User talk:Wugapodes/Archive 19
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ArbCom
Hi Wugapodes. I just wanted to say that your comment here is one of the most incisive analyses of the ArbCom/ADMINCOND/community DR dynamic I've ever read. Imbalances in power and social capital make sanctioning an administrator by community consensus outrageously difficult and opens the reporter up to further harassment
is right on the money and not something we acknowledge often enough. Probably because it's easily overlooked by those of us that have that social capital (i.e. arbs and sysops). Anyway I don't have much of substance to add, just thanks for taking the argue it out so cogently, and that I hope you'll consider putting your name forward in the next ArbCom elections! – Joe (talk) 14:27, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- I, too, found it an interesting and helpful comment (along with the meatball links; I went down the rabbit hole and found some interesting ones, like meatball:HumaneInterface). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:14, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- I'm glad you both found good takeaways! This turned into a long essay, so to avoid burying the lead: I'll consider putting my name in the running, but ultimately might not depending on where my thoughts are at around December. Xeno first asked me to run in late 2018---I still like Ike---but my current organizing goals are community-based. I think our biggest problems are not at ArbCom--er--rather, what makes it to ArbCom are symptoms of wider systemic issues that ArbCom cannot legislate away. In 2018, the vanishing of BU Rob was fresh on my mind, but now I think my main fear is how it will affect my ability to continue community organizing. Of course, if I'm needed, I will take my turn at the millstone, but at the moment I don't feel like my work is drawing me to the committee.With that out of the way, I wanted to wax about the issue further. My ArbCom statement was tailored to the matter at hand, but the implications reach much further. Social capital gives us a framework to understand a lot of problems on the encyclopedia, and that allows us to tailor our solutions to the cause rather than the symptoms. So I do want to push back and say the community does acknowledge the imbalances, but often without the academic language or social theory to connect all the dots. That's actually what fascinates me about MeatBall: the depth of social theory that the community developed is remarkable for being done by a decentralized group of amateurs. That said, our "original sin" is the exclusionary bias of early internet culture that served as the foundation for the wikis like ours. That is what I think we need to grapple with more, and it's something that took me time to accept. Robert Fernandez wrote a wonderful article for the Wikipedia@20 edited volume republished in the Signpost that at first, frankly, angered me because it touched on uncomfortable truths; but he is correct.If you're interested, there are two important takeaways from Fernandez (2019) that radically changed my thinking on the community's role in preventing and addressing abuse. The first is volunteer entitlement, and the second is structural bias. Fernandez notes that "altruistic" volunteerism can lead to sense of entitlement within the volunteers which manifests in harm to the organization they support. He cites anecdotes from Kennedy Center staff who recount their gift shop volunteers stealing. Having provided hours of free labor to the Center, they felt a sense of entitlement that allowed them to self-justify stealing from it and ultimately harming its cash flow (and by extension its ultimate mission). Fernandez says WP:BITEing is an example of this, I'm not so sure, but since reading, that framework has helped me understand phenomena such as WP:OWNerhip of articles (leading to edit wars and blocks/protection), WP:UNBLOCKABLEs (both in their behavior and in the community's response), and opinions regarding paid editing (volunteers do not want to help someone who is getting paid for their work). We are able to self-justify actions that plainly harm the project because we feel entitled to the product rather than beholden to the mission. But knowing the cause and the symptoms, I think, will allow us to better respond to these issues structurally rather than as isolated incidents.The second takeaway is our structural bias, or what I called our "original sin" earlier. The internet is hostile to marginalized groups, and sadly it used to be worse. Early netizens where overwhelmingly white, male, and of-means because access to technology and the arcane knowledge required to operate it was gate-kept by existing racial and economic hierarchies. I think Fernandez actually says it best:
In practice, to have a voice in a Wikipedia discussion requires a combination of stubbornness and privilege.
This led to the reproduction of those systems online and in the early WikiPedia which helped centralize social capital from the beginning; at its extreme, this was known as the meatball:GodKing WikiFounder role (which Wales largely eschewed). Because of our consensus-based decision-making model, structures are relatively inert. Changing anything requires a great deal of social capital which is hard to marshal and even harder to amass. I've thought about this in the context of RfC closures. At Wikipedia:Non-sysop closures, I am developing the idea of a "cline of stability" where greater deference is given to closes by elite editors---essentially the stability of a close is related to the closer's ability to marshal social capital against those who opposed the ultimate outcome. Where the division between sysop and non-sysop closures comes then is in the implicit threat of violence (c.f. meatball:NonViolence): as a sysop I not only have social capital but also the tools to silence dissent through technological means. Non-sysops can only manage dissent through capital, but sysops have both capital and violence. This distinction is hidden, and hiding it reproduces the power disparities between an aging admin corps (reflective of early power disparities) and relatively younger and diversifying editor corps. In other domains, understanding our "original sins" I believe will help us understand the factions that form in our discussions and how to effectively work across the divides: who are we not hearing from and why? It's why I think recruitment is such a dire need. I believe Levivich has been saying that one of our biggest existential threats is editor recruitment, and that perspective has drastically changed how I understand and frame the consequences of the phenomena described by FernandezAnyway, sorry for the long essay. It's a big problem: as a social scientist I find it exciting, and as a community member I fear the consequences of not finding a solution. Maybe I'll copy this to a subpage and turn it into an essay eventually. — Wug·a·po·des 21:47, 24 March 2021 (UTC)- Damn 😂 Moneytrees🏝️Talk/CCI guide 21:56, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- Great sociological analysis, Wug, and I definitely agree with the conclusion about editor recruitment. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
- That was quite a good read, thank you for taking the time to write all that, the Signpost piece was interesting as well. –xenotalk 02:17, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
- The hiding of this dynamic is the most pressing problem, I think. Most people would probably understand that joining an existing community takes some investment in learning its norms and proving yourself as a contributor – if you look at other successful user-generated sites like Stack Overflow or Genius, for example, they explicitly advertise that with a system of points that lead to privileged user rights. But we tell people (completely dishonestly, at this point) that Wikipedia is open to anyone to immediately contribute and participate in decision making. So new users naturally get frustrated and angry when they discover that in reality, there's a nebulous group of power users control both these processes. At the same time, not being up front about our power dynamics let's those people who do have social capital get away with not using them responsibly, because WP:NOBIGDEAL etc. – Joe (talk) 08:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
- I'm still torn on whether to characterize it as a "problem" and you'll find various comments by me arguing both sides. You're spot on about the enculturation aspect, and I think the important concept is "most people". It seems likely that there's a sizeable contingent who simply don't grasp the consequences of jumping into a social group without experience or understanding, leading to a kind of culture shock. A few days ago I read this allegory on Hobit's front lawn, and I think it's useful to continue here. Joining Wikipedia is like going to the beach and trying to join others in making sandcastles. If you show up and start telling people how to build sandcastles, they're gonna get pissed and kick you off the beach. Most people get that, even without being told, but some don't because they're young, socially awkward, or inebriated. For some people, figuring out how to navigate that can be hard. Where I waver, I think, is on locating the "problem". Like in the allegory, we've gotten very protective of our sand sculptures (rightly), but this leads to a culture of exclusion so newcomers get scared off. Most immediately I think about patrollers tag bombing new pages, or RC watchers being overzealous with warnings. My thinking is still in flux on this, but you certainly get at the heart of the issue. I wonder how a concept of Karma (a la Reddit and Stack Exchange) would function on a wiki? Lower down we were musing about granting usergroups automatically to editors who reach a certain threshold of edits, like bundling rollback with extended confirmed. It has trade-offs itself (e.g., meatball:KarmaWhore), but being very explicit in how we meatball:RewardReputation is something to seriously consider. — Wug·a·po·des 21:50, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- Damn 😂 Moneytrees🏝️Talk/CCI guide 21:56, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- I'm glad you both found good takeaways! This turned into a long essay, so to avoid burying the lead: I'll consider putting my name in the running, but ultimately might not depending on where my thoughts are at around December. Xeno first asked me to run in late 2018---I still like Ike---but my current organizing goals are community-based. I think our biggest problems are not at ArbCom--er--rather, what makes it to ArbCom are symptoms of wider systemic issues that ArbCom cannot legislate away. In 2018, the vanishing of BU Rob was fresh on my mind, but now I think my main fear is how it will affect my ability to continue community organizing. Of course, if I'm needed, I will take my turn at the millstone, but at the moment I don't feel like my work is drawing me to the committee.With that out of the way, I wanted to wax about the issue further. My ArbCom statement was tailored to the matter at hand, but the implications reach much further. Social capital gives us a framework to understand a lot of problems on the encyclopedia, and that allows us to tailor our solutions to the cause rather than the symptoms. So I do want to push back and say the community does acknowledge the imbalances, but often without the academic language or social theory to connect all the dots. That's actually what fascinates me about MeatBall: the depth of social theory that the community developed is remarkable for being done by a decentralized group of amateurs. That said, our "original sin" is the exclusionary bias of early internet culture that served as the foundation for the wikis like ours. That is what I think we need to grapple with more, and it's something that took me time to accept. Robert Fernandez wrote a wonderful article for the Wikipedia@20 edited volume republished in the Signpost that at first, frankly, angered me because it touched on uncomfortable truths; but he is correct.If you're interested, there are two important takeaways from Fernandez (2019) that radically changed my thinking on the community's role in preventing and addressing abuse. The first is volunteer entitlement, and the second is structural bias. Fernandez notes that "altruistic" volunteerism can lead to sense of entitlement within the volunteers which manifests in harm to the organization they support. He cites anecdotes from Kennedy Center staff who recount their gift shop volunteers stealing. Having provided hours of free labor to the Center, they felt a sense of entitlement that allowed them to self-justify stealing from it and ultimately harming its cash flow (and by extension its ultimate mission). Fernandez says WP:BITEing is an example of this, I'm not so sure, but since reading, that framework has helped me understand phenomena such as WP:OWNerhip of articles (leading to edit wars and blocks/protection), WP:UNBLOCKABLEs (both in their behavior and in the community's response), and opinions regarding paid editing (volunteers do not want to help someone who is getting paid for their work). We are able to self-justify actions that plainly harm the project because we feel entitled to the product rather than beholden to the mission. But knowing the cause and the symptoms, I think, will allow us to better respond to these issues structurally rather than as isolated incidents.The second takeaway is our structural bias, or what I called our "original sin" earlier. The internet is hostile to marginalized groups, and sadly it used to be worse. Early netizens where overwhelmingly white, male, and of-means because access to technology and the arcane knowledge required to operate it was gate-kept by existing racial and economic hierarchies. I think Fernandez actually says it best:
- If anyone wants to edit these into something coherent, I've compiled the comments at User:Wugapodes/How volunteers are paid. Go to town. — Wug·a·po·des 22:48, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Help
Hi I may be blocked but I would like a bit of help with this article please?
- User talk:Mr Hall of England/Archive 99
- List of female Members of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, should be without the United Kingdom on the link.
I am trying to make the article with the life peers according to these links:
- List of life peerages (1958–1979)
- List of life peerages (1979–1997)
- List of life peerages (1997–2010)
- List of life peerages (2010–present)
I have done the Bishops, but the female Hereditary Peers and Law Lords are last.
Hope this helps. Mr Hall of England (talk) 19:02, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Mr Hall of England, sorry for the delay, I've been spread thin the last few days. Thanks for your work, and I'd be willing to make the change, but there are some errors that I don't know enough to fix myself. For example, there are 4 sections for "Created by Tony Blair" with overlapping dates: 1997-2005, 1997-2001, 2001-2005, 2005-2007. Is this intentional? Also, User_talk:Mr_Hall_of_England/Archive_99#Created_by_Tony_Blair_(1997–2001) has some text at the bottom that look like notes. Do you still need to add those? — Wug·a·po·des 00:22, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, I know I am blocked, from the Blair Years I have not done yet.
I am doing it gradually.
Mr Hall of England (talk) 17:59, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
P.S. Postmaster General of the United Kingdom needs to be all in one!
Also I know that the BBC (Blair, Brown and Cameron) Years are the harder ones to do as they created more than the previous 3 PM's, I doing them in slow speed, as I like to take my time, but if you want to do them, fair play, the others under the Blair ones are not on the template but will be soon. Mr Hall of England (talk) 19:58, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Mr Hall of England: Take your time! You are suggesting big changes to the article structure, so I would rather wait for you to be finished first. You can still keep working on your draft at User talk:Mr Hall of England/Archive 99 because your block is only from articles. You can still edit everywhere else. When you are finished, give me another message and I will copy it to the article. If you need help, you can ask at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Peerage_and_Baronetage since those editors know more than me about the topic. — Wug·a·po·des 23:16, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, I would like you to do a check on the Life Peers 1958–1997 for me please, these have ? markings because I think they may be errors. Mr Hall of England (talk) 18:04, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Mr Hall of England: What exactly do you want me to check for? It seems like the "?" are hard coded rather than template errors. If you need citations you can find them on the peer's article and copy them over like I did with this edit. That citation is for the creation date, though I'm not sure if the date in your table is correct. The article is dated 23 September, but states the letters were received 22 September, so I don't know what the proper creation date would be. — Wug·a·po·des 22:28, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply, the question mark ones are incumbent members, but I think that I will be finished by mid April. Mr Hall of England (talk) 22:40, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Mr Hall of England: What exactly do you want me to check for? It seems like the "?" are hard coded rather than template errors. If you need citations you can find them on the peer's article and copy them over like I did with this edit. That citation is for the creation date, though I'm not sure if the date in your table is correct. The article is dated 23 September, but states the letters were received 22 September, so I don't know what the proper creation date would be. — Wug·a·po·des 22:28, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, I would like you to do a check on the Life Peers 1958–1997 for me please, these have ? markings because I think they may be errors. Mr Hall of England (talk) 18:04, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
It is mainly the dates they joined the House of Lords which is the one thing I need the help. Hope you understand. If you edit on the page, I will not object. Mr Hall of England (talk) 18:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Hi how are you doing today? I hope you are well and safe, I might be finished in about 3 weeks time, I have advised a couple of editors on a few things. Stay Safe. Mr Hall of England (talk) 23:03, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Foreign Secretary
Hi how are you doing? Hope you are well and safe, as the Foreign Secretary is now the same as the Home Secretary should all the holders have this on their templates? Mr Hall of England (talk) 19:14, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Mr Hall of England: thanks and same to you! I've been busy off-wiki so haven't had much time to look into this. I don't know what the foreign or home secretaries are, but in general, we use old names when discussing historical contexts where the old name was used. So if the template is specific to the Foreign Secretary and is in the context of how the position was when it existed, then it should still use Foreign Secretary, but if it's a shared template, and the two need to be distinguished, it might be worth changing. I wouldn't know without a specific example. — Wug·a·po·des 21:06, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
- The Foreign Secretary is a key UK Government Minister, as is the Home Secretary but not every Home Secretary has Secretary of State for the Home Department, that is what I want with the holders of the Foreign Secretary. Also I am nearly complete with the lady peers. Mr Hall of England (talk) 22:04, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
