User talk:Billinghurst/archive 1

Email
In addition to tagging pages for deletion on Wikiversity, I see you have globally locked accounts working on the Volleyball score project.

This is a user or set of users (likely the latter, from my study), probably sharing internet access at a school or the like, in the Philippines. On Wikiversity, we encouraged them to develop the resource, because they could learn wikitext and also how to cooperate with a community. That has met with limited success.

1. They stopped almost all activity outside of Wikiversity, as far as I could tell.

2. They kept their editing almost entirely within the Volleyball project, learning that it was safe there.

3. They did respond in one case. But mostly they are uncommunicative. They created templates, copying them from Wikipedia. We wanted them to use subpage templates. I'm not sure they understood. The recent blocks were for repeated creation of templates, and you might notice that those blocks left talk page access open.

You have now cut that off and, in addition, other accounts that may be editing from the school will not be able to access Wikiversity, due to your global block of the IP.

I removed your speedy deletion tags. This is routine. Those pages were not "out of scope," the Wikiversity scope is very broad. Learning by doing is part of the mission, we are not simply content-oriented (i.e., we are not like the other wikis). You are free, of course, to initiate a deletion discussion, which will open this whole can of worms.

Unless there was substantial continued cross-wiki abuse, outside of Wikiversity, please unlock those accounts. I see that the IP had some edits that were inappropriate. However, this did not rise to the level of disruption that would justify a global block. Please unblock that IP, or open it to allow registered accounts to edit through it.

The "volleyball" accounts wave a big red flag that they are related. We know that. Some of them are the same user, that is a practical certainty. Some of them *may* be independent. On Wikiversity, we were encouraging them to use single accounts. That would all be part of the education that would take place.

Sometimes, especially with a language barrier, it takes time.

That is an interesting way to (re)define your scope, but, heck, if that is what this community wants, so be it, no skin off my nose.

With regard to the person/IP. It is crosswiki abuse which has been identified, and it is not limited to this wiki, and it is the same crap crosswiki. I can track approx. a thousand crosswiki edits with the same stuff repeated at enWS, enWQ, enWP, WD, hence how I backtracked to enWV. So if this community chooses to have it, it is their choice, but the blocks and locks for crosswiki abuse apply. To note that your belief that it is a group of people doesn't look to be the situation from the data that I am seeing. The user(s) are welcome to approach stewards if they believe that the blocks or locks are in error, and we can then have the conversation with them about the crosswiki abuse. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:33, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, you choose to bring that email here. I do not object. However, your claim that we are "welcome to approach the stewards," that's false. I have the right, supposedly, to approach stewards, but in actual practice, I've been threatened with consequences for doing so, and was blocked for a time simply for telling a steward the truth about what he'd done. I had not been uncivil, I had not been disruptive.
 * Before giving any opinion on this, I studied the behavior of those users. There was very little "cross-wiki disruption," by comparison to before they became active on Wikiversity. I'll get quantitative about that. Yes, what these users were doing was outside of community norms. That is why I encouraged them to edit here, and channeled their work into something that would cause little or no harm. Because they made mistakes, it still takes some level of work, but educating users is part of our mission. That is where Wikiversity is very different from the other wikis, which are content oriented.


 * When the global lock tool was introduced, it was never intended to be used like this. That use appeared gradually, with, initially, "off-label use" being relatively rare. The frequency has increased, to the point where I've seen global locks appear promptly upon a local block, without cross-wiki disruption. Global locks are not global bans. There is no policy prohibiting using multiple accounts cross-wiki. Further, these users are third world, they have a language problem, I assume, and they share internet access and very possibly a computer. To you, they will look like a single user.


 * You have presented my wording about this, implying that there may be more than one user, as if it were a "belief." No, it is a speculation, based on the behavior not really making sense as a single user, and more sense as a set of friends engaged in the same project. There are some mobile edits that might present more evidence. However, here, we don't sanction socking like this. We will encourage individuals to use a single account, but we do not have communication with them yet either confirming or denying that they are single or multiple. They have used multiple accounts when it wasn't necessary to avoid blocks. That's a sign of multiple accounts, but certainly is not a proof.


 * The biggest issue is that they do not appear to understand norms and don't talk about it. So we have been seeking to encourage them to communicate. The local blocks have been part of that effort. You will notice that none of these blocks cut off talk page access. You have now done that, cut off talk page access. You have also blocked the IP that the users routinely use.


 * I will study the situation in detail, at User:Abd/Volleyball.


 * This is one or at most a small number of users, I assume at a single school in the Philippines. However, how the least of us are treated is a sign as to how the rest of us may be treated, if situations arise that threaten the interests of some stewards. It's already happened, I have seen academics blocked and locked for "socking," without proof -- or on thin evidence -- or necessity. These locks do not appear to have been openly discussed. Once upon a time, checkusers didn't use the tool without a formal request, and stewards didn't make these decisions that are tantamount to a ban, without consultation. Those days are gone. It has become, apparently, an accepted practice, unilateral ban, or if it is discussed, it is discussed privately, the community is kept in the dark.


 * A global ban, by established policy, aside from the dangerous new WMF bans, requires that a user be banned through substantial discussions (not merely indef blocks) on a *minimum* of two wikis. The original lock tool discussions seem to have assume that locks would not be used until disruption hit maybe ten wikis. We will see what the actual situation was, here.


 * When we see local disruption that is a serious annoyance that we are not willing to handle, and we see disruption on other wikis, we can and do request global locks, I've filed many such. These accounts were active on two wikis, as it appears to me from my first look over the data. Here and en.wiki. On en.wiki, they were editing their talk pages, putting content there, hence using the wiki as a method of personal content communication. But they were not warned about this, nor blocked for it. They were blocked, those that were blocked, for socking, and we already know why these would easily appear as socks. I've seen the same in other third world countries, and surely you are aware of the problem. Blocking users merely because they checkuser the same IP or even the same user agent string, can cause disruption on minor wikis where, an example I have in mind, the two users were a bureaucrat and administrator. Whose styles were very identifiably different, they were almost certainly not the same. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:56, 31 July 2015 (UTC)


 * When you act as an administrator at a site, it is my belief that the conversations should appear in public, wherever possible, not via email. I brought that email here for that openness. I will deal with my local actions as a user and a steward at this site, or where my actions directly affect this site. I will not address your general grievances about stewards, that have been aired previously, or deal with generic statements about blocked users or issues from other wikis.
 * I was brought to enWV at the end of a crosswiki abuse issue, not at the beginning. So the determination to block was based on the crosswiki issue and the socks. It seems that you have a limited visibility of the issue, which is reflected in your above comments. I have made no comment about any edits and any IP address, and as a steward it would be unusual for such comments to be made. To note that no checkuser investigations were undertaken at English Wikiversity as part of this investigation, nor where there any rights changes assigned. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:54, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've been following the Volleyball users, since about the end of April, 2015. At that point, I investigated the Wikipedia history, (and saw the activity elsewhere, as well) and acted to welcome the users to Wikiversity, to attempt to engage them, as well as to divert them from disruption elsewhere. There was some level of success, but they remained mostly incommunicative. The success was that they confined their edits, almost entirely, to a project I set up for them at Sport/Volleyball. However, they also created templates for their project, copying them from Wikipedia, and an admin here warned them to request transwiki for these, to preserve history (and they did not attribute the source, also a license problem). Mostly, they created templates in the subspace, but one of the reasons I suspect there is more than one user involved is that the behavior was erratic. They did not enable email.
 * There is no way for you, as a checkuser alone, to know if these are one person or several using the same computer at a school in the Philippines. For most wiki purposes, it doesn't matter. For the content wikis, it is obvious that their activity is not useful for project purpose.
 * Some of the accounts were blocked here, with my support, as part of an effort to create engagement. None of the blocks cut off talk page access (and what these users were blocked for on enwiki, they would not be blocked for here). The goal was communication. However, it looks like it did not work and the activity shifted back to enwiki, for the most part. There, they used user talk pages to build volleyball pages, for the most part. I.e., one of the pages would be used as a template, transcluded to the talk page of another account. I was quite concerned, in fact, that they would be globally locked.
 * There were moments of response. As I mention, they did channel their editing. And at one point, I was thanked.
 * If this is a single user, which is possible, but which is then puzzling, I'd say game over, unless the user contacts us and engages. However, if it was more than one user, the normal wiki assumptions about socks break down. The hypothesis I've been running is that this is a small group of young women, and not all their activity is coordinated, but they have learned from each other and do work together; yet what one sees may not be seen by the others. As I have seen commonly happen with young users, if blocked, they create new accounts, it is the simple, obvious, no-fuss solution.
 * They don't know anything about global locks to start. It is not obvious to an outsider. To them, this is a game, as I have seen it be with very young users (who will appear to be vandals). Remember, Billinghurst, our mission here is education. We do not reject young users because they behave immaturely. We attempt to engage them, and it sometimes works.
 * Global locks are a crude tool. They are effectively global bans as being used by you (which is fairly new, you have not been a steward acting in this way in the past). That is, an account is locked simply because it is connected with (likely by checkuser at loginwiki) another locked account. That is something that, before, I'd only seen you doing with blatant spammers. These were not spammers and they were not vandalism-only, though there is an occasional edit that looks like vandalism. Power corrupts, Billinghurst, if there is not great care exercised.
 * There is little harm in a global lock of an unused account, in itself.
 * I am not an administrator here, to disabuse you of that notion. I might become one, as I have been one in the past. As an administrator, I'd have been able to entirely handle local disruption by these users, it's an easy task. As it is, Dave Braunschweig handled it. I'd have evoided indef blocks, but I don't know if it would have made any difference. I would also have short-blocked, sometimes.
 * Billinghurst, above you suggest that conversations should be on-wiki. However, it is obvious that there are off-wiki conversations, among stewards, and among checkusers, or unilateral and drastic action (a lock is drastic) without discussion, on a steward's own initiative. I would agree that there should be on-wiki discussion of such. It used to be that, on enwiki, checkusers did not act on their own initiative, but only on request, and exceptions were rare. Increasingly, there have been "checkuser blocks," without request, and with a demand that no admin unblock without consultation. More and more, power becomes concentrated in a few hands, without community oversight, and you must know why I consider that the steward community has become hostile to oversight. It was not always that way.
 * Structurally, a sane system would not allow the wearing of multiple hats. That mixes police functions with judicial. Societies that do not understand the importance of maintaining the distinction devolve into oligarchies. Hence my concern, I'm attempting to maintain boundaries. I am *not* attempting to make your job harder. It took you less than two minutes to lock a huge number of accounts. It was known, when the lock tool was provided, that this could be dangerous, but it was believed that the tool would never be used as it is coming to be used. It has been known that it was desirable for local communities to be able to administratively bypass global locks, and a way to do that used to exist. That was changed when the rename function was taken away from bureaucrats, but the long-suggested option of a local exemption, as with ip block exemption, has never been implemented.
 * You blocked an IP as part of this, and it is totally obvious that this is the IP of these users. I have seen, I think, one mobile edit. So while there are editors in this "family" who are not locked, they will still be blocked, if I'm correct, if that block does not exempt registered accounts. I have been considering whether or not to request local block exemption. Nobody said that you had violated the privacy of these users.
 * You did not act administratively on enwikiversity, nor did I claim that you did. However, you did act, and drastically, on enwikisource, blocking many accounts that had never edited there. I have not completed my investigation, but it looks like there was only disruption from two accounts. And, again, if these are more than one user, that was outside norms. But I've seen this many times: accounts are being checkusered and blocked without local edits, because of automatic log-in, that gives local checkusers access to the data without any edits at all. And then this is called "socking," though the editor did not edit the wiki with more than one account, it has occurred. And then the local blocks are used to justify global locks.
 * I'm not convinced that explaining what I'm doing is worth the effort. So I'm stopping. I think that this will go to the community, but I'm not ready for that. I've been considering whether or not to go to the Ombudsman Commission with what I've found, over time. Often the fox is in charge of the henhouse, and of the appeal system. Wikiversity has been a haven, a safe place, but it is not safe if stewards can effectively and unilaterally ban users, bypassing global ban policy, essentially ignoring it. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 14:33, 1 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Maybe we should consider removing the global locking system on Wikiversity, since it appears the scope is to give everyone a chance to shine! Tropicalkitty (discuss • contribs) 14:46, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Not possible if Wikiversity is within the ordinary global WMF system. This is built into the software, and globalization took away local control. However, it is not entirely impossible. It would require that Wikiversity be made a separate wiki. With this, all accounts would be local only. Stewards and global sysops would then have no remit here. I would prefer that, instead, the community develop mechanisms to supervise steward activity, and an appeal process that is community-based (or independent review-based). As it is, if a user is globally locked by a steward, the only appeal is by IP to the stewards on metawiki (though, in theory, someone could start an RfC). The stewards routinely deny these and block the IP, and I've seen that happen when the lock was face-palm stupid, vindictive, totally outside of community expectations. It seems that stewards can do no wrong. And why is that? It's obvious: if a steward rocks the boat, as happened in the past, if the steward breaks ranks, come next election, there are substantial opposition votes. I have seen users attempt to raise issues of obvious abuse, and be threatened with block or actually blocked, and most of the community ignores it.
 * Most of the community is not aware of what actually happens, and mostly it is not interested. Tropicalkitty, the problem is us.
 * Yes. Partly naturally, from founder vision, and partly through my efforts, as supported by the community, Wikiversity has become a place where users can pursue educational interests that are inappropriate, out of scope, for other wikis. We still have a neutrality policy, but we handle it inclusively, not by excluding bias. This is very similar to how brick-and-mortar universities operate. Professors are not required to be unbiased, they can express opinions. They are not allowed to misrepresent those opinions, though, and they cannot suppress contrary opinion (except in their own class, perhaps, but common practice is for professors to encourage discussion). Here, we have come to allow some level of page ownership, but comment is always possible, correction of errors, etc., and we find that it is not difficult to find consensus when there is freedom. We won't allow a top-level mainspace page to be owned, except transiently. In spite of what many might expect, based on other-wiki experience, we have little disruption here, revert wars are quite rare, etc., and we avoid banning users, we use blocks carefully to handle repeated disruption, and readily unblock on request and agreement to avoid unsupported harmful activity. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 15:06, 1 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Abd, you sprout a lot of rubbish. I invite you to go to the Ombudsman Commission if you have evidence that I have breached privacy outside of the policy, but you will have no evidence of such. To your claim that I have locked users outside of the guidance is incorrect, there is clear evidence of crosswiki abuse, with no response from the user. You can take my word for that, or not, I couldn't give a toss, but as I have said, I came to the abuse from a crosswiki investigation, for a person identified as running sockpuppets. I am out of here. — billinghurst  sDrewth  06:07, 2 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, I intend to go to the Commission. I've exhausted due process, outside of the Commission, long ago. However, I have not accused you of a breach of privacy. (Below, that shifts, but the breach is relatively routine; I have not seen that anyone else has ever noticed this, though. If I'm going to the Commission, it would not be to sanction you, but to clarify policy and practice.)


 * This is central, it's been a developing problem. You do not understand what I'm doing, you do not understand my concerns. You are displaying a pattern of behavior that I have long seen in those who devote themselves to antispam. But that is your business.


 * Is "running sockpuppets" contrary to the Terms of Use? To you, that might seem a ridiculous question. But the creation of sockpuppets is very common among naive users. Does that indicate harmful intention? In fact, it could be said that the WMF sites and policies train people to sock. When I have said you have acted "outside of guidance" -- that wasn't my language, but it's reasonable -- I was not referring to violation of privacy policy. I have seen no violation of privacy policy from you, and only a little evidence of such from other users. I am referring to the practice of considering real or apparent sock masters as banned.


 * I assume you know the difference between blocked, locked, and banned. Right? But others are watching. Accounts are blocked, users are banned. Who has the authority to ban?


 * Now, this is where antispam comes in. You routinely and unilaterally lock apparent spam accounts, with no edits. This was not contemplated when global lock guidelines, such as they are, were discussed. There is no ban process for spammers. When I documented global lock practice, the goal was to ultimately harmonize policy and practice. I.e., if policy is violated, it is not necessarily the case that the violator is "wrong." Maybe the policy needs update. I agree that when a user has been identified as a persistent spammer, locking accounts that you can see as being them (or sufficiently related to them that the expectation of spamming is high) is legitimate, or more than legitimate, praiseworthy. However, this, then, makes account locking a very routine practice. There is no appeal, and nobody is going to appeal a lock of an unused account. If the new user is, in fact, legitimate, it is far simpler to create a new account.


 * But is that account creation itself a violation of policy?


 * Billinghurst, it is possible that I know more about actual global lock practice than anyone else, including you. You know what you do. When I studied it, you were, by good measure, the most active user of the lock tool. OF the last 5000 lock actions of 2013, which occurred from October 12 through December 31, 1675 were by you, with there being 15 errors, where you saw many account registrations from a single source, which was a school and a school project was being set up. You promptly corrected that.


 * Some aspects of it are private, you are prohibited by policy from revealing it. There are users who have documented checkuser practice. I could set myself up with checkuser on my own wiki and test it, but I don't need to. I know what you see, in principle. However, the event, and your behavior, demonstrated that you are routinely using checkuser to review new account registrations. .... I'm adding this note last, I am revising my position. You are violating privacy policy. "There must be a valid reason to check a user. Note that alternative accounts are not forbidden, so long as they are not used in violation of the policies (for example, to double-vote or to increase the apparent support for any given position)." To be sure, if this behavior is a violation, the violation is not uncommon. You are taking shortcuts, to make your antispam work more efficient. I was thinking that this would not apply to the Volleyball users, but ... they have only been checkusered because of suspicion of socking, when it was unnecessary, they were obviously related, they directly and explicitly connected themselves with each other, and were easily sanctioned for behavior as being outside project scope and purpose, on all the wikis where they were active except Wikiversity.


 * In this Volleyball case, it is totally obvious why you believe what you wrote. You are not "wrong." But your vision is incomplete, and if you want to see more, it will be necessary to engage in an actual conversation and to think outside the box you have been living in for years, now.


 * I am reviewing the Terms of Use with great care. I want to know if the users you just locked violated it, in a way that they could be reasonably expected to understand. Right off, the full TOS is prefaced with this:


 * Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. – Our Vision Statement.


 * I want to emphasize this: "every single human being." That requires diversity, and respect for diversity. These users were not wiki-socialized, they were wild, from a different culture than yours and mind. Their behavior was similar to what I've seen from users who were children when they started. How do we socialize them, if we want their participation? With global locks? You know what happens, Billinghurst. Some of them become LTAs. Creating a constant need for enforcement. To them, it's fun. Is the other side of this game fun for you?


 * These users are young women, almost certainly, one or more of them, with a shared interest and they started out with no wiki experience, probably in January of this year. From my study, there are likely more than one, but I cannot be sure, and I know that you don't know if it is more than one, or not. Unless you did actually get some of that magic pixie dust that checkusers keep saying you don't have. What you know is that they used common access, possibly a common computer. Or there are signs of mobile access. There are other ways to distinguish single users from multiple ones. It is difficult and tedious, I did it on a few occasions, finding evidence that a very popular (or powerful) functionary was also running a bad-hand account (as the bad hand had bragged). You have not done this, you wouldn't have time for it. I never took that to the community because I never developed the technique to make it fully conclusive, and, as they say, if you are going to shoot the King, don't miss. Why did I abandon that effort? Because, I realized, it wasn't important. If the sites were actually functioning as imagined or visioned, socking would not matter. Socking is not the problem.


 * So, I'm not going to waste more of my time, and more of your time, arguing about this. If you are interested in my perspective, which is perhaps unique (because I am not aware of anyone else who has paid the dues, put in the time it takes to actually understand this incredibly complex WMF family of wikis), we can discuss it.


 * Once upon a time, I considered you the most thoughtful, reliable, and even-tempered of the active stewards. I think you've been burning out, I've now seen many symptoms. Other administrators have described to me what happens from long antispam antivandalism work. They become cynical, impatient, slower to assume good faith, and impervious to any criticism. Is that happening to you? If so, the one most suffering is you. Good luck. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 13:36, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

What is this about?

 * With, you added a template used to categorize protected templates, to a template that is not protected. Why?
 * With, you made some inconsequential changes, perhaps useless.
 * With the second edit you summarized: (Undo revision 1420947 by Abd (talk), we don't encourage xwiki changes to templates without consultation, this was explained to user.). You reverted my local changes, wherein I accepted that IP user's edits. Why? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 17:58, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note about the first, amended. For the second, we don't encourage users to come in and change templates crosswiki without discussing among communities, which this person was doing on about a dozen wikis, and was continuing to do after being asked to stop. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:54, 7 November 2015 (UTC)