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> When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good. That attitude is part of the problem. Or at least, it's why I've n

> When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good. That attitude is part of the problem. Or at least, it's why I've never wanted to contribute.

canttestthis 7y ago
Many of the points there make much more sense after you've been involved in the Wikipedia editing community for a while. I don't think these observations were addressed to the casual Wikipedia reader or editor. For the first point, Wikipedia has pretty comprehensive guidelines around editing articles. Consider for example the guidelines around editing biographies of living people [1]. Pushback due to non-compliance with the guidelines isn't censorship. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin...
raxxorrax 7y ago
I agree. I did contribute to Wikipedia once or twice, but that was quite some time ago and I don't remember the prevalence of any editors at that time. I would like to have political content separated because 90% of contested articles are opinions while common articles have a steady quality. It definitely is a problem, so the current ensemble of editors might be too. They should at least flag it as such. > When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good. No, you probably did censor them. You wouldn't even need to promote their views. Just put it in the criticism section and be done with it. It may be value added for every reader, even if the editor already dismissed the opinion. Wasn't the top admin banned by the foundation few days ago? Someone told me there were controversies... again... The attitude is indeed disgraceful and pretty much against anything Wikipedia once stood for.
- DanBC 7y ago
  > Wasn't the top admin banned by the foundation few days ago? Someone told me there were controversies... again... Yes. Here's the enormous discussion about the banning of Fram. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t... Probably best to start with the two statements from the foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram#Statement_from_the_WMF_Trust_&_Safety_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram#Further_comment_from_the_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t... He was banned because he was abusive and harassing, and en:wiki couldn't or wouldn't control it.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    To be honest, looking from outside I cannot put anything on that page into context (didn't read everything). Was there as specific instance of what prompted that ban? I don't even understand the role of these admins thoroughly.
    - DanBC 7y ago
      The foundation have said that to protect the people making the complaints they're not going to release more details.
      - raxxorrax 7y ago
        Probably a wise choice, but they would need something to justify the ban. Otherwise it would be statement against statement would it not?
        DanBC 7y ago
        They claim they looked back over several years of edit history across multiple accounts. There are a few people in the linked thread defending him while saying he's an arsehole.
  - eclipseo76 7y ago
    That's a very partisan way of presenting things.
    - DanBC 7y ago
      It's literally what the foundation have said.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - nsajko 7y ago
    > He was banned because he was abusive and harassing, and en:wiki couldn't or wouldn't control it. That is a pro-Foundation stance. Fram was removed bypassing all existing community processes while there are no public complaints against him and with no rationale or explanation. It seems like he was just removed for being rude. Also note that Fram was a critic of the foundation. In any case, this is a truly weird change of behavior from the Wikimedia Foundation, considering that they previously ignored even child abuse from admins, leaving everything to Arbitration committees. Awful administrator abuse on hr.wikipedia.org, which dissolved its Arbitration committee and is literally run, written and micromanaged by illiterate Nazis (and I do not mean grammar-Nazi or something like that) who behave MUCH worse than Fram was ignored.
rathel 7y ago
I participated in similar communities and would kindly disagree with you. The ones who raise this point 99% of the time _are_ up to no good. It's the Occam's razor, again: there's no censorship conspiracy and if anything of such user's comments got deleted, it probably insulted everybody under the sun. Reasonable people argue on the relevant points they disagree with, and can understand when to stop if their idea simply doesn't get traction.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  There are bad opinions if you allow everyone to speak. relevant link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Sure, but everyone can comment on them. And one can imagine, for example, having alternative versions of contentious articles. The existing disambiguation setup could easily handle that. Agreeing on tags might be nontrivial, but I'm sure that it's doable.
- noxToken 7y ago
  >I participated in similar communities and would kindly disagree with you. >The ones who raise this point 99% of the time _are_ up to no good. In my experience, comments like GPs are working on the idealized assumption that sites/forums have unlimited resources for handling stuff like censorship, off-topic content, etc. Many communities consist of volunteers to moderate the content. We would love to have an unlimited pool of unbiased mods/admin to review every situation on a case-by-case basis. However, there simply isn't enough time or resources to do it. That's how we get heuristics like, "people complaining about censorship are usually up to no good." I have no experience (other than very minor edits) with Wikipedia. I don't necessarily agree with some of the stuff in TFA - I actually disagree with some of the points. Though I can mostly see where the author is coming from. Moderating can be a tireless and almost thankless job, but people do it to ensure that the communities they enjoy flourish.

> When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good. That attitude is part of the problem. Or at least, it's why I've never wanted to contribute.

canttestthis 7y ago

Many of the points there make much more sense after you've been involved in the Wikipedia editing community for a while. I don't think these observations were addressed to the casual Wikipedia reader or editor. For the first point, Wikipedia has pretty comprehensive guidelines around editing articles. Consider for example the guidelines around editing biographies of living people [1]. Pushback due to non-compliance with the guidelines isn't censorship. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin...

raxxorrax 7y ago

I agree. I did contribute to Wikipedia once or twice, but that was quite some time ago and I don't remember the prevalence of any editors at that time. I would like to have political content separated because 90% of contested articles are opinions while common articles have a steady quality. It definitely is a problem, so the current ensemble of editors might be too. They should at least flag it as such. > When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good. No, you probably did censor them. You wouldn't even need to promote their views. Just put it in the criticism section and be done with it. It may be value added for every reader, even if the editor already dismissed the opinion. Wasn't the top admin banned by the foundation few days ago? Someone told me there were controversies... again... The attitude is indeed disgraceful and pretty much against anything Wikipedia once stood for.

DanBC 7y ago
> Wasn't the top admin banned by the foundation few days ago? Someone told me there were controversies... again... Yes. Here's the enormous discussion about the banning of Fram. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t... Probably best to start with the two statements from the foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram#Statement_from_the_WMF_Trust_&_Safety_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram#Further_comment_from_the_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_t... He was banned because he was abusive and harassing, and en:wiki couldn't or wouldn't control it.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  To be honest, looking from outside I cannot put anything on that page into context (didn't read everything). Was there as specific instance of what prompted that ban? I don't even understand the role of these admins thoroughly.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    The foundation have said that to protect the people making the complaints they're not going to release more details.
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      Probably a wise choice, but they would need something to justify the ban. Otherwise it would be statement against statement would it not?
      - DanBC 7y ago
        They claim they looked back over several years of edit history across multiple accounts. There are a few people in the linked thread defending him while saying he's an arsehole.
- eclipseo76 7y ago
  That's a very partisan way of presenting things.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    It's literally what the foundation have said.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- nsajko 7y ago
  > He was banned because he was abusive and harassing, and en:wiki couldn't or wouldn't control it. That is a pro-Foundation stance. Fram was removed bypassing all existing community processes while there are no public complaints against him and with no rationale or explanation. It seems like he was just removed for being rude. Also note that Fram was a critic of the foundation. In any case, this is a truly weird change of behavior from the Wikimedia Foundation, considering that they previously ignored even child abuse from admins, leaving everything to Arbitration committees. Awful administrator abuse on hr.wikipedia.org, which dissolved its Arbitration committee and is literally run, written and micromanaged by illiterate Nazis (and I do not mean grammar-Nazi or something like that) who behave MUCH worse than Fram was ignored.

rathel 7y ago

I participated in similar communities and would kindly disagree with you. The ones who raise this point 99% of the time _are_ up to no good. It's the Occam's razor, again: there's no censorship conspiracy and if anything of such user's comments got deleted, it probably insulted everybody under the sun. Reasonable people argue on the relevant points they disagree with, and can understand when to stop if their idea simply doesn't get traction.

raxxorrax 7y ago
There are bad opinions if you allow everyone to speak. relevant link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
- mirimir 7y ago
  Sure, but everyone can comment on them. And one can imagine, for example, having alternative versions of contentious articles. The existing disambiguation setup could easily handle that. Agreeing on tags might be nontrivial, but I'm sure that it's doable.
noxToken 7y ago
>I participated in similar communities and would kindly disagree with you. >The ones who raise this point 99% of the time _are_ up to no good. In my experience, comments like GPs are working on the idealized assumption that sites/forums have unlimited resources for handling stuff like censorship, off-topic content, etc. Many communities consist of volunteers to moderate the content. We would love to have an unlimited pool of unbiased mods/admin to review every situation on a case-by-case basis. However, there simply isn't enough time or resources to do it. That's how we get heuristics like, "people complaining about censorship are usually up to no good." I have no experience (other than very minor edits) with Wikipedia. I don't necessarily agree with some of the stuff in TFA - I actually disagree with some of the points. Though I can mostly see where the author is coming from. Moderating can be a tireless and almost thankless job, but people do it to ensure that the communities they enjoy flourish.