom

This year only one candidate gets my strong support for the Arbitration Committee. Although many are worthy candidates who would make excellent arbitrators (and I've supported quite a few of them), it's worth a few more electrons to share why.

SirFozzie first came on my radar screen two years ago when I received a request too look into the BooyakaDell RFC. What turned up was that he and few other editors were contending with one of the most destructive vandals in site history. The main account was JB196. To sample the scope of the problem:

• Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of JB196 378 entries
• Category:Suspected sockpuppets of JB196 155 entries

As big as that problem obviously is, the manner of disruption was even more problematic. While most of the other people who were contending with it gave up or fell by the wayside, SirFozzie kept on the ball. His success in that regard might make him underrated now: it earns more kudos to clean up a huge mess than to prevent a spill from turning into a huge problem in the first place. But obviously he was working extremely hard, and not tooting his own horn about it either.

In two years of firsthand observation SirFozzie has demonstrated uncompromising dedication and integrity across a variety of situations. I have never known him to take an action he didn't believe in, and he neither grants nor asks for favors.

Most importantly, what has plagued the 2008 arbitration committee has been a lack of willingness to take the bull by the horns. Too many arbitrations have ended with the Committee asking the parties to play nicely together; too many have passed the buck to arbitration enforcement in the form of discretionary sanctions. What's needed is a Harry Truman: someone who gets things accomplished and solves problems. Someone who isn't afraid to be decisive. Someone who values results over popularity.

SirFozzie and I don't always agree (he edits Wikipedia Review and I don't, for one), but he's a smart fellow and his reasoning holds together. He's here to help the project, not vice versa. SirFozzie has no idea I'm writing this, by the way. He knows my opinion can't be swayed by campaigning--not that he would try. Most of the candidates I've supported this year are doing well. But if only one of them actually gets a seat, it's obvious who I'm rooting for.

Semi-wikibreak

Okay, breaking the promise to womankind about the May Aufderheide biography (well kinda...been taking offsite notes). Overall I'm on semi-wikibreak this month. Broadly defined, that means reducing useful editing to a minimum.

What else is there in life? Besides Thanksgiving etc. etc?

Music. Bad music. On Skype and gmail chat a bunch of people have been trading YouTube links to really awful music. There's a strange fascination to this and an impulse to one-down each other. So sharing the highlights...erm, lowlights...of this monumental waste of time.

Earth Wind, & Fire, "Boogie Wonderland"
In order to be truly awful a song needs to have a few good points going for it. Quality sound engineering, a chart appearance in at least one country, and video production values. "Boogie Wonderland" is a typical bad song: something that kind of seems tolerable if the first hearing happens during one's third drink at a noisy party. It's got a danceable beat and an infectious melody. The next morning, though, that beat resembles a pounding headache and the melody is still infectious in that other sense of the word. The few lyrics that aren't garbled are inane. Then add those late seventies disco costumes...for a couple of months a whole lot of people had a terrible lapse of taste.

Yes, the video is contributory copyright infringement (which I would not do on wiki). Most of these links are. If a copyright holder complains I'll delink the darn things. I dare anybody to admit ownership.

Robert Palmer, I Didn't Mean to Turn You On
Robert Palmer deserves his own special place in rock 'n roll hell for inventing a music video cliche: models in black minidresses pretending to look like a backup band. It was a little bit witty the first time with Addicted to Love. He also used it here (smaller minidresses this time) and the models don't even try to finger chords on their instruments. The dude used the same gimmick again for Bad Case of Loving You, recycling sets and models. Other artists picked up on the idea and for several years MTV got really boring for heterosexual female viewers. Its last gasp was probably Tone Loc's Wild Thing. The particular touch that makes I Didn't Mean to Turn You On more dreadful than any of the others is its saccharine paean to neoconservative morality: Palmer in a dark business suit pleads innocence surrounded by eleven models, all of whom wear too much makeup and too little clothing. The title phrase juxtaposes against close-ups of the dancers' wriggling backsides. You didn't mean to be a tease, Robert? Yeah, sure.

Laura Branigan, Gloria
What's with the hairstyle? Was it a fashion in 1982 to deliberately mimic a unibrow? Just because a singer has a voice doesn't mean a song is any good. The lyrics she doesn't slur seem to be a warning to a friend who's developing schizophrenia, delivered with all the schmaltz and bad judgment of a teenager who thinks she can lecture a buddy out of psychosis. Except Branigan was already in her late twenties when she recorded the thing--which is a bit too old to be forgiven. Please, lady, close your lips and look up 'psychiatrist' in the yellow pages. Extra irritating points for the synthetic mock-trumpets in the final seconds.

Doobie Brothers, What a Fool Believes
Gotta hand it to this video for including subtitles. Problem is, they eliminate the good faith extended to misheard lyrics that maybe the real song would make sense. It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to sing and remove all doubt. Pity the radio audience of 1979 as they fled from the frying pan of Earth, Wind & Fire and landed here. Bad hit songs tend to zing around inside the cranium consuming spare brain cells until something else drives them out...usually another bad song. Want to get rid of this one? Well, the only melody that really outdoes What a Fool Believes for moronic relentlessness is It's a Small World.