Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:38, 14 July 2009

My notable creations:

And Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Committees.
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Others may be seen here under Stuff I began or had a big hand in.
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• Critical reading for everyone: User:Rootology/Wikipedia is broken and failing
• Next up, writing: Pike Place Market (cleanup/fix up to FAC) & History of the Pike Place Market, (complete writing and C/E to FAC)

Needs to pass FAC by mid-2011 at the absolute latest: the late Robert Jordan,

to try to get him on the Main Page in time for Tarmon Gai'don and the end of The Wheel of Time after 21 years.

Shamelessly seeking input at Advisory Council RFC

I've made a proposal on the talk page of the Advisory Council RFC in hopes of finding a constructive way forward. I'm shamelessly asking for input on it from you and others who have taken part in the discussion. Please see this section and contribute as you see fit. Thanks, alanyst 18:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Request

Root, you recently published your response to e-mails from Joshua, without his consent, because you said you didn't want to be involved in anything secret, and that everyone involved with you needed to know that. I'm therefore writing to ask you to publish every email and every chat you wrote in connection with this proposal. The lack of transparency is one of the more disturbing aspects of it. SlimVirgin 20:23, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely, I have no problem with that.

Kirill to me, July 5:

"The Arbitration Committee, with the endorsement of Jimbo Wales, is convening an advisory group, provisionally named the Advisory Council on Project Development, with members invited from across the breadth of Misplaced Pages. The Council will act as an advisory body to the Arbitration Committee and to the community; will consider various issues facing the project and develop ideas, proposals, and recommendations for improving it; and will serve as a forum for the sharing of best practices among the different areas within the project.

In light of your many contributions to Misplaced Pages, we would like to invite you to be one of the founding members of this Advisory Council. Please let us know whether you would be willing to be a part of this group; a response by Friday, July 10 would be greatly appreciated.

In addition, we would be very grateful for any suggestions you may have regarding a permanent name for this group."

Me to Kirill, July 7:

"Is this gonna be a mail list, private wiki, onwiki?"

Kirill to me, July 7:

"The details of the logistics are being broadly left up to the group itself. The default plan at the moment is to do everything on-wiki, but other ideas (e.g. a moderated but publicly readable mailing list) have been suggested, and are something for the group to consider as it starts up."

Me to Kirill, July 7:

"Sure, I'm game. I'll try to think of a catchy name."

That's it, like I mentioned in our gmail chat. Pretty straightforward and vanilla, and I wanted to see what would or could come with it. Like I mentioned, I'm still very, very much torn on a lot of this, but I see us collectively spiraling toward a black hole in the future spawned by the inherently selfish "me" nature of this website and some of the founding attributes of it, and something has to be done. Is this the best thing? Like I mentioned, I don't know. At all. But I love the idea of the site, and don't want to see it die a long-term death. If that means everything up to and virtually garroting everyone from Jimbo to the AC to Sue to Erik to Godwin, I'd see it done. rootology (C)(T) 20:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Please publish them. It's disturbing to me to see you, who has always claimed to be 100 percent in favor of transparency, involved in something as murky as this. If they're straightforward and vanilla, there's no harm in posting them. SlimVirgin 20:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I did post them; that's the entirety of the conversations. I just left off the e-mail addresses and full headers, the "Dear Rootology," and our respective signatures. Those are the entire messages and correspondences Kirill and I had. I'm not going to upload and post full e-mail headers as they may contain private info. rootology (C)(T) 20:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

No chats? Also, I'm not talking about with Kirill only, but with anyone. SlimVirgin 21:18, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

No, that was it, beyond Giano and I today scratching our heads at each other in chat wondering what the hell we've stepped in. After our own previous conversations, I'm honestly hurt if you believe I'd join up for something secretive. Hell, I just posted my own view on the forum page for how I think we should promptly hand off control of the whole thing to the community, which would involve my being removed from the group! rootology (C)(T) 21:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for suggesting it, but you know they won't do it, and that's the problem. This is a membership that was chosen in secret, which stands for everything you have opposed since I've come to know you on this site. I don't want to badger you, so I'll leave it there, except to say again that I do think you should post all the correspondence and chats about this. SlimVirgin 22:15, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I did. Unless you're suggesting I post the full chat logs between you and I today (257 lines) and my chat with Giano (68 lines)? rootology (C)(T) 22:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

And wait, what do you mean "you know they won't do it"? The AC won't give control of this to the Community once it's launched? They've already said they are, or I wouldn't even be bothering. rootology (C)(T) 22:45, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I had a very strange chat with Giano about this, so perhaps yes, it would be a good idea to post them, yours and mine.

As for them handing over control, they seem to be saying no. Where have they said otherwise? SlimVirgin 22:48, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

That's a willful misreading of the discussion on that page, where they (the other group members that bothered to post so far) don't denounce elections but explicitly say "not yet". I even said not yet on the talk page under the Membership section, where I said (paraphrasing myself) "lets do elections six months after we figure out how to replace ourselves". Six months would be more than enough time to build out the scope and nature of the thing, and if it was viable long-term, that election would be the test. The AC themselves all over the place have been saying they don't want to own or control the thing once it's off the ground.

As for republishing our own chat, are you sure? We were both very shrill in there about various things; Giano and I were just perplexed about all the nonsense today.

Would you also be willing to republish any and all off-wiki communications you yourself have had about this project since it began? I'm beginning to feel very suddenly like I'm being setup as a pawn in some fashion from multiple angles, which I hope you're not doing, as I like you, and that's about the worst imaginable thing anyone can try to do with me to have me aim about every possible bit of energy I have. rootology (C)(T) 23:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I suspect she is trying to set you up - we all say things in private that are best kept there. I have already refused her permission to publish any emails or chat from me. SV seems to want to capitalise on me expressing the private view to her that it was my supposition that Jimbo would only have consented to a council, with me on it, against his will or better judgement - since I told SV that supposition Jimbo has confirmed he had no say in deciding who was on the committtee - a statement, I have no problem beleiving. SV, who has never previously has a problem with wiki-secrets so long as she is party to them, is using every ploy and trick at her disposal to sink this council for no other purpose than revenge and fury on Jimbo and the Arbcom, she is incandescent that she was not in on it; that is not assuming bad faith that is a statement of fact. Giano (talk) 11:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think one of the problems with this project is that there are more computer people and engineers than historians and political scientists. The latter would understand the politics a bit better. Everything you've said has been said a thousand times by every dictator who ever existed. Your ultimate aim is to protect the people. But sadly they don't know what's good for them. Worse, all the bickering means you can't get anything done! The system is broken! Therefore, you must take power — for a short time only, mind you — so you can reform the system, then return it safely to the people.

We've all felt this at some point, when we can't get our own way over something that matters to us. I remember my own frustration with WP:ATT, and the months of work we put into it, only to be asked to hold a wiki-wide referendum, with people turning up to vote who had no idea what they were voting for, yet we were expected to gain a two-thirds majority. So I do understand your frustration.

But Misplaced Pages is a direct democracy, for better or worse, no matter how often you've heard people, including Jimbo, say it's not. Jimbo knows that it is, because he's the person who allowed it to develop into one. He has interfered in areas where I wish he hadn't, and he's kept certain groups in positions of influence that I think he made a mistake with, but by and large he has allowed the community to get on with it. Because of that, people have been saying since day one that it's broken. They were saying it when I joined in 2004, and years before that, and while the project was being set up.

Despite the doom-mongering, Misplaced Pages has created the largest body of knowledge that has ever existed. It has revolutionized access to information. It has created an expectation of freedom of information in all the dark corners of the world where people aren't allowed to know things you take for granted. It has managed to do that because there is minimal central control and because there is chaos. It works for all the reasons you think it's broken.

Any tinkering with the system has to be done with the greatest of respect for it, and for the people who created it. A revolution that starts by turning its back on the wishes of the community lacks that respect, and will fail for that reason. The thing that concerns me is the damage that might be caused on the way to that failure. SlimVirgin 03:47, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I hate to say it bluntly, but I have to, that I think it's time to go ahead with this and throw the dice. Too much is at stake, and I'd rather lose a big opportunity to improve something I care about than not play at all and play the What If? game later. As for the private correspondence, I'll decline to post my chat with either you or Giano at this moment. I posted my conversation with Kirill and revealed I'd spoke with Giano, so now it's your turn to go next and disclose who you have in contact with privately about the advisory group and your RFC. rootology (C)(T) 20:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Virtually no one. I've briefly chatted or e-mailed with you, Jimbo, Giano, Tony, and Proabivouac, none of it particularly meaningful — the chat I had with you was the most extensive — and I emailed an ArbCom member about the RfC. If someone is trying to convince you there's an organized campaign, there isn't. What you see on the RfC are spontaneous and legitimate responses, which I think is fairly obvious from the breadth of them. SlimVirgin 20:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

And I e-mailed Durova to thank her for the barnstar. SlimVirgin 20:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

How polite, I suggest you pin it somewhere prominent. Giano (talk) 20:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

A think tank is hardly "a revolution." Giano (talk) 11:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Love you Rootology, but...

Wiki. Break. NOW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.194.13.82 (talk) 09:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Workin on it. rootology (C)(T) 15:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Name removal

Sorry about this. I didn't realize you'd removed and undid yourself. I wasn't trying to push you out the door or anything! XD Lara 18:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

You hate me! XD rootology (C)(T) 18:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Rollback

Not appropriate to use rollback to edit-war. Guettarda (talk) 21:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

That's not an edit war, being one lone edit, but thanks, as detailed here. WMC is involved, and shouldn't be partaking at all in anything to do with "officially" with Abd, and I see the Clerk has warned WMC as well. I saw the reversion as I have Hip watchlisted from our recent interactions. In any event, that one edit is my lone involvement here. rootology (C)(T) 21:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)