Misplaced Pages

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Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates. He holds the founder's seat on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. The three trustees elected as community representatives until July 2015 are SJ, Phoebe, and Raystorm. The Wikimedia Foundation Senior Community Advocate is Maggie Dennis.

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Is there a mechanism to keep majorities from running amok?

I've noticed in some articles and entire topics, it is hard, even with our policies on NPOV, OR, and RS to have a fundamental NPOV regarding historical facts. Either you have the argument "those sources are not reliable because they are white people POV and 'outdated'" (which is a legitimate argument) or you have the flip-side "those are not reliable because they are propaganda from anti-Western sources trying to push a geopolitical agenda". I don't want us to get bogged down into specifics but you can find many in our history articles (eg- China and its relations towards Tibet when edited can cause an uproar; Israel/Palestine is another). When one group is a majority they often get upset about articles regarding the history of the people they "represent", it's human nature, and it can cause problems either in absolute numbers such as over 1 billion Chinese or in Misplaced Pages terms because that group happens to be over-represented on the internet (WASP men would be an example, maybe? I dont know, just guessing. I'm Jewish, perhaps we're they ones that are more than our .2% of the world population when it comes to editors on Misplaced Pages, we've never had a census). So, basically my question to Mr. Wales et al is this- do our policies really stand up to large majorities who wish to incorporate a POV from sources that want to rewrite history for geopolitical purposes? I ask this because history is written by the winners; China is just one example of a recent winner who, rightfully or wrongly, does now get to write history from its perspective, just as the "American Century" is full of history books written from their perspective and are still incorporated into Misplaced Pages (again, wrongly or rightly is debatable). As their secondary sources become more numerous, there are likely to be versions of history that may not be correct from a loser's perspective. Just looking for some philosophical perspectives on how Misplaced Pages is set up to handle this.Camelbinky (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I get the idea of many eyes/opinions on articles but, ultimately, is 'Misplaced Pages is set up to handle this'? My answer is no. AnonNep (talk) 21:54, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Another good example that Jimbo was also recently involved in the the Cultural Marxism spat, which I think was led by self-proclaimed Marxists and cultural Marxists -- who probably didn't believe in abolishing money like Marx did. Raquel Baranow (talk) 21:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with AnonNep. There is, though, a slight oddity wrt Indian/Pakistan/Bangladesh history articles, where many people get upset even though they are in the statistical majority. This may be the reverse of Camelbinky's experience as in those articles, aside from our policies not being favourable to oral history and ancient primary sources, the statistical majority fall foul of the policies when it comes to the geopolitical mess that was created by Raj ethnographers etc who slavishly accepted as truth what has often since been determined to be fantasy, wild speculation or boosterism/puffery. The rewriting of history in relation to those articles is generally regarded as having happened in the period roughly extending from 1820 to 1931, rather than in the present day. James Tod is a classic early example of it and this subject area might be the exception to the rule that Camelbinky raises. - Sitush (talk) 22:08, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Most issues with systematic bias can be boiled down to editor demographics and the need to welcome new editors with more diverse backgrounds and POVs. CorporateM (Talk) 22:37, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Regrettably Jimbo is part of the problem. His claim to be an atheist and his tendency to break all of Misplaced Pages's policies in order to promote his views sets an appalling example to any editor who comes across his edits and free reign for those editors who either share his view or want to ingratiate themselves with Jimbo. Perhaps one of the most notable examples was the site banning of TimidGuy by Jimbo. TimidGuy was a long term victim of WillBeBack, an admin who was able to bully, stalk and out editors who didn't share his POV with impunity; despite numerous examples of POV editing, harassment, gaming the system, battleground conduct and appeals for help from numerous editors who suffered at his hands. Eventually it got too much for even ARB COM, who had a history of rubber stamping the numerous Arbitration requests brought by WillBeBack to harass and eliminate his victims and TimidGuy's ban was overturned and WillBeback desysopped and banned. Unfortunately ARB COM has done nothing since and numerous editors remain blocked and banned as a result of WillBeBack and ARB COM compliance whilst WillBeBack has been welcomed back to the fold and his editing rights returned. Misplaced Pages is indeed the encyclopedia any one can edit and that means minorities will always be marginalised and that is unlikely to change as long as Jimbo, ARB COM and admins think their views are more important than the truth.MOMENTO (talk) 05:13, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

"His claim to be an atheist..."? Are you suggesting he isn't one? I've seen Jimbo accused of lots of things, but lying about non-belief is a new one. Why would he 'claim' it if it wasn't true? Not that it actually seems to have any bearing on the rest of your diatribe... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:47, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not trying to derail this discussion, but I wanted to point out that atheism is not a "non-belief". Since the non-existence of God is unprovable, that means that atheism is a belief. It is a belief that God does not exist. That's why atheism should probably be categorized as a religion within WP, if it isn't already. Cla68 (talk) 06:06, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby. Kindly take your train-wreck logic elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:09, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Momento's version of those events is highly skewed, in my opinion. Who truly knows "the truth" and who adjudicated that? Yes, WillBeback made mistakes and was subjected to an exceptionally harsh penalty. He lost his administrative privileges. He is now free to edit again, but is not currently editing, as far as I know. I believe that a careful examination of the work he did will show that it was mostly positive, though he made errors in dealing with aggressive POV pushers. He paid his price. Let's move on. Cullen Let's discuss it 06:15, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

If my version was just an opinion or even just slightly skewed it might be difficult for an inexperienced editor to show it. But since you say it is "highly skewed" it should be easy for a Senior editor like yourself to point out the flaws. I look forward to your corrections.MOMENTO (talk) 08:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, this was entertaining. Starting from an interesting concern about very large majorities and large ethnic or national groups of people, we have actually had an illustration of the problem that I think is more real: extreme minorities such as the followers of an Indian guru who has been called a "cult leader" manage to tediously battle to keep out negative information about their beloved guru. Or, as in the Cultural Marxism example, we reach what is an obviously wrong conclusion because again an extreme minority of people cares enough to "!vote" while most everyone else just ignores it. (And yes, I'm saying that the conclusion of the Cultural Marxism thing was clearly wrong, not NPOV, and in fact just wrong. If anyone wants to talk about that, we should discuss it in a separate thread.)

My point here is this: I'm intrigued in a philosophical way as to whether eventually English Misplaced Pages will tend to reflect an Indian perspective everywhere (if for example the rate of English usage in India doubles or triples from 10% of the population to 30%) and Indians become our largest number of participants. That's years away and it's an interesting and fun thing to contemplate.

But I think the problem we have much more often right now is situations in which only a tiny extreme minority cares enough about an issue to weigh in on it, while everyone else is worrying about more important things.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:00, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

And you've just summarized systemic bias in a large inhomogenous group. WP isn't a large blended group of dispassionate editors, it's a collection of many passionate groups. Any topic that has controversy has groups that attach themselves to it. Cultural marxism might be clear cut but others have only factions of strongly held POVs and size wins. The groups don't have to be along country or religious boundaries but can be any other unifying viewpoints. --DHeyward (talk) 10:21, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, to be a bit more optimistic, it's actually both - a large blended group of dispassionate editors *and* a collection of many passionate groups.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I should have been clearer. I think nearly all editors have a passion of some sort and are dispassionate about other topics. The difficulty arises in controversial topics where dispassionate is desired but the atmosphere leaves no one with the will or competence to continue unless they are passionate. There's no malice in passion but there is also no compromise. Arbcom exists because of this. But since content is not decided, only behavior, it's an intractable problem. I'd submit that this embraced/structured method of problem solving (small, passionate groupings in uncompromising battles) is the root of larger issues such as the gender gap and why that gap spans topics, countries, religion, etc. --DHeyward (talk) 20:18, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, this was entertaining.

You may find it entertaining, but I consider it heartbreaking to see Misplaced Pages turn against its core principles and degenerate from within.

Starting from an interesting concern about very large majorities and large ethnic or national groups of people, we have actually had an illustration of the problem that I think is more real: extreme minorities such as the followers of an Indian guru who has been called a "cult leader" manage to tediously battle to keep out negative information about their beloved guru.

I would caution all Wikipedians not to label individual editors as "extreme minorities" or "lunatic charlatans" unless one has good reason to do so.

Or, as in the Cultural Marxism example, we reach what is an obviously wrong conclusion because again an extreme minority of people cares enough to "!vote" while most everyone else just ignores it.

Misplaced Pages is not a democracy. It's the strength and quality of an argument that counts, not the number of votes.

I'm intrigued in a philosophical way as to whether eventually English Misplaced Pages will tend to reflect an Indian perspective everywhere (if for example the rate of English usage in India doubles or triples from 10% of the population to 30%) and Indians become our largest number of participants.

I understand that a particular minority ethnic group might eventually usurp the POV of the prevailing ethnic group, but our editing policies applies to all users regardless of nationality and I would welcome more diversity in our encyclopedia even if it upsets a number of editors from the prevailing ethnic group.

But I think the problem we have much more often right now is situations in which only a tiny extreme minority cares enough about an issue to weigh in on it, while everyone else is worrying about more important things.

I think the bigger problem is that the prevailing majority refuses to engage with the minority and, as a result, consensus discussions are often reduced into mere acts of votestacking in favor of the majority.

Well, to be a bit more optimistic, it's actually both - a large blended group of dispassionate editors *and* a collection of many passionate groups.

Unless one is absolutely sure that the passionate minority group is illegitimate, I would advise everyone to give the minority a chance by truly listening to them in order to reach a consensus rather than merely votestacking against them. Ad hominem arguments that attempt to portray the minority as "lunatic charlatans" and/or irrational followers of a cult leadership should obviously be avoided if WP:AGF still means anything on this site.

-A1candidate 18:19, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

JImbo has me at a disadvantage here because if I respond to his comment with facts I will be site banned from Misplaced Pages for ever, not just topic banned forever. But I can mention the two authoritative and respected scholars that Jimbo goes to when researching cults. One is Bob Larson, author of such learned tomes as "Rock & Roll: The Devil's Diversion", "UFO's and the Alien Agenda" and "In The Name of Satan: How the Forces of Evil Work and What You Can Do to Defeat Them". And Bob is not just an author, Bob is actually more famous for exorcising people over the radio but if you can't find him on your dial Bob will perform exorcisms over Skype (for a donation of $295). The other reliable source Jimbo goes to when researching cults is Ron Rhodes, learned author of "Unmasking the Anti-Christ: Dispelling the Myths, Discovering the Truth" and "The Wonder of Heaven: A Biblical Tour of our Eternal Home". Now some people might think that these authors might be "Questionable sources who have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest" but if you're Jimbo Wales, you'll go to the end of the earth or the remainders basket to get what you need to justify your opinion. Now at this point, I am going to predict the future. This conversation will terminated by an obliging Admin and I'll be site banned for annoying Jimbo.MOMENTO (talk) 09:14, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

You are not speaking the truth. You will not be site banned nor topic banned for responding with facts. What might be very interesting would be for you to justify your claim that when "researching cults" (which is not really something that I do) I read those two? What are you talking about? I'm sincerely interested to know.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:44, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Nope. I predict that anyone reading that will just go 'WTF?', mutter something entirely inappropriate under their breath, and try to forget they ever looked at it... AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:26, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you're probably right. And that, of course, is the problem. No one gives a toss that Jimbo or his acolytes make edits based on such absurd sources. Perhaps you can demonstrate your NPOV credentials and remove any edit based on Larson and Rhodes. Prediction you won't.MOMENTO (talk) 09:41, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm probably going to regret asking, but where has Jimbo been citing Larson and Rhodes as sources? AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I can't tell you because I'm not allowed to talk about it. But there are enough clues on this page for you to find out. Or you can email me and we can do charades on Skype.MOMENTO (talk) 10:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Charades unnecessary. You've 'not talked about it' quite sufficiently. And I can see no reason why I shouldn't talk about it, in the appropriate place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:24, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. Momento, you have my full permission to answer AndyTheGrump's question, as I sincerely do not know what you are talking about. As far as I am aware, I have never read anything by, nor even heard of, either Bob Larsen or Ron Rhodes. I could of course be mistaken, and perhaps I have at some point made an edit restoring some citation to them or something of that nature - although I doubt it. But I have certainly never proactively researched by reading them and adding things to Misplaced Pages. I am a trusting person, and so my first Assume Good Faith approach is to assume that you are not completely making something up out of thin air. But unless you can name specifically what you are talking about - where I have cited such authors in Misplaced Pages (or elsewhere) then it is hard to respond. For the record, and as would be obvious to anyone who knows me, I don't think UFO authors or radio exorcists are ever likely to be citable sources, and if I made some error at some point, it is certainly important to me to know about it. Ball is in your court, otherwise people will quite rightly conclude that you are just trolling.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:50, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The article in question is (I assume) Prem Rawat. Your edits can be seen here: . I've started a thread on the talk page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. As I thought, I was restoring deleted material or moving things around. I agree with you raising it on the talk page and although I think further investigation is required, it strikes me that neither of those qualify as reliable sources.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:52, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Too little too late Jimbo. And I am not going give ARB COM an excuse to site ban me because I break my topic ban by discussing a banned topic.MOMENTO (talk) 11:04, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually Jimbo, if you would like an open and truthful discussion on this subject you will have to remove the topic ban that was slapped on me by a minion who thought he was doing your will with no discussion or evidence and remains in place 2+ years later despite several appeals all the way to ARB COM who didn't even have the courtesy to review the evidence.MOMENTO (talk) 11:40, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Your topic ban probably doesn't extend to talking about your topic ban. Btw, I'm interested to know, which arbcom case/enforcement request are you talking about? The earliest one in which you were involved (not counting the article probation) was in 2009. --RAN1 (talk) 12:41, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Log (2012) --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:58, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm in an unusual category RAN1 normal Misplaced Pages rules don't apply to me but I'm going to take a chance here and take Jimbo at his word that "You will not be site banned nor topic banned for responding with facts". Here's an indisputable fact, the first comment by an ARB COM member at my most recent appeal was to decline my appeal (I'm not inclined to lift a topic ban when it's actively being violated) because I had prepared some material for the appeal on my sandbox. Even though the ARC&A instructions say "You can paste the template into your user space, or use an off-line text editor, to compose your request in private". Damned if I do, damned if I don't, damned if I can understand how this insanity has been allowed to continue for seven years.MOMENTO (talk) 23:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Momento, you are in an unusual category only because you have not been permanently banned, as most disruptive agenda accounts are. Your POV is strong enough that there is no realistic chance you would ever be able to contribute to that topic area without causing drama. Accept it, forget it, and (novel idea!) actually edit on some other topic area, so maybe one day you will not be judged solely on your edits to Prem Rawat, because you will actually have a meaningful number of edits not to Prem Rawat that people will be able to review. Guy (Help!) 23:35, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

A1candidate is an advocate of quackery and fringe ideas. Misplaced Pages always documents these things according to the dominant scientific interpretation. That is why the creationists stalked off in a huff to create Conservapedia and the quacks set up wiki4cam. I sincerely hope Misplaced Pages will never fix this "problem", but preventing cranks, quacks, shills and other low-lifes form trying to "fix" it has been ArbCom's major task for a long time. Climate science, evolution, quack medicines and the like are battlegrounds, because Misplaced Pages is trusted - of course Misplaced Pages is trusted precisely because it does not cave in to lunatic charlatans. Guy (Help!) 23:29, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#JzG -A1candidate 01:40, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going to respond to any comments that criticise my editing without providing at least a few examples and certainly not to any that make personal attacks.MOMENTO (talk) 00:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

But thanks, Guy, for demonstrating how minority editors are treated as second class citizens. Your assumption that I am a "disruptive SPA" is ironic considering two respected non SPA editors have described the edits I complained about as "comedy value" and the equivalent of citing "the marketing director of Coca Cola for an assertion that Pepsi rots your teeth?". That's funny, you bigotry is not.MOMENTO (talk) 10:21, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Larson and Rhodes reliable sources for anti-cult view on Prem Rawat?

I'd have preferred to have this discussion at WP:RSN, as I recommended myself (). That I initiate the discussion here is because this could allow topic banned editor Momento to participate, because of the limited sanctuary Jimbo appears to be prepared to give him in that context on this page.

A second reason is that this might joggle Jimbo's memory that he copied this from the body of the article to the lede several times in 2011 and 2012. Also the current discussion at Talk:Prem Rawat#Balancing fourth sentence of the intro hasn't been very active lately.

The following has been removed as well from the lede as from the body of the article less than 24h ago:

Rawat has been called a cult leader in popular press reports and in anti-cult writings.

References

1. Callinan, Rory. "Cult Leader Jets In to Recruit New Believers: Millionaire cult leader Maharaj Ji is holding a secret session west of Brisbane this weekend" in Brisbane Courier-Mail. 20 September 1997
2. Mendick, Robert. "Cult leader gives cash to Lord Mayor appeal" in Evening Standard. London, 2007-05-31, p. 4. At HighBeam Research
3. Larson, Bob (1982). Larson's book of cults. Wheaton, Ill: Tyndale House Publishers. p. 205. ISBN 0-8423-2104-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
4. Rhodes, Ron The Challenge of the Cults and New Religions: The Essential Guide to Their History, Their Doctrine, and Our Response, Ch. 1: Defining Cults. Zondervan, 2001, ISBN 0-310-23217-1, p. 32.

Additional info:

• Larger excerpts of the four mentioned sources (and several similar) can be found at Talk:Prem Rawat/Leader of
• The 2011 consensus seems to have been made here: Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 46#General view of him as cult leader

Questions:

• Are the sources sufficient for having the info in the lede?
• Are the sources sufficient for having the info in the body of the article?

Comments:

• Yes to both questions as far as I'm concerned. The popular press sources were never questioned, yet that content was inexplicably removed from the article too. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:51, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion about this is ongoing at Talk:Prem_Rawat#A_simple_question, which you omitted. No idea why this is being discussed here, but if you want editors' input use a proper RfC. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:31, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Cwobeel. This is a discussion about Jimbo Wales using unsuitable sources to further his POV and then characterising the people who object to his edits as an "extreme minority" who "tediously battle to keep out negative information about their beloved guru". No Jimbo, I and others object to you flouting Wiki policies to insert unacceptable edits without discussion and then publicly criticising anyone who objects. Now you try to excuse it as "I was restoring deleted material or moving things around". No you weren't, the material you inserted hadn't been in the lead for nearly two years and it was only there because you put it there in February 2011. And when I objected to it on that occasion I was topic banned for a year. Fortunately it was removed within days by editors who do care about Misplaced Pages's integrity and follow its policies. But it gets worse. Here's how Jimbo's second insertion of the same material unfolded. First, an editor (now banned for outing me) complains to Jimbo describing me as an "unconscionable idiot" which Jimbo sympathises with. Within 24 hours an obliging admin takes the hint and topic bans me without discussion or evidence. And less than five hours after I'm banned, Jimbo appears on the scene and reinserts the same flawed material without a word of discussion. The edit described by others as "comedy value" and the equivalent of citing "the marketing director of Coca Cola for an assertion that Pepsi rots your teeth?" remains in a prominent place in a BLP against all Wiki policies and common decency for more than two years because the only people who care enough about the article have been driven off or topic banned. And as we now know, if it wasn't for this conversation that piece POV pushing would still be there in pride of place in the first paragraph of the lead. I commend Andy the Grump and Cwobeel for putting Wiki policies before POV. I, of course, remain permanently topic banned because I will always fight POV pushers like WilBeBack and Francis Schonken's efforts to distort a BLP by unbalanced editing, shonky sources, harassment and endless referrals to their friends in ARB COM. No evidence has ever been presented to justify my latest ban. and there is no one to appeal to except Jimbo Wales who, as now been proven, will put his POV above the policies of Misplaced Pages. Admit you are wrong Jimbo and urban me.MOMENTO (talk) 22:25, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

For the benefit of anyone reading this: please note that I have no particular opinion on the merits of Momento's topic ban, have no strong opinions on whether Rawat is or was a cult leader, and that my only involvement in this topic has been to question the appropriateness of using partisan Christian Evangelists with no credible academic credentials as sources for a prominent negative characterisation in the lede of a biography of a living person. I suspect, given Jimbo's earlier post, that he wasn't fully aware of the background of the authors when he copied the questionably-sourced material to the article lede, and also suspect that this whole business might have been handled better were it not for the partisan edit-warring that seems to have characterised the article for some considerable period. The solution to such problems is clear enough, and it doesn't involve further bickering over who did what back in 2008 or 2011. What the article needs most is input from uninvolved contributors who's objectives are based around the creation of appropriate encyclopaedic content. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:54, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

For the benefit of anyone reading the above: User:AndyTheGrump I assume meant to write "whose" instead of "who's" since as it is written it makes no sense, looks retarded, and is just a horrendous thing to leave, I tried to fix it, but Andy would rather remain looking ignorant than allow some one to fix a problem with his sentence. So sad that this is how a Wikipedian portrays themselves, but is consistent with a lack of cooperation he has shown. Go ahead and delete this as a personal attack, which it isn't, I'm simply making an observation that, that will be Andy's next move.Camelbinky (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Andy's next move is to tell you to go troll somewhere else. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:54, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I, for one, greatly appreciate the effort that you and Cwobeel are making but the article is just a symptom of the question that started this thread "Is there a mechanism to keep majorities from running amok?". If I were an expert on Dehradun guitars and that's all I cared to write about on Misplaced Pages, everyone would be pleased for my SPA input and appreciate the depth and breadth of my knowledge. And I doubt if anything I wrote would bother a fan of any of the mainstream guitars and I certainly wouldn't be called an "extremist" or derided as a SPA because I didn't also write about Fender, Martin and Gibson. And I certainly wouldn't expect the constant stream of drive by editors who launch attacks on me, my edits or the subject matter because they are so passionate about their guitar that they hate Dehradun guitars. But since my area of expertise involves people's core beliefs, I enter an area where many people have strong opinions and are more than happy to express them. After all, a key tenet of Christianity and Islam is non believers are sinners and will and should burn in hell for eternity. And some atheists dismiss people who believe in a higher power as gullible children. The result of this ingrained intolerance is clearly demonstrated by the uncountable atrocities inflicted on religious minorities by religious majorities. Now since the subject of my expertise represents a tiny minority of the population and presumably a tiny minority of the Wiki editor population, it is no surprise that there will be some editors who are vehemently opposed to the subject of my expertise. I get branded a fanatic and extremist or in Jimbo's words "an apologist". Not being an admin and being clearly out numbered by antagonists there is very little I can do about it, other than be scrupulously correct in my edits, sources and NPOV. But even that isn't enough when faced with a coterie of like minded admins. As a consequence I have been blocked and banned without reason as any proper investigation of my current ban makes clear. And that is the problem Jimbo should address.MOMENTO (talk) 01:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

You've got to laugh. The main "evidence" that The Blade of the Northern Lights gives to ARB COM for my 2+ year topic ban is this - "If you click a few diffs ahead, you'll see DeCausa (talk · contribs) wholesale reverted said changes here and, later that day, Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs) re-added some more criticism which Momento et al. had moved and removed. In his capacity as an editor Jimbo has spent some time handling the Prem Rawat article, which is an extremely long-running problem area, and the day that I implemented all the topic bans there was a fairly brief thread at Jimbo's talkpage wherein he expressed serious concerns about the state of the article as it was at the time". What's funny about this? TBOTNL accuses me in his submission to ARB COM of removing Jimbo's now notorious insertion of Larson and Rhodes but, in fact, as I stated above, I was topic banned at the time and other editors quite correctly removed it. So TBOTNL wrongly accuses me of removing Jimbo's edit which should be removed. I'm banned if I do and banned if I don't. Hey Jimbo are you still happy to go along with this farce. OK, a little more then. In DeCausa's edit summary he writes "restore last version prior to series of edits by topic banned users removing sourced material". In fact, I was not topic banned when I made the edits. And if you click on the sixteen edits I made that DeCausa removed you will see that seven were trying to improve the position of a photo, seven were minor copy edits, adding space or splitting paragraphs. Of the two edits that did actually remove material, one summarised excessive criticism and one removed excessive praise, as in "One witness said that Rawat "played the whole time he was there ... he played with squirt guns, flashed pictures of himself for all to see, and took movies of everybody ... Love flowed back and forth between him and his devotees. Enthusiastic new members spread the message that the 13-year-old Rawat could reveal God". I know people are reading this, it is time for you stand up and say "This isn't fair that Momento has been topic banned for two years for these edits".MOMENTO (talk) 19:47, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

You know, if TBOTNL really did misrepresent you, then the proper avenue would have been to take this to AE. Bringing this up here just adds more fuel to the already-critical-mass problem that you seem to have with talking about the topic, and makes it less likely that they will consider that evidence given the storm you're trying to kick up here. Tl;dr --RAN1 (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I have already gone through several AE appeals, appealed to Jimbo several times and asked TBOTNL to unban me but to no avail. I've been ignored since I first exposed WillBeBack in 2009. There's nothing more annoying to pompous people than being laughed at.MOMENTO (talk) 02:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

To demonstrate how your last opinion is wrong: Ha ha ha. Very funny. Type it again. However, you aren't a pompous person. QED. Btw, if you've gone through AE several times, then chances are they've heard your case, but they still think that you editing the article would still be a disaster with your attitude. Given that you aren't giving this up, that opinion probably won't change anytime soon because there's nothing to suggest your behavior or the encyclopedia will get any better if they unban you. --RAN1 (talk) 04:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

@Momento: Since you pinged me I feel I have to reply, but have virtually no interest in this. You have had a long record as tendentious POV pushing SPA on this topic. That's why you were topic banned, and that's why your appeals were turned down at AE and ArbCom. NYB when he declined your last appeal cited "Momento's multiple instances of sanctions before the topic-ban; this was not a sanction imposed for a first offense". As far as my revert above is concerned, I really can't remember because of the passage of time and because, as I say, it's not a topic of much interest to me. I can make a guess though: I suspect that I reverted because I assumed bad faith (although I may also have found something objectionable in your edits - I don't care enough to check). Your dreadful track record and recent topic ban justified that in my view (probably). I doubt that my edit summary was mistakenly made because I thought you had been topic banned when you made the edits - you were topic banned after your edits and 4 hours before i made the revert. More likely, it was shorthand for "This is an editor who shouldn't be let anywhere near this article, as evidenced by the recent topic ban. Almost everything he's done on this article is battleground tendentious POV pushing and I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt". That's what i'm guessing I was thinking anyway. DeCausa (talk) 10:18, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

After posting the above, I read your other posts on this page. Momento, I'm impressed with your chutzpah but you're not an "expert". You are only involved in Misplaced Pages to advance the cause of Prem Rawat (someone who I'd never heard of until coming across that article). You're editing has shown that for a decade. The fact that you got away with it for so long before being stopped shows how ineffective the "majorities" are at "runing amok". Thankfully you were eventually stopped. Multiple admins and multiple arbs have looked at your case and, as far as I am aware, no one has concluded that is safe to let you loose on that topic area again. And you asked for diffs from someone to evidence criticism of your editing? Check the AE and ArbCom cases threads where you have been banned, and re-affirmed that you should be banned, from having any involvement in articles relating to Prem Rawat. DeCausa (talk) 12:27, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no evidence that "Almost everything he's done on this article is battleground tendentious POV". What you will find are the consequences of resisting WillBeBack, Francis Schonken, Cirt and their like from adding stuff like Larson whilst removing stuff like Galanter.MOMENTO (talk) 21:22, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

As someone who hasn't been involved with the topic very much, unlike I think some others, I have to say that I cannot see any good reason for saying that a source which clearly calls some:thing a "cult" is not a realiable source for the statement that something has been called a "cult". I am familiar with the source, and actually grabbed a copy of it for free some time ago, and while I have no particular high regard for the work, it was one of the biggest and most prominent books, so far as I can tell at this date, in the then-current sourcing of the anti-cult movement, and so on that basis I would think that for this minimal information it probably is a reliable source. I guess I would say the same time about a minor Soviet-era newspaper which started some ridiculous fringe theory that got a lot of attention. If a source is one of the leading and most prominent sources in the use of a given description of a topic, even if the source might otherwise be, well, pure b.s., it is probably adequate and sufficient for sourcing the statement that it was one of the first presenters of. John Carter (talk) 20:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we should add some Larson to the lead of Mick Jagger's article. How about -"According to some author Jagger has a masochistic attitude towards women".MOMENTO (talk) 02:40, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

While I think that Momento's Jagger suggestion is stretching the rhetoric rather too far, it is worth noting that Rhodes, the other Christian fundamentalist 'cult expert' describes the Mormon, Jehovah's Witness and Christian Scientist churches as 'cults' - and I somehow doubt that his opinion would be seen as worth including in the lede of articles on those topics. Certainly Larson and Rhodes are reliable for their own opinions - but should we be attributing so much weight to individuals with such a narrow perspective? It has been claimed on the article talk page that there are academic sources with good credentials also describing Rawat as a 'cult leader' - though perhaps in not such direct terms - and I can see no reason whatsoever why we shouldn't be citing them instead. Why use questionable sources when there are better ones? I can think of no reason other than perhaps (as was hinted at on the talk page ) Larson and Rhodes made for a simple soundbite, where proper treatment of academic sources would make for a less punchy lede. Not exactly encyclopaedic, I'd have to suggest. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:05, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

No academic describes Rawat as a "cult leader", more likely "guru", "teacher", Religious leader", "leader of a sect", a leader of a "New Religious Movement (MRN),"spiritual leader" etc.

In a limited article we must always weight up the value of sources. Some sources like Larson and Rhodes cry out for inclusion and lesser sources must sometimes be excluded. One of the first sources Francis Schonken thought should go was Marc Galanter, a physician, and professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse at the New York University Medical Center, who wrote that "over the long term of membership, meditation also played an important role in supporting a convert's continuing involvement. An analysis of the relationship between the time members spent in meditation and the decline in their level of neurotic distress revealed that greater meditation time was associated with diminished neurotic distress". FS removed that impeccably sourced material on July 16, 2013 at 8.47. After all this is an encyclopedia, isn't it?MOMENTO (talk) 09:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I must thank Jimbo for allowing me this opportunity to pursue the issue of "Is there a mechanism to keep majorities from running amok?" So far the only pertinent diffs provided in this discussion show the majority Jimbo, TBOTNL and FS making all the bad edits and me making the only good edit. Jimbo inserts and then reinserts material from sources he now admits are unsuitable , TBOTNL falsely accusing me in his ARB COM evidence of removing Jimbo's edits , me removing gushing praise of Rawat from a non expert and FS removing the positive comments of an expert, Marc Galanter, a physician, and professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse at the New York University Medical Centre,. On the diffs provided the anti Prem Rawat majority have made all the bad edits and I the only NPOV edit, and yet I'm the only one who has been censured and sanctioned. Ergo "There isn't a mechanism to keep majorities from running amok" and Jimbo needs to put it right. Am I allowed to offer a Bitcoin reward for any editor who can provide this conversation with five POV edits I've made in one year?MOMENTO (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Who gets to decide whether the edits are 'POV' or not? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:07, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Policy decides what is NPOV. Jumbo's edits to insert the opinion of non expert extremists fails BLP Balance - Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints; the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. TBOTNL makes a provably dishonest claim to further his POV and that's a FAIL. FS removal of impeccably sourced expert testimony to further his POV is a FAIL. And my removal of praise of Rawat because the praiser is not an expert is a PASS and goes contrary to the claim made here that my editing is about adding praise and removing criticism.MOMENTO (talk) 22:20, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I asked 'who' not what. If anyone is going to take you up on your bet, you will have to clarify the rules. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

As to the "who", candidates might include the admin who topic banned him, the 4 admins at AE who declined his appeal and the 8 arbs who declined his appeal at ArbCom. DeCausa (talk) 22:31, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Well it definitely can't be Jimbo because we know he isn't impartial, and it can't be the 4 admins at AE who declined my appeal and the 8 arbs because they're the ones who completely missed WillBeBack's reign of terror for years, and it can't be by consensus because I'm in the minority. So I guess we have to rely on Wiki policy. Does the edit conform to WP:BLP policies and guidelines? But let's have a practice, you find 5 edits that I made in the year before I was topic banned that show me removing material that's negative about Rawat that isn't clearly justified by WP:BLP. And I can offset any edit you find by providing an edit where I have removed material that's positive to cover those edits where I have reduced material, both positive and negative, to improve readability and reduce excess verbiage.MOMENTO (talk) 23:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

My mistake. All of those thirteen...in fact the entire Misplaced Pages community are ineligible. If they can't see that you are a paragon of NPOV then, by definition, they are biased. Who then is to judge? The Lord of the Universe, the Perfect Master of course. DeCausa (talk) 23:34, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

And you must take into account that far more positive material has been written about Rawat than negative so naturally there will be more positive edits than negative. Happy hunting.MOMENTO (talk) 01:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

A separate thread regarding Cultural Marxism

In this edit, you write "I have no strong opinion on whether the merger should happen or not, but given the level of outrage that this has generated, a wider discussion is warranted."

In this edit, you write "I'm saying that the conclusion of the Cultural Marxism thing was clearly wrong, not NPOV, and in fact just wrong. If anyone wants to talk about that, we should discuss it in a separate thread." This, I believe, could be appropriately characterized as "a strong opinion."

What changed? What caused this change? When did this change happen? Given the change, why did you not weigh into the various discussions even once after you set them in motion? Hipocrite (talk) 21:53, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

At the first time, I had not looked at the issue very much at all. I had seen a couple of arguments about it and viewed the main problem as being procedural - i.e. one of the biggest advocates and proposer of the merger, self-identifying as Marxist, closing the discussion, does not conform to best practices. I paid little attention after that, although I did do a little bit of research.

After the discussion closed again, with the same result, I become more interested and did further research. The issue is not subtle, as it turns out, but rather obvious.

Frankfurt School is a perfectly legitimate encyclopedia topic as a total standalone. I am not an expert on this school of thought, but as far as I can tell, much of the article is quite good, in the way that historical articles about intellectual matters often are.

The article does possibly break down a bit when it gets to Frankfurt_School#Conspiracy_theory, in that it liberally quotes and cites sources claiming that "Cultural Marxism" is a conspiracy theory without any responses from proponents. One is left here with the clearly erroneous perception that the term is only used by "conspiracy theorists" and the "LaRouche movement", a "lunatic fringe" (from the title of one of the sources), and so on. That's not good, and clear POV pushing, but that isn't my fundamental concern.

My fundamental concern, and the reason why I say that merger was clearly wrong, is that "Cultural Marxism" is a meme - a contemporary bit of controversial terminology. Most people who search for "Cultural Marxism" will be seeking to learn more about that meme, and will be somewhat bewildered in a bad way to land at an article about what, for most people, is a fairly obscure academic school of thought. The old article was problematic in various ways (not least of which being more Marxist POV-pushing, but perhaps equally plagued by POV-pushing from the other side) but it at least - from the very first version created back in 2006 - was actually about the topic. To quote that very first version: "Cultural Marxism is a term used to by some people to describe what they percieve as an attempt to undermine western civilisation through internal cultural means, rather than direct economic and military means following the fall of the Soviet Union, thereby bringing about a Marxist revolution." That sentence could be refined to a degree, but at least it has the merit of telling the reader what the term is.

There is a very big difference between the contemporary concept/meme and the Frankfurt School as a historical topic. The obvious problem that I see is that for readers who don't know a lot about the term, read it somewhere, and then are directed to an article that is only tangentially relevant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:33, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Yep. Another example of our forgetting that we should provide a useful and usable service to our readers. DeCausa (talk) 23:12, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

While not fully endorsing the proposed language (disagreeing with much of it, actually), I do agree with the fundamental premise that so-called "Cultural Marxism" is effectively a common and WP-notable meme which needs its own stand-alone article. Unfortunately persistence pays in Wikiland and a bad result was replicated. The redirect outcome is clearly a bit of POV shenanigans. Carrite (talk) 01:42, 15 January 2015 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 01:46, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Citations to RS? "Cultural Marxism" is a meme" I did not participate in this and don't know enough to write an encyclopedia article about any of it, although I did strongly suggest to Jimbo Wales that he should state his research at the time. But now? If it's a meme, there must be serious RS memetic study - which RS study demonstrates and documents its beginning, and documents its evolution. Cultural Marxism is there right now for you to edit (so go clean up the POV) but it is still unclear what or how you would write concerning its memetic origin and development. As for whether it needs its own article, obviously you have some convincing to do there, but the way to begin is go expand Cultural Marxism, if you have the RS to do so. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

It is absolutely disingenuous to contend that Cultural Marxism "is there right now for you to edit" — it has been deleted and converted to a redirect to a section of a tangential piece. Really shameful argument you are making there... Trout. Carrite (talk) 06:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

And a trout back to you; it is there right now for you to edit (there is nothing disingenuous about that), but yes, I was unaware that it was not a merge (as I said, I did not participate). Go forth, and edit. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:09, 15 January 2015 (UTC) And get a copy of the old article, if you would like. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:46, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. The best approach, strictly in terms of implementing Alan's excellent suggestion, would be to undelete the article (so editors can review the history) and get rid of the redirect. But there was just a discussion and a close, so that would be controversial. However, I don't see why undeleting (to restore the history for editors to see what can be salvaged) and keeping the redirect (to preserve status quo for the moment) would generate any controversy, and it would be a valuable first step.

I disagree, though, with Alan's views on what is necessary in order to establish that "Cultural Marxism" is a contemporary political meme or phrase which differs from the perfectly valid historical topic of "Frankfurt School" requires "a serious RS memetic study". That's not something we normally require. All that is needed is to show that the term is in play in reliable sources - we don't need some kind of separate "memetic study" (whatever the hell that is).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:39, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Memetic study is the study of memes, it's not "a separate" anything, it is a way to refer to study of memes. And "serious" is merely just a reference back to RS secondary sources. The pedia generally requires multiple, reliable, secondary sources for notability and so as not to have original research.Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, we need more than that, because we don't carry independent articles on every single term that is in play in reliable sources. We need sufficient sourcing to show that "Cultural Maxism" is an encyplopaedic topic in its own right, and that a substantial article could be put together without needing to duplicate other content on WP or to be filled-out with trivia.

When you say that the wrong decision was made previously, you should note that at the time there were actually three articles to consider, the two mentioned plus Frankfurt School conspiracy theory. Since this article seems to be on a topic that's completely indistinguishable from "Cultural Marxism", I think it's hard to argue that WP needed all three articles. That article has also subsequently been deleted, though, which may have been a bad descision. But if anyone really wants to, then it should be possible to reverse that be fleshing out the relevant section of Frankfurt School until a content fork can be justified, perhaps under the name "Cultural Marxism". It seems to me that that would be a better approach than arguing for the creation of what would probably be a stub to begin with, with unclear future prospects. Formerip (talk) 11:36, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, the fools in Category:Misplaced Pages administrators willing to provide copies of deleted articles can generally provide deleted history if asked (some exceptions may apply - copyright infringement, gross BLP violations, etc.) But regardless, anyone who wants the deleted copy from Cultural Marxism can have it. WilyD 11:06, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

First I think it was a bad outcome - harmful to the integrity of the encyclopedia.

I've been researching the topic ever since this became controversial. What's become apparent to me is that the "contemporary meme" is not used only by people who are extremists, conspiracy theorists, etc. It's used by some conservative scholars who seem respectable enough and are not alleging a conspiracy. It's also still used by some Marxist scholars and mainstream intellectual historians - partly talking about different issues in parallel but partly talking about the same thing. I've tracked the term back to at least 1973 when it was apparently used by Trent Schroyer in a book called The Critique of Domination, and it seems that other Marxist scholars got it from Schroyer (Richard Weiner attributes the term to Schroyer in his 1981 book Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology). While Schroyer may not have meant exactly the same thing by it as someone like William S. Lind, they are probably not talking about entirely separate things, either. I still think there's scope for a good article on this topic that would pull it all together, but it would take some time to dig into all the available reliable sources. The version of the article from May 2014 that David Auerbach referred in an article that he published elsewhere was a lot better than recent versions, but it was still under-researched and relied too heavily on a fairly informal paper by Douglas Kellner.

I'd be prepared to put in some more work on this over time to help get a good, informative article on cultural Marxism, but I've found it frustrating. It's difficult to make progress if the article is going to be a site for culture warring, as it has been. I was also surprised that my pleading for more time for people wanting to work seriously on the article didn't seem to be received sympathetically... but oh well (I don't mean to sound passive aggressive, but I probably will anyway). Again, I do think it damages the integrity of the encyclopedia if we don't have an article on cultural Marxism that's clearly neutral and informative, or if we must redirect we could do so to a properly informative and NPOV discussion within a broad and clearly related article like Marxist cultural theory (we don't have an article on that broad topic, but perhaps we should). Metamagician3000 (talk) 14:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going to get myself involved in this row again, but I will say that Mr Wales' understanding of Misplaced Pages policies seems a bit off the mark. I would specifically draw his attention to WP:NEO (a section of the policy titled "Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary"). I believe this is what Mr Walker was referring to above. I would note the following text:

Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or in larger society. To support an article about a particular term or concept, we must cite what reliable secondary sources, such as books and papers, say about the term or concept, not books and papers that use the term. An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position, which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy.

Please note, Mr Wales, that simply showing "that the term is in play in reliable sources" is explicitly railed against by the neologisms policy. This is for good reason, as was evident in the late "article", as merely gathering assorted works that have the term "cultural Marxism" appear in them does not make an article, but original research and synthesis. If he can provide sources that do what the neologisms policy asks them to do, then I suggest that he should do so. Otherwise, we've only got his own original research that "Cultural Marxism is a meme", and nothing to back-up that assertion. RGloucester — ☎ 22:55, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not misunderstanding policy at all. The point is that there are a great many reliable sources which discuss the term or concept. They were well cited in the deleted article and it's very very easy to find them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

There were no such sources cited in the article, which is why it was deleted, and why a panel of three administrators closed the discussion as "delete". If such sources were provided, I would support the existence of the article. Please provide them. RGloucester — ☎ 23:59, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

You are completely wrong Jimbo, and if you are getting your information from Mr. Magicmagician, he very much believes in the conspiracy theory. There were no scholarly references to the term, and if you want to say it's a meme that needs to be covered, the SPLC states it is used by anti semites, Neo-Nazis, right-wing Christians and misogynists to describe people who believe everyone(including Blacks, Latinos, Women, Homosexuals, Jews) should be treated equally. So your intro sentence for your imaginary article is absurd.Dave Dial (talk) 01:11, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Let me also add, it's no surprise why Misplaced Pages is almost exclusively white males, using systemic bias against those you claim to want to attract. Hilarious. Dave Dial (talk) 01:14, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The deletion of the cultural Marxism article makes me feel furious and I blame RGloucester for getting rid of the article. (I also thought you were indef-blocked, that you asked administrators to block you. Nevertheless: with the current events in Europe due to cultural Marxists (or whatever you want to call them), I'm even more furious, this is a very important concept. Raquel Baranow (talk) 01:36, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• Per my understanding of the suggestion above, I have restored the history under the redirect. The redirect is still protected. I recommend starting Draft:Cultural Marxism and then going to WP:DRV after a decent amount of thoughtful debate between the various competing POVs (I'd advocate a moratorium on starting the review before February, as a finger in the air estimate). We can histmerge in future if needed, or any admin can move the history out from under the redirect, to the Draft. I hope this helps. Guy (Help!) 00:11, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

  This is more and more Gamergate bullshit.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 01:14, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• You are exactly right, and Auerbach and Mr.Magicmagician have Jimbo's ear. Both very much pro-GG andor anti-womanfeminism. Dave Dial (talk) 01:17, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

This kind of personal attack is outrageous not least because it is false. Mr. Auerbach is neither pro-GG nor anti-feminism.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:49, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

And for the record, anyone who thinks that I am either anti-feminist or uncritically pro-GG, let alone "very much pro-GG" is barking up the wrong tree. As it happens, I think the GG people have a point about some of the gaming journalism that has upset them, and I want the GG article to be informative and neutral. But I have spoken out under my real identity against the public shaming of Zoe Quinn - the very sort of thing that I despise and fiercely oppose - and I disagree strongly with many of GG's "operations". None of that's the point, though, and we shouldn't have to defend or explain opinions we've expressed off-wiki. It's utterly unacceptable to try to put people in that position. My involvement here relates entirely to my perception of the integrity of the encyclopedia. Metamagician3000 (talk) 02:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Way to go ad hominem there... :golf clap: Carrite (talk) 02:23, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ryulong. Yes, exactly this is more of the same bullshit that we see at Gamergate — a clique of editors imposing House POV "for the greater good," ruling all contrarian efforts out of bounds due to "unreliable" sourcing or on specious "BLP" grounds. It is all very slick and neat — and lacks intellectual honesty, I might add. NPOV is simply tossed aside when it is politically expedient to do so. That is even more abhorrent than are the right wing politics of the enthusiasts of the concept of so-called "Cultural Marxism," in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 06:35, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Carrite, stop complaining that your proposal to add that terrible Gamergate blog of unknown authorship that was full of attacks on living persons is evidence that the Gamergate article is being overrun with SJWs. You should know better.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

You've proven yourself quite the warrior on this issue. We'll see how that works out for ya. Carrite (talk) 02:09, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• @DD2K, Neither of those statements are correct. And if Cultural Marxism was deleted because of anti-GamerGate then it should be restored. Our GamerGate article and draft are both atrocious because of POV ownership issues. --DHeyward (talk) 04:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• I don't understand why this article was deleted in the first place. Although the term "cultural marxism" is currently being used by pro-GG people (and others ), it's existed for decades as a school of thought. The Frankfurt Institute is the best-known and the first institution associated with this field of study but there's another place studying the subject, the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham, UK, so it cannot be said that the Frankfurt article encompasses the entire subject of cultural marxism. The article was in bad shape but that shouldn't be a reason to delete it. Ca2james (talk) 06:37, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

This is absolutely the same absurdity all over again. Is there no end to madness? Carrite, do you think it is too much to ask for sources that support the text of an article (WP:V)? If you've got reliable sources that support an article in line with WP:NEO, why don't you provide them? Above me, we have the same old sources appearing all over again, and once again, they do not support the idea of any kind of "school of thought" called "Cultural Marxism". I particularly like this new one provided by Mr James, which is likely copied from our own 2009 and earier version of this article, which existed prior to the book's publication. Do you see what happens when we proliferate false information? It gets copied into books, despite having NO BASIS in sources. I have not done anything "dishonest". I am perfectly capable of saying that I have been honest amidst a sea of dishonesty, in this row. Say what you want, but until sources are provided (that satisfy WP:NEO), there is no basis for an article. RGloucester — ☎ 06:45, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Why are you trying to prove a concept? "Cultural marxism", according to SPLC, has been around for decades. It's a right wing name for a left wing movement. The name, framework and concept certainly exist. Having a WP article that describes it is not the same as endorsing it or believing it. You can even buy the video "CULTURAL MARXISM - The Corruption of America." It's at least 5 years old so tagging it as GamerGate related is asinine. Buchanan has been talking about a culture war for decades. We have all sorts of "isms" that seek to create identities or to box others into an identity. The labels and debates exist regardless of whether anyone self-describes as that particular "ism." See Homosexual agenda for a similar construct - there doesn't actually have to be people with a "Homosexual agenda" (whatever that might entail) for a term that describes what a group uses to describe a political movement/action. --DHeyward (talk) 07:21, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The SPLC article is used as a source for the "conspiracy" section of the Frankfurt School article (not a section I'm keen to defend), and deals entirely with the Frankfurt School. Buchanan is a commentator, and his use of the term does not demonstrate notability (see WP:NEO). Where does this term exist? Please provide sources, preferably ones that are not copied versions of unsourced Misplaced Pages articles. RGloucester — ☎ 07:29, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's "Dennis L. Dworkin. Cultural Marxism in postwar Britain: History, the New Left, and the origins of cultural studies. Duke University Press, 1997" and "Weiner, Richard R. Cultural Marxism and political sociology. Sage Publications, 1981." There are lots more. --DHeyward (talk) 07:42, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Dworkin has been refuted tens of thousands of times, as has the Wiener article. Perhaps you could actually read the deletion discussion? Citations must support the text. Usage of a term does not demonstrate notability (WP:NEO). RGloucester — ☎ 16:28, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Then here for Marxist cultural theory. There's enough for it's own article. Quibbling over "Marxist cultural theory" vs. "Cultural marxism" isn't something academics fretted about. --DHeyward (talk) 21:09, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

If you want to write an article about Marxist cultural theory, or Marxist analyses of culture, feel free. I would support such an article. That's not called "cultural Marxism", unless you can find a source as such. No such sources have been provided, because they don't exist. If you really want to write that article, get on with it. RGloucester — ☎ 21:21, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

"Jameson on Jameson: Conversations on Cultural Marxism" it's use predates your interpretation. --DHeyward (talk) 21:38, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the rare descriptive usage of the phrase "cultural Marxism" (meaning "Marxism as applied to culture", equivalent to something like "Marxism and Culture") is known to exist, but it is not the usual way to refer to such things, and is in fact extremely rare to the point of non-notability. The standard way that people speak about such things is as "Marxist cultural theory". RGloucester — ☎ 21:43, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Not quite rare as Jameson is inescably tied to New Left politics. While it's certainly possible to apply Marxist theory to culture and it may have been done academically as a broad topic, it is the practical application of theory through culturally driven political movements. This was a shift in thought and practice. See Fredric Jameson#Research into Marxism. --DHeyward (talk) 07:58, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Letting myself and the other deleting admins know that this discussion was taking place and that the article has been undeleted had its history restored would have been nice (pinging @Huon: and @Spartaz:). Those in the above discussion - Jimbo included - should read the deletion discussion, where a chance to show that sufficient reliable sources about this subject took place, including discussion on most of the sources mentioned above. In the sprawling discussions there the outcome (agreed upon by three admins) was that there were not enough sources. I can't see the above discussions or undeletion achieving much other than further arguments and edit warring. Sam Walton (talk) 09:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

While "Notability is not temporary," as we say at AfD, the same does not hold true for a finding of non-notability. That's just a matter of improving sourcing and not resubmitting a substantially identical piece. Of course, there seems to be full protection up now, since this is a really big, big, big issue to some people, it would seem. (Why is this redirect full protected, by the way? Has there been edit-warring over the redirect of which I am not aware? Don't we have means for dealing with that? Or is this just a matter of Admins Who Know Best wheeling out their heavy guns to maintain a new controversial status quo, using power tools to "win" a legitimate debate? Just curious...) Carrite (talk) 13:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

My opinion on these comments is starting to lean towards trolling. The article history was resurrected to promote discussion of it, not discussion of admin protection abuse in cases where it is undeleted for the sake of discussion (where the fuck did that come from by the way?). --RAN1 (talk) 14:57, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Your opinion is mistaken. I am genuinely upset about what seems to me the abuse of our AfD processes for political ends by a clique. It is offensive to me, it is intellectually dishonest, it is contrary to the idea of intellectual freedom and our mission of the presentation of the sum of human knowledge rather than some sort of Purified Official Doctrine in an attempt to manipulate the consciousness of our readers. Carrite (talk) 02:16, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, my opinion is right on point. You're making a big deal out of the fact that the redirect (which now has a crapton of article history behind it) was protected when it was undeleted for the sake of viewing the old text. There is a proper way to do this (deletion review), but trying to get hornets out of a pinecone isn't one of them. Also, your logic that deleting CM is contrary to the project's mission is flat-out wrong. The purpose of the encyclopedia is to provide information on notable subjects based on verifiable sources. It's not, however, a venue for presenting minor, non-notable (minimal influence outside of its proponents) conspiracy theories as anything but what they are. That is what is intellectually dishonest, not because it "manipulates the consciousness of our readers", but because it's a flat-out lie and it bloats a topic which is relatively unknown. --RAN1 (talk) 04:47, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Good work DHeyward for finding the piece on Homosexual agenda. That is exactly, precisely a phrase from the same orbit as "Cultural Marxism." For any of you who might be interested in obtaining the wikimarkup code for the last published version of that piece to mine it for a potential new piece in the future, I've snared it and posted it up on the Arbcom-Gamergate thread at Wikipediocracy.com ("Another day, another Gamergate ArbCom case"). It will remain there even if warriors manage to suppress the edit history again. This is but another chapter in Misplaced Pages's war on Gamergate, after all... Carrite (talk) 13:00, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Why are you doing this? Like what purpose does this serve to you, Carrite?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:23, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I stand for the encyclopedia against political manipulation. Using "home field advantage" and power tools to enforce an Official POV is repulsive to me... I think we are in substantial agreement as to the actual nature of the concept of so-called "Cultural Marxism." I support freedom of information and discussion about it, however, rather than trying to annihilate and sweep under the rug. Carrite (talk) 02:30, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks, Samwalton. Having now reviewed the discussion, I too can quibble about things but most the comments here on Jimbo's page now either appear to be users who failed to convince the editorial judgement, and should wp:dropthestick -- or Jimbo Wales, who has only himself to blame for not participating (and, just complaining about how things did not go his way and oddly saying that there are substantial secondary RS for the statement "Cultural Marxism is a meme" but then not providing them: here is the google search for that statement ). As WP:V says: "Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article . . . and that it should be presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." (emphasis added) That the editorial judgement was generally WP:NOTDICTIONARY is hardly the big deal that the ones who failed to convince the discussion claim - at most, it's a meme according to Jimbo - so anyone who looks at Cultural Marxism can find it, if you have the sources to show that. And some day, you may be able to convince others that it's a travesty not to have a short separate article on a meme. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:47, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

  Will it be as good as Doge (meme)?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:23, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

@ASW. We had a split decision in a deletion debate that ended with a suppression of edit history and a Full Protection lockdown of the redirect and now we have people at the Administrator's Noticeboard complaining vehemently about the edit history being revealed — obviously in an attempt to prevent any form of recreation of an article about the topic. Calling a spade a spade here. This is a politicized war being waged against what seems to me a WP-notable article topic. So, yeah, there's gonna be pushback when stuff like that is pulled... Carrite (talk) 02:41, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Horrid accusations with no basis in reality. I have no political positions. I don't believe in the concept of politics. The article was deleted by consensus, and it must remain deleted unless a deletion review determines otherwise. If you think the deletion was improper, please file a review. Otherwise, don't complain about the article remaining deleted when consensus was determined to endorse deletion, which in Misplaced Pages terms (WP:DEL) means removing "the current version and all previous versions from public view". If you want the article back, file a review. Otherwise, accept the result. RGloucester — ☎ 02:47, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

A split what? You've failed to convince in the keeping of a separate article - you're upset about that - things like that happen on the Pedia, everyday. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:54, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Looks like the consensus policy is still flying over your head. That's a shame. Ironic that when consensus goes against you, you protest it to all hell, but when an admin does something unilaterally (out of good faith) to your benefit, and then reverted due to lack of consensus, you support it all the way. This pattern is pretty disruptive, and your time would be better spent on other topics, you aren't going to get anywhere with this angle anytime soon. --RAN1 (talk) 04:56, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

There are a whole bunch of problems with the more recent AfD. One problem is that the "delete and redirect" decision was not even remotely supported by consensus. Exactly one person made that suggestion out of all the people involved and there was no clear reason why such an outcome was necessary. The admin triumvirate who supported that result essentially argued for deletion as clean-up, even though that is not the purpose of AfD and making it a redirect avoided any such issue. One also has to take into consideration that all three admins were personally approved by RGloucester, who was the original involved non-admin closer of the merge discussion that started this whole debacle. In addition, the closing admin apparently went to a subreddit where people supported the deletion then said there that he had been looking at Reddit discussions regarding the article prior to the close and reached very negative conclusions about the subject.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 07:47, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I've explained how the 'delete and redirect' wasn't really a delete and redirect so much as it was a 'delete then redirect because its sensible' many times now. That we argued for deletion as cleanup is a completely baseless claim. There was no personally approving by RGloucester, he posted on AN asking for admins, and a few of us said OK. "he had been looking at Reddit discussions regarding the article prior to the close and reached very negative conclusions about the subject." I said no such thing. I'm getting pretty sick of this whole topic now. Sam Walton (talk) 10:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I was puzzled when an editor asserted that "This is but another chapter in Misplaced Pages's war on Gamergate". As Google is my friend, I found this blog and this edit to Kotaku, and I still am puzzled. In my opinion:

• Too many editors are quick to anger at anything even remotely related to Gamergate and seem prepared to do battle at any perceived movement by “the other side”. Everyone who acts that way should be subject to discretionary sanctions, as is being discussed elsewhere.
• As an intellectual exercise, remove the statements from the obvious Gamergate WP:POVWARRIORs (on both sides) from the Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Cultural_Marxism_(2nd_nomination).
• Even without doing the above, I see a insufficient policy-based arguments for keeping the article, and sufficient policy-based articles for deletion - in summary, the same findings of the three uninvolved administrators.

Too much time has been wasted on this already. JoeSperrazza (talk) 16:34, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I support a decision that agrees with what I said! Objective expert analysis from JoeSperrazza.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

"I oppose a decision that disagrees with what I want!" Objective expert analysis from The Devil's Advocate. Resolute 19:55, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Now that there's a draft and a proper talk page to discuss it on (thank you, whoever sorted that out) maybe we should just focus on improving the draft to the point where its quality as an article fairly representing the issue and its multiple sourced interpretations speaks for itself and its restoration is uncontroversial? This would obviously need all sides of the previous debates to get involved constructively. Although I strongly disagreed with the article's deletion, would a decent compromise be to accept the current redirection until we've got an article to restore that a reasonable proportion of editors would support as worthy of the encyclopedia? Although the status quo is very bad, the status quo ante wasn't great either. JimmyGuano (talk) 20:32, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Pretty weak tu quoque you got going there as I am not making some pretentious analysis and my only stance at AfD was to say it should be a merge discussion. The reality is that the decision was "delete and redirect" yet there is exactly one person out of dozens who actually supported such a result. Nothing in discussion suggested that "delete and redirect" was better or more supported than any of the other various suggestions. Above the closing admin tries to suggest that the consensus was delete, but it is hard to believe that when his own analysis shows nearly half the people saying delete offered a redirect or merge as an alternative and even those pushing for a straight deletion make comments that would just as easily support a merge or redirect.

He also denies that clean-up was cited as a justification, but his own comment on the talk page was "The content under discussion is a mess, appears not to be well based on the available sources and is subject to entrenched external views. Even the keep side has highlighted problems with the content." Another admin involved in the discussion states "The existing content is a mess and TNT should apply - therefore the text should be Deleted". Neither Sam's analysis nor the AfD supports deletion. It could support a redirect/merge, but not deletion. The fact they come to such an absurd decision backed by exactly one person in the discussion who does not even remotely come close to making a compelling case for that action makes one wonder given how they came to be the closers of that discussion and the closer's off-wiki comments after the close.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 07:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Apart from your corruption! charges, which are the usual claim for "thing not liked." Your critique seems rather wonkish. Where the discussion determines that coverage is generally already available/better elsewhere on the pedia - AfD outcomes are a panoply of rearranging deck chairs ("merged, redirected, incubated, etc. etc. etc.") In the end, Cultural Marxism is there to edit/expand. Alanscottwalker (talk) 08:41, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh please, this is far more than "thing not liked" as their own analysis discredits their decision and the whole situation would look unseemly to any outside observer. RGloucester is a self-identified Marxist who actively engaged in the original merge discussion yet closed that discussion despite it being divided and in a way that favored his position on the article. When the article was put up for deletion after his action was reversed, RGloucester went and requested admins then personally approved them and was popping up on their talk pages to confirm them. He even removed comments from the AfD talk page that were criticizing the decision. Unfortunately, this is just one topic area where I have seen RGloucester act like he has some authority not given to him on matters where he is clearly involved.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 10:40, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate, if you don't think the AfD was closed properly, take it to WP:DRV. If you don't think an admin has behaved appropriately, take it to WP:AN/I or ArbCom. I don't know what you're trying to achieve by ranting here but is it really productive to building an encyclopedia? Sam Walton (talk) 10:52, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Challenging actions that are counter-productive would be productive in my view.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:09, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

You have valid options as Samwalton9 has told you, but, to this outside observer, if you choose to focus on content - making ad hominems such as, 'so-and-so is a Marxist!, so everything they do, might do, or even touch, or be near is corrupt and suspect' - you will be red-baiting, and breaking several policies (as well as making logical fallacies). As of now, the only thing you have argued is that Rglouster transparently on-wiki requested closers in the usual way closers are found and discussed. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:47, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

It is not an ad hominem as RGloucester being a Marxist is directly relevant to the fact the article we are discussing explicitly concerns Marxism.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:09, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes. It is ad hominem -- you are denigrating him for affiliation, instead of addressing the substance - and if you continue in inappropriate ways, you have been warned. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The relentless Scorched earth campaign continues.... Misplaced Pages:Miscellany_for_deletion/Draft:Cultural_Marxism. Nobody's going to improve anything while it's constantly under threat of not just deletion but complete removal from the record. Which I guess is part of the plan. JimmyGuano (talk) 21:49, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I strongly believe the only way to make that article less horrible is to require every editor currently in the history to leave it to others, on pain of bannination. Guy (Help!) 00:01, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Wales on this issue. It sounds like the previous Cultural Marxism page was being used more to denigrate political beliefs and POV push than actually address the content matter. There is a definite segment of editors interested in labeling any Right-wing viewpoint as fringe regardless of the scholarship, polling, or evidence involved. More objectivity in standards is needed when determining what does and doesn't qualify as 'fringe.' --7157.118.25a (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

For all that the term 'fringe' gets bandied about you'd think a clear test would be established for how to define what is and is not 'fringe.' Otherwise, the risk is that the same inappropriate marginalization techniques will be used to discriminate based on ideological viewpoint as seen in the IRS targeting controversy. --7157.118.25a (talk) 00:14, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Another take on the topic

In a thread launched by Michaelsuarez on Wikipediocracy ("Metapedia schism") he notes the establishment of a new "racist encyclopedia" and links to an announcement on the neofascist website Stormfront. This includes among its articles the distilled essence of what the white nationalist movement claims "Cultural Marxism" is — which is something to keep in mind as part of the ongoing Misplaced Pages debate (and serves as a point of reference of what an article on the topic should absolutely not look like). HERE'S THE LINK if anyone is interested. Carrite (talk) 15:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

And if you're really interested in right wing spin on the topic, here is a A YOUTUBE DOCUMENTARY running more than 90 minutes — more time than I want to put into it certainly... Cultural Marxism: The Corruption of America is the title, with money content up front from former Nixon speechwriter and Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan opining on the topic. I suspect that Buchanan is if not the originator, at least the major source of propagation of the concept of so-called "Cultural Marxism," which he juxtaposes to "political and economic communism" as the underlying ideology of secular society. Carrite (talk) 16:09, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Ha ha, that video is actually pretty funny, with Antonio Gramsci as "one of Marx's disciples with a new idea on how to take over the world..." Carrite (talk) 16:17, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The video above includes G. Edward Griffin comments (13:15) — his being a very "hot" BLP at Misplaced Pages in which our neutrality principles are being cast aside, it seems to me. This is a giant interrelated political foodfight connected to the Gamergate dispute, I am coming to see. Carrite (talk) 16:26, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Ha ha!!! "Critical theory was doing its job — especially on people like Charles Manson.............. and John Lennon." (25:30) Carrite (talk) 16:47, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Question

Have you anything to do with the global banning and locking of Russavia? KonveyorBelt 19:46, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

No, I have nothing to do with it. I wish I did as it was richly deserved and long overdue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:30, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, if i may ask, could you explain why it was "Deserved"? Lor 11:49, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The sockpuppeting alone is enough. We don't even have to get into his extensive abuse of other users, but that alone, too, would be enough.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:20, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

So I would know a dozen more Users who have to be banned this way alone at de:WP. But the WMF only banns people, the WMF don't like. and ofcourse we know, why Russavia was banned. Mr Wales was not amused about the Pricasso image. And so Russavia has to go. Thanks to the board, that normaly don't decide anything - but for the Lex Jimbo the Board came to a result. It is a shame. Russavia made more for the Wikimedia projects than Mr Wales and all oh his friends of Board and Foundation together. But you all think, you can treat us this way. We are only Numbers. We have to learn, it is your project. Not ours. Thanks for that! Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't see this in the Meta:Terms of Use. There is a provision against "Attempting to impersonate another user or individual, misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity, or using the username of another user with the intent to deceive", but I don't think this should apply to the common case of multiple account use or block evasion. It's just too commonplace. And even the new Meta:WMF Global Ban Policy reads like it is meant to be applied only to people who have caused problems on multiple projects, because sometimes there is simply an overall difference in culture on some issue that causes a person who holds the highest rank on one to end up getting called out on the carpet on another. To me this use of the policy seems like a very bad idea indeed, because without explanation good contributors are plucked out of a project without its consent, which has already had a damaging effect on morale. A lot of people are taking a lot of time to figure out things like when some 19th-century photographer died or whether there is freedom of panorama in Azerbaijan, and I do not want to see such this resource degraded. Wnt (talk) 14:05, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

This is just wrong. First Dcoetzee, then Russavia ... these are top-notch contributors. What possible justification can there be to ban their efforts? In any case the Commons community deserves an explanation. Wnt (talk) 20:12, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, there was one recent controversy where Russavia advocated to keep a commons image that satirized Santa Claus and Jimbo Wales for saying 'Santa wasn't real' in the Wikiepdia article. Though that probably wouldn't push him over the edge, it could be a factor. Nonetheless, if WMF wants to consider itself a 'transparent' organization, it needs to give reasoning for its global bans. This just reeks of possibility (or even actuality) of abuse. Banning somebody from all projects, and not having to explain why? You might as well just kill Misplaced Pages, as it runs completely contrary to its nature. Free, open, anybody can edit. Tutelary (talk) 02:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't Russavia's user page provide an email address to contact with any questions? His user page also indicates extensive sock-puppetry. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:20, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

To those asking for greater transparency, I understand. I'm going to copy here something that I said on meta, at the WMFOffice account talk page:

Russavia knows by whom he was globally banned, but I'll say it here as well. I signed the letter myself. In all things, the WMF tries very hard to be as open and transparent as possible. But there are times when - for the safety of users of this site - we simply must draw the line and ask that you either trust us or don't. This is one of those times. There is appropriate supervision to be sure that global bans do not get abused, and we have an extremely high standard that must be met before we authorize one. We ensure appropriate checks and balances - no one person can authorize a global ban, and there must be an okay from the legal team. My view is that it should be a tool that's used very rarely and with a great deal of care. But yes, to protect the safety and integrity of our site and its users, we will occasionally be forced to use it. And in those times, we will not talk about why. It's the only responsible way to handle this.

Believe it or not, there's a sensible reason behind our refusal to comment: we can execute global bans for a wide variety of things (see the Terms of Use for some examples - and no, "provoking Jimbo" is not on the list), some of which - including child protection issues - could be quite dangerous to openly divulge. Let's say we execute five global bans, and tell you the reason behind four of them. Well, the remaining one is pretty clearly for something "really bad", and open knowledge of that could endanger the user, their family, any potential law enforcement case, and could result in a quite real miscarriage of justice and/or someone being placed in real physical danger. So no, we - as with most internet companies - have a very strict policy that we do not comment publicly on the reason for global bans. It's a common sense policy and one that's followed by - and insisted upon - by almost every reasonable, responsible company that executes this type of action.

• Despite my personal distaste for Russavia — which is considerable — I believe that his ban sets a very dangerous precedent. There is no "child protection" or "community danger" rationale possible here; this is a plain-and-simple WMF ban of a user who they happen to find distasteful or abrasive or inconvenient. WMF puts forward only a "trust us — we're professionals and it takes more than one person to execute one of these nukings and no further comments" rationale. Sorry, guys, that political capital has already long been spent during the SuperProtection controversy and the endless bad software initiatives... We don't need or want WMF obliterating their enemies (no matter how obnoxious) where there is no clear and present physical danger presented by these individuals. Policing these people away (or declining to police them away) is our job as a community, not yours as fundraisers, physical hardware managers, and legal defenders. I have no confidence here. Carrite (talk) 09:09, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
  • "There is no "child protection" or "community danger" rationale possible here" {{citation needed}}. How do you know what evidence the WMF has seen? Anyway, the Terms of Use do not use either of those phrases so it is not necessary for those rationales to be present. Thryduulf (talk) 10:23, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with Carrite here, the Wikimedia Foundation are rapidly draining what little goodwill remains in many areas of the project, there is open distrust in some areas and the disastrous collapse in relations between Eric and the community in 2014 has apparently gone unnoticed by San Francisco. The WMF Global Ban policy, on its own, is not the worst thing the WMF has ever done, indeed, the rationale behind it is sensible and the need for such a policy very much real. The problems are the permanent nature of the ban and the inability to appeal those sanctions. We know most penal systems globally recognise behaviour can change, that attitudes change and that it's desirable to reintegrate 'offenders' back into the community, something both the English Misplaced Pages Arbitration Committee and now the Wikimedia Foundation are failing to do, in so many cases, leading to administrators, stewards and inevitably now the Legal and Community Advocacy team spending thousands of man hours every year chasing around after sock puppets that in many cases (though obviously not all) have ceased the behaviour for which the user responsible was originally banned.

I would ask that you, Jimmy, and the board consider modifications to the Global Ban policy, which permits, after a sensible amount of time, commensurate with the reasons for the Global Ban, a method of appealing the ban to either the board, or to Community Advocacy, broadly in line with the established procedures here on English Misplaced Pages - appeals after 1 or 2 years then either 6 or 12 monthly after that, appeals being heard would obviously be entirely dependent on the user meeting any requirements, such as not evading their Global Ban during the period it's in force. Nick (talk) 10:56, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I would support something like that, even though in most cases it will be a complete waste of time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:01, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Some would say the ArbCom is a waste of time too as all it does is ban users..How many banned users has it re-rehabilitated and allowed back? Allowing a user no chance of returning but to give them a false hope that they could via ArbCom or the Standard offer is what probably leads to socking in the first place..--Stemoc 14:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• meta:Terms of Use section 4: "Harassing and Abusing Others". If this is severe and persistent, a user can be globally banned. Being a good writer of articles or creator of images does not excuse mistreatment of others. For what I've seen of the recent batch of global bans, they were all proper. The conspiracy theorizing is really boring. Please recognize that there have to be limits, and that once in a while somebody will cross them and get banned. Jehochman 13:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Good riddance, what took the WMF so long? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:44, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

@Philippe (WMF): While I appreciate your assurance that '"provoking Jimbo" is not on the list', it doesn't go far enough. I'm not sure if you recognize the usernames, but right now in the various talk pages you're getting claps on the back from most of the people who were pushing for Wikimedia Commons to be censored and/or abolished, and few others. There is a strong perception, at least on their side, that this action represents support for their political agenda of generally censoring things they don't like the look of. And their agenda is dangerous in a way that I very much doubt Russavia ever has been. Bear in mind, for example, that with strong community support, the Charlie Hebdo shootings article is illustrated with the precise comics that are the object of worldwide demonstrations, burning of churches in Niger, potential future al Qaida attacks that have global security forces on high alerts. Yet the same crew of people congratulating you now wanted the contribution of a recognized cartoonist deleted on Commons because they claimed that it was "harassment". Think about what that would have meant for the safety of Wikimedia employees and particularly of Jimbo Wales if the Hebdo article were illustrated but the Islamists had been given the impression that it is OK here to have cartoons of Muhammad but not of Jimbo! I know it seems really silly, and annoying, and some look down their noses on it as immature, but Commons may have dodged a literal bullet for you that day. So it is vital that if you had a real case against Russavia, you clarify that it is not based on a condemnation of his uploads of artistic works. Wnt (talk) 14:18, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

That's a remarkably convoluted way of saying "the people who applaud the decision to ban Russavia are the same people who disliked Russavia harrassing people". Exactly what it has to do with Charlie Hebdo, I have no idea.... The Land (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

This and this are both cartoons by professional artists. If we deleted the second as offensive, then did not delete the first, Islamists would say that we think Jimbo is holier than Muhammad. As for the people, I don't have the patience to try to track them all down from the many threads, but I think you'll find most of them calling for censorship or abolition of Commons frequently right here in the archives of this talk page, among other places. Wnt (talk) 17:37, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that by serving as judge, jury and executioner with no clarity on the process or the reason whatsoever, by enacting these bans the WMF is implicitly putting themselves and their agendas above those of the communities. Nbody but them will know exactly why the bans occurred, but there is a very good chance it was just to get a pesky user off of their case. This sets a bad example for the WMF and opens the door for many more future bans on abrasive or divisive personalities like our own Eric Corbett. KonveyorBelt 21:42, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

One can only hope that Mr. Corbett is banned as quickly as humanly possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:57, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration Slowness: Request for WMF Attention

A few days ago I posted a link to comments by one of the (English Misplaced Pages) arbitrators explaining why arbitration is slow, noting additional tasks that have fallen to the Arbitration Committee beyond its primary scope of dealing with conduct disputes. I requested that User:Jimbo Wales, as the face and public voice of the WMF, refer these concerns to the WMF. A few editors commented, but the thread was then archived by the archival robot. Here are the comments again: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wikipedia_talk%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FCase%2FGamerGate%2FProposed_decision&diff=642154916&oldid=642151661

User:Roger Davies identifies four additional responsibilities that have fallen by default on the ArbCom: off-wiki harassment; checkuser-oversight supervision; administrator abuse; and community ban appeals. Why is the ArbCom rather than the WMF involved in off-wiki harassment, which could have legal implications? Davies states that "the community has failed" to address the other three issues. My thought is that the community has failed to address those issues because the English Misplaced Pages community is too large, diverse, and fractious a group to be able to govern itself effectively, at least via consensus. If there is to be any sort of governance reform, the WMF will have to lead.

Hearing arbitration cases in panels of three arbitrators, with en banc rehearing only at the discretion of the ArbCom, would be one interim measure to speed up arbitration cases. Can the ArbCom implement such an approach itself, or would that require a change in its charter from the WMF?

Is the WMF looking into the burdens on the Arbitration Committee and the possibilities of some sort of governance reform?

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:51, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, first off, Arbcom itself took on community ban appeals, without authorization from the community, some time in 2006 or 2007; despite the fact that the community itself has considerably beefed up the unblock options and processes, including creation of the UTRS system, Arbcom has chosen not to divest itself of it. This is a conscious decision on the part of the committee. Recently a member of the committee proposed a different regime that would still ultimately give Arbcom overall authority for requests, but was highly bureaucratic, and it was not accepted by the community. So...this one is a problem of Arbcom's own making, and the committee could easily just step aside here entirely and shut down its own program. I remember suggesting this as a member of the committee as far back as 2010, but there does seem to be some strong urge to keep it up amongst some members of the committee, for reasons I have never understood.

We have recently seen the WMF create a global ban process that seems to be addressing serious harassment issues. Indeed, in the last 24 hours several users have been globally banned as a result of this policy and process. Global bans make much more sense for users of this nature, because of the tendency to simply move to other projects if they get blocked on this one.

The Arbitration Committee could choose to divest itself of "supervision" of checkusers and oversighters and turn this over to the community. It would not surprise me if we see a community discussion focused on this in the not-too-distant future. The AUSC is a moribund subcommittee and has been for several years, and could easily be dissolved by motion.

Finally, Arbcom should not have any difficulty at all with the few administrator abuse requests that it gets to deal with each year; speaking from my own experience, these were almost always the easiest of cases, and often took no more than the short time required to get enough support (3 arbitrators) to initiate an "urgent" desysop, with a bit of followup afterward. Incidentally, dealing with administrator abuse/inappropriate actions was indeed one of the original purposes of the committee, and has been part of its portfolio since its inception. There has not been anything close to consensus from the community on an alternate process, although many administrators have created personal desysop criteria that remain in effect for them as individuals.

So much of this "heavy workload" that Roger speaks of is actually because of Arbcom's own actions and unwillingness to take the steps to divest itself of tasks that it does not want to carry out any longer. Risker (talk) 03:26, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Well no, ArbCom handling community ban appeals has been part of the WP:BAN policy since the very start (May 2004). What started as a trickle is now approaching a couple of hundred a year.

If the global process does expand sufficiently to be a routine response to harassment that will be great, but the signs now are that it will reserved for the worst of the worst, and only after years of misconduct.

ArbCom should indeed turn CU/OS over to the community and I will support any appropriate initiative. That's been my position for years. Has it been yours?

"Admin abuse" has not an ArbCom responsibility since its inception and isn't even mentioned in the Jan 2005 version of policy. It kind of crept in by stealth later. This was formalised into yes/no requests to desysop in the current ArbPol but doesn't address the countless borderline issues (which usually come to us via backchannels).

If ArbCom has a fault in all this, it's a reluctance to jettison things and lob them into a void.  Roger Davies 10:41, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, lobbing things into the void is one of the hardest things to do, especially in a volunteer organization. The temptation is to step in and do what needs to be done. It's well meant but ultimately not fair either to yourself or to the community that you serve. Make it clear to the community, or WMF, or whoever, that if they don't take care of topic X then it's not going to be done. And stick to it. The most obvious example is that the committee has no business handling the "icky pedophile stuff" that one arb mentioned a while ago. Pass that straight to WMF who have the legal staff and other capabilities necessary to deal with it. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

While we are being more tactful than just telling the Foundation to just "deal with it", we are working to hand over things to the Foundation where that is (what we believe to be) the right thing to do. Thryduulf (talk) 16:37, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. First, I agree with User:Risker that the ArbCom should prioritize its work, and should give the highest priority to the task for which they were elected by the community, the resolution of conduct disputes. I see that the WMF has recently been occasionally imposing global bans. I agree with Risker about administrator abuse. It is not so much that "the community has failed" to establish a procedure, as that there is a working procedure, arbitration, for desysopping. (Some editors do want some method of community recall, but that is proposed, not actual.)

I would nonetheless appreciate a statement from Jimbo Wales as to whether the WMF may address ArbCom-related issues in the near future. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:23, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• In addition to binding resolution of editor conflict. the review of administrator abuse is also a Top Priority task of ArbCom — it is the only control mechanism that exists for the elimination of tool abuse. Carrite (talk) 04:19, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The WMF has an ongoing relationship with the Arbitration Committee, including regularly scheduled check-ins. During those meetings, we listen to (and hopefully, respond to) requests from the committee for assistance with matters. We've recently spent a great deal of time on issues related to child protection, for instance. We are loathe to take over the work of the committee without them raising an issue - that seems rather... wrong. And none of the issues that you list have, to my recollection, been brought to the attention of the WMF by the committee (with the exception of off-wiki harassment, which - as has already been pointed out - we are developing new tools and processes to address). Should the community wish the WMF to get involved, it would be appropriate to present that request first to the committee, and then to the WMF. You're certainly welcome to go through Jimmy for that (he is, after all, a sitting Board member) but I would suggest that you could also come directly to any member of the Community Advocacy staff (my team, a listing of which can be found at this page). If you don't know anyone there, feel free to email me and introduce yourself. You'll find that - despite the legend - I rarely bite. And if that's too big a chance, there's also Maggie, who is one of the nicest people you've ever met. We're here to help. We'll talk to you about what we can and can't do, and work with you to craft genuine solutions. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:19, 19 January 2015 (UTC)