User:Kosebamse/IRC

A preliminary documentation of the IRC arbitration case (moved from User talk:Kosebamse).

Kosebamse's comments
Bishonen has not edited since Christmas except for matters related to the IRC case. She has deleted her user and talk page and killed her socks 'Zilla and Little Stupid. It is obvious that this decision resulted from the handling and circumstances of the IRC case and the subsequent retreat of Giano. She has long been one of our finest editors. Besides doing a lot of thankless admin work, she has been at the heart of numerous collaborations and has written (alone or in collaboration) a number of fantastic articles, such as John Vanbrugh, S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897, Great Fire of London, Swedish emigration to the United States to name only a few. Her humor, wit, and hospitality have attracted countless dedicated writers and made her talkpage the venue of many of Wikipedia's wittiest discussions ever.

Giano has been one of the finest editors ever. His intelligent and humourous writing style, his knowledge and wit, his dedication to the project and his insight into Wikipedia matters were unrivalled. He has left after of years of harassment by Wikipedians from every imaginable station, from the nitwits and trolls to admins, former admins, and even members of our most illustrious tribunal.

So much for the facts. Here's the context in a nutshell:

The IRC channel #wikipedia-en-admins has seen numerous lamentable events, including rude attacks on users. In December 2007, a short-lived edit-war broke out over the (now redirected) page describing that channel, Giano taking sides for Bishonen and mentioning said lamentable events. Administrative tools were used in violation of policy, including page protection by an involved user, and an inadequate block against Giano (see Requests for arbitration/IRC/Evidence). A RFAR was filed. These events took place over Christmas, and there was virtually no chance for the community to sort out the matter before the RFAR was accepted. It was accepted under dubious circumstances and conducted under heavy criticism. Its outcome has predictably resulted in Giano's leaving, who has indicated that he will not return. Bishonen's role in these events was rather small (she had been subject to attacks on IRC in the past, and briefly involved in the skirmishes over WP:WEA). She has however made clear that she will not accept sanctions that cause Giano to leave.

So much for the context. For those interested, here's the comment:

The arb com's ill-advised acceptance of the case, their delays in decision-making, their unclear stance on conflicts of interest among their members, and the small-minded final decision have foreseeably caused a lot of bitterness and the loss of two superlative writers. I respect Giano's and Bishonen's decision to retreat from a project that they have been given every reason to consider disgraced.

But it's such a bloody shame. Kosebamse (talk) 08:54, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Here here Raul654 (talk) 23:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Very well put. AniMate  23:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Amen. 65.54.155.48 (talk) 06:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC) (frequent anon editor)

Another postmortem of the IRC case
Copying this here to keep it visible. Thus spake Geogre ( slightly edited ):

What happened? Let's get history, issues, and "resolutions."

History

 * 1) The admins.irc channel was floated as an idea, and it was defeated. It was not an overwhelming defeat, but it was a defeat, which is quite some distance from "consensus."  The idea of BLP did not exist then (this was well before the Siegenthaller mess), and the OFFICE did not exist, and there was no such thing as OTRS.  Nevertheless, the channel was created for admins only.
 * 2) Many, many, many bad decisions came out of "discussion on IRC." Specifically, discussion on that one channel.
 * 3) Several instances of talk that would in no way be tolerated at Wikipedia were documented at that IRC channel.
 * 4) This was not penis talk. Penis talk is common on the main IRC channel, and it's annoying, but it's not particularly important.
 * 5) These cases included users plotting to organize a ban of a user in good standing and encouragement to "look for" reasons to do it.
 * 6) They included also users agreeing to block users on suspicion of being bad people, despite the fact that they had not violated any Wikipedia policies (this was over their being suspected secret agents for users of WikiReview and others).
 * 7) They included people telling users in good standing that they had no right to speak there.
 * 8) The channel was populated by many administrators, but also by several non-administrators. Some of the abusive speech and action, above, was done by people not actually administrators at en.wikipedia, or any Wikimedia project.  This including calling users "arsehole," but this was hardly an issue (the dirty word).  The issue was that non-administrators were bullying administrators.
 * 9) Jimbo Wales would go to the admins.irc channel, but rarely to the general channel. This meant that people who spent a great deal of time there could claim fiat, or at least get the chance to be the ones framing issues.  This resulted in the illusion or presence of power, and this meant that users had an incentive to spend as much time as possible on admins.irc, rather than, say, Wikipedia.
 * 10) The following arbitration cases resulted from misuse of admins.irc: "Giano," Chairboy, Betacommand, Durova (somewhat), and then this case. Cases have occurred since then that also implicate that IRC channel.

Issues
David Gerard had written a page, directly in name space, "describing" the admins.irc page. It encouraged administrators to use the channel for conducting business. The tone of the page was self-congratulatory, but the words were also lies. I use that term carefully: the page said that the channel had been created by user:Danny out of WP:OFFICE to deal with BLP concerns. This was both misleading (the idea that the channel "was created" by any official of WikiMedia) and a flat out lie. The page was also written almost exclusively in passive voice. Over the Summer of 2007, user:Giano II, user:Bishonen, and I had edited the page to satirize its fulsomeness and to test David Gerard's convictions. A person who believes in Wikipedia's policies knows that no page is sacred. This editing was playful and an expression of exasperation with what seemed to me, at least, to be fatuous self-love. This period of editing lasted about a week and then ceased.

At Christmas, 2007, user:Tony Sidaway (who has changed his account now), who is not and was not then an administrator at Wikipedia or any Wikipedia project was on the admins.irc channel. He was deriding a user who did not use IRC, and Bishonen objected. She said that a person should have the right to face his accuser. Tony told Bishonen, who is an administrator, that "this is the admins channel" and not the "problem user channel" and that she should go be an "arsehole" somewhere else. So, a non-admin (who had lost his administrative status due to insulting behavior and conspiring with Kelly Martin to block users) was lecturing and hectoring an administrator that she should not bother important people like himself with requirements to be fair. Bishonen was outraged. When I heard about it, I was, too. Giano was outraged as well.

I, and by report Giano, felt that, if anything had put the lie to David Gerard's loving description of the Eden of the channel, that did, and so we began to edit that page again. David Gerard issued page protection and threatened to take the page to Meta, where he could control it. That, to me, was as horrendous an illustration of his attitudes toward Wikipedia as possible. Giano II took logs of the insulting exchange and e-mailed them to users who said that the admins.irc channel had no bad behavior. N.b. he did not post them. He did not convey their contents by paraphrase. He used private e-mail.

The irrational lodging of a complaint
Oddly, a user who had never been involved with any of these users or that page lodged an RFAR that Giano was not using proper dispute resolution for IRC matters. Given the fact that there were no dispute resolution mechanisms for IRC and given the fact that ArbCom had ruled that IRC is not Wikipedia, then it seemed simply obvious to me that the case would be rejected. After all, a sin against IRC cannot be prosecuted on Wikipedia, if a sin on IRC cannot be redressed on Wikipedia.

In addition to the fact that we have never before been able to use ArbCom to redress such problems and that there are no dispute resolution mechanisms for misuse of IRC, it occurred to me that the case could not be accepted because cases require, first and foremost, previous attempts at resolution. This previously unheard of user had never spoken to any of the parties in the edit war, that I know of, nor parties to the IRC dispute, unless he had been recruited from IRC to lodge the case at some convenient time.

How could ArbCom accept a case without a complaint? What was it that Giano or I was supposed to have done? In the edit war, David Gerard had violated policy after policy. Beyond that, what, on Wikipedia, was there to speak of?

Well, wonder of wonders, the new ArbCom accepted, although they never specified what they had accepted.

Issues (the real ones)
The real issues are, of course, not reflected in anything ArbCom said or "John1234," or whoever he was, said.

The issue is that the admins.irc channel not only has non-administrators on it, but it has always had non-administrators on it. However, it purports itself (in the voice of the users) as official. For it to be official, it would need to have some regulations of its uses and misuses, and yet none exist, and none can exist if, as David Gerard said, it's James Forester's channel, and he doesn't need to listen to anything ArbCom says about it. The non-administrators on the channel are "trusted users," but no one knows who is doing the trusting. RFA is an assessment of trust, or is supposed to be, and when a person loses that status, one would have a hard time asserting that the person "is trusted." However, the semi-direct rule of Jimbo, where what Jimbo says either is law or gets treated as if it were, has meant that people have gained power by being on admins.irc. They may not be conscious of it, and it may be simply a side effect: be where Jimbo is, and rise. Once risen, you are one of the people devoted to this passtime.

Ever since the channel was created, it has had some critics. I am assumed to "hate IRC," when I have used it quite a bit and do not hate IRC, as few can understand that a person can have no problem with IRC but think that the admins channel is a disaster. I do not support oligarchies at Wikipedia. I do not support self-selected ones, most of all. Many users think that the admins channel is a bad idea (as I said, it failed when it was proposed), many more simply don't use IRC out of indifference. This one toy, this geek gadget, has moved steadily up in importance, and it is now such a case that those who keep pointing out the bad behavior of the "trusted others" or the fact that this pastime has flaws, or people who want to make it uncomfortable by asking for fairness (like Bishonen did when she asked that Tony not malign people who weren't there to defend themselves) are considered painful.

I was named as a party. Giano was named. Bishonen was named. Other than all of us thinking that people need to behave properly on that channel, we have nothing in common. However, it was "time" to "deal with" Giano (who embarrasses users of the channel by documenting their disgrace).

The prosecution and "what he'll do next"
I made a statement at the RfAr, and so did Bishonen, and so did Giano II. That was it, as far as I was concerned. I mean, since there had been no attempts at mediation prior, had been no violation of any Wikipedia policy in privately e-mailing logs to people who denied that abuse took place at the admins.irc channel, there was nothing else to do. Phil Sandifer, who used to be Snowspinner (just as Tony Sidaway has changed his account name), had blocked Giano for an extraordinary amount of time for changing David Gerard's page, and I had undone the block and warned him that blocking out of personal animus is not allowed. For my pains, or for previous pains, one, Phil became extremely active on the workshop and evidence page. This was a matter in which he seemed uninvolved, but he was opining on how a year long block and the like would be reasonable for the people concerned, how I should be demoted, etc. It was highly emotional it seemed to me.

The arbitration sat, largely idle, for about ten days. None of those accused were responding to new heapings of opprobrium. I expressed the opinion, privately, that I had been entirely in the right, and so anything that the arbitrators did say could not be applicable. There wasn't any crossing the line that had gone on, except by Tony, a non-administrator in the admins channel, who had been incredibly rude, by the people who saw that attack and did nothing, by David Gerard who had lied in his description of the channel and plastered it directly into name space and used illicit administrator's tools to protect his version of the wording (a terribly written as well as deceptive and erroneous form), so what was there to say? If the arbs acting on Phil Sandifer's accusations that I had been "incivil" hundreds of times in the past, that Giano had been "incivil" in the past and therefore must be banned for nothing he had done in this case, that Bishonen should bear some ill fame for having being insulted, then it showed that they were concerned with something other than Wikipedia, and I simply wouldn't care what they said.

So, without progress of any sort, things just lay dormant.

Eventually, a proposed remedy was so pointedly personal, and the comments so explicitly malign, toward Giano that he replied sarcastically. That, it seems, had been important. One of the arbitrators, and then another, said that they had been "waiting to see what he would do next." In other words, they were going to see how Giano reacted to the arbitration. He didn't react. So they waited some more. He didn't react. So they waited some more. Someone finally managed to propose a ban and lay all sorts of emotionally laden charges at him, and he responded angrily. Well, that was it.

I popped in periodically, when I saw the stoning in progress.

Results
The results had to do with Giano. Now, Giano had not written David Gerard's page. He had not used IRC. He had not insulted anyone on IRC. He had not posted logs. No. None of that was part of the decision. The decision was based on a "history of incivility." It was based on having, over time, irritated people. That translates as, "I don't like you."
 * 1) Personalities and emotions

Parse it for a moment, please.

It means, "Giano has not done anything this time except be angry," so there's that. It means, "In the past, you made us angry." Well, there's nothing quantifiable there. Who can tell whether he is guilty of it now? How do you know that you are not establishing a "history of incivility?"

I ask because, although I was exonerated, as it were, my charge, too, was a "history" of "incivility." An array of diffs, which actually showed next to nothing, was offered where I had been "offensive" at some time in the last four years. It occurred to me to wonder how I had been offensive, when no one seemed to be offended. It occurred to me that, if no one complains to me or anyone else that can be documented that I have hurt their feelings, it's very strange for some third party to determine that my correspondents should have been offended, that the remarks contained some essential harmfulness without any evidence of causing disruption or harm. It just seemed very curious to me that Snowspinner would say that I had been offensive to him, when he had not spoken to me of it, had not asked for either clarification nor apology, had not seemed to diminish his copious editing in any way because of it.

You see, you may right now be "incivil." You may be bannable, blockable, or something else, but post facto.

It seems to me that this was the crux of the arbitration: personal feelings. Not actions. The actions in question were either annoyances of David Gerard's vanity or reminders that the admins.irc channel has tacitly approved non-administrators being evil, and only one of those was addressed (see #2). Instead, it had been about Giano all along, about "waiting to see what he does next" only in the sense of "waiting for a chance to do something we are inclined to do." That thing is "punish dissent." One can say that it's the way he does it all day long, but look at the most recent block of Giano. It was not for the way he said things. It was because he would not stop asking a question that no one would answer, a question that made the heaviest IRC users look bad.

The actual "results" were that Giano was put on a "civility parole." Since no one can define "civility," and no one attempts to be precise about what and how something fails it, this amounts to "any administrator may block Giano at any time at personal whim." FT2's block was on the verge of whim. He certainly would not answer what exactly it was that was "incivil." (Mind you, one can define "civility" in such a way that it has use, but no one is interested in that, because it restricts the freedom to block.) Nothing was done about Tony Sidaway per the arbitration, although something occurred later. Nothing was done about Bishonen, except that she remained "troublesome" for being offended by Tony (while all are free now to be offended by Giano for any word and block). If there was "a great deal of discussion on the mailing list" that contains some other conclusions, I can only plead ignorance: this is what the arbitration actually said.

The misuse of admins.irc, the fact that it has non-administrators on it, the fact that people use it as a rationale for on-wiki actions, was not addressed by the ruling, except that the arbitrators promised, in light of Jimbo's statement that IRC is answerable to them, to offer a reform of the channel. This has not happened. It was questioning FloNight, who most said that it would happen, that lead to Giano's most recent block. She said that it would occur and that she had ideas about it, and then she said that "there has been" opposition to reforming the channel. She would not answer about who opposed, where the opposition occurred, why the opposition came, or why ArbCom should make itself a liar over this opposition. There was no agreement to let the community (on Wikipedia) decide, no explanation of why the opposition could overwhelm and silence arbitrators and users, and why that opposition was powerful enough to allow for a repetition (again) of this case at a later date.
 * 1) Issues

David Gerard's page was deleted, and a Meta page with a brief description of the channel exists now. That was the answer to one issue alone.

Losses
Bishonen doesn't edit Wikipedia much anymore. I look at my watchlist only. I had written over 250 articles from start to finish, but I do not intend to work for anyone here. I am not an employee.

FT2 went to the admins irc channel and asked the twelve or so people there at the time if they wanted reform. They said they didn't much think so. That's it.

Personal reflection
Personally, I think Wikipedia was born when masses of people began plonking away, making articles. I think it died when a choke point of power occurred. As soon as self-selected individuals could spend most of their time off the project talking to each other about how they will run the project, Wikipedia died. It was dying when the veneration of Jimbo started to develop into a cult. CEO's are an American mythological hero type, and they're not salubrious, unless you're a stock trader. However, I see that veneration as a way of establishing hierarchy. I long ago concluded that the person who mentions how much a friend of his Jimbo is is a person who has no arguments, but when Jimbo can only be reached by admins.irc, and when he is the only voice of power (and increasing power, I might add), then, consciously or unconsciously, users will develop a chat node that can make itself Star Chamber.

I will not exchange my labor for government by dysfunctional chat circles. Others are free to choose otherwise.

Why dead? You probably think I'm exaggerating. After all, I have a highly figurative prose style. I'm not exaggerating this time, though. Studies have shown what any long-time editor at Wikipedia knows: most articles have a single author. They had multiple editors -- multiple redactors -- but most have a single voice building from scratch. It takes only a moderate commitment to edit, but it takes a serious commitment to write. Writers tend to get passionate about what they're doing, for good or bad. When it's bad, we get the ethnic/political/religious wars. When it's good, we get people who go from articles to AfD to AN to RFA to AN/I, etc. The more people write, the better they get at it. If, though, there is a choke point, if there is an hierarchy, if there is an overuser, then writers will flee. In the loss of original old timers and the passionate authors, you are seeing a new paradigm. Existing articles won't vanish (unless some citation freak or fair use monster gets at them, or some drive-by assessment drive ends up labeling all our FA's "start class"), but you will move from the set up where someone like me is possible, here -- where someone can come at first to fill a gap and then begin joyfully adding all sorts of things -- to one where you get a revolving door of people who get in, do a little, and then go. It will be robbing the project of expertise and there ever being content expertise again. They'll stick around long enough to do a little, to realize who their masters are, and then they'll bail out. It's a zombie like population of mediocrity that's in the future. That's the death of Wikipedia and the co-opting of it by another 4chan, another Slashdot.

Yet another follow-up
As posted by Irpen, link kindly provided by Giano.

Comment by Irpen
The saga over IRC is not new and the abuse grew since its inception. It first came to public light in the Fall 2006. The IRC got so frightened by the public reaction and by the evidence seeing the light that it called it a "coup d'etat attempt" (this post made my day). Shortly the mess called Giano-I ArbCom was dubbed (aptly but imprecisely) an uprising of writing admins while in fact it was an uprising of Wikipedia writing community against the Wikipedia being "run" by its self-appointed ever-chatting in secret "elite" that dubbed that very community as "fickle and ill-informed populace". Once some facts came out in the open, the 2007 passed with IRC resisting to give ground and claiming that everything is good to much of the community disgust. However, what was originally seen as "IRC" got developed into a new mentality. This culminated in Durova case and another messy discovery of the existence of the secret "lists" run on Wikia servers where good editors were investigated the Wikipedia Review style by a newly arrived layer of self-appointed "leaders and protectors of Wikipedia". Each of these messes brought some good revelations (and good desysoppings) but their usefulness by far exceeded that. They where eye openers. Giano-I case revealed the phenomenon, the Durova case showed the extent to which the malfeasance penetrated. It was in this context that a mysterious and never heard of user (just like the author of Giano-I case) submitted a new case (originally also dubbed Giano) which was renamed "IRC" and portrayed as the case about "warring over WP:WEA" when editors of the "fickle and ill-informed" side tried to make the page reflecting the reality while David Gerard and his friends insisted on explicit rights over the Wikipedia page and on the the hypocritically convenient and deliberate lack of clarity over the connection between #admins and the Wikipedia The ArbCom for whatever reason accepted a case over David Gerard's WP:WEA page just as quickly as it accepted the original (Giano-I) case. ArbCom then produced a decision with a bunch of findings and remedies totally disconnected from each other. Nevertheless, the committee took it upon itself to address the IRC problems at a later time leaving the community under an impression that " Policy and procedure changes regarding Wikipedia IRC channels will be addressed separately by this committee". Community hoped to see something meaningful, like a workgroup proposed by Flo. Later, "no consensus from ArbCom was found for this proposal" (note passive voice). Soon the community "was told" that the adequate measures "were taken" through the channel's "self-policing" decided through "discussion" that occurred... nowhere else but at #admins itself. A paradox? I happened to have seen this "discussion". It was basically one arb/chanellop saying things and others nodding. This is a strange kind of "discussion" where an input from those "allegedly" abused by #admins is glaringly lacking. But let's see whether the channel improved and the problems are now "addressed" like we've heard time and again. Here is a random (not exclusive by any means) list of events (note recent dates) that took place at #admins and how they were "addressed". (To avoid more red faces, I did not name some of the users and only provided the names in the cases that have been already discussed onwiki). Now, we clearly see that the channel remains abusive. We also see that the despite some claims to the contrary, the current system of "good ombudsmanship" does not work. One does not need to be exceptionally smart to explain why: I am sure that immediately upon my posting this will be discussed at the channel whose name you guessed right or even at one of the other "less leaky" channels. Surprisingly, I predict that the discussion will be again not on the substance but on the leaks themselves, just like in the Moreschi's incident. We walked a long way since the Fall of 2006. On one hand we are by far better aware that backroom activity is thriving. OTOH, more people are now involved. A whole bunch now are on some channel: the #admins, "that other less leaky one" or one of its twins. Among those who are not (as well as who are) a whole bunch are on some "lists", yet unpurged Arbcom-L, a second (or third or more) Arbcom-L, the WR-style "investigations" list, etc (note: I do not have anything against the anti-harassment list particularly if it is held on topic). This list/channel tradition in addition to a direct devastating effect on the project, created a secondary effect. There are now POV-pushing and nationalist e-lists and IM networks. Instead of wikiprojects (many of which are dying), we have IRC-projects that are not transparent (e.g., the USRoads IRC related to another recent Arbcom case.) This atmosphere procreated by #admins is now corroding the good of Wikipedia. Yes, people can (and will) talk privately. But we should not encourage it directly and, most importantly, should not sanction abuse at the officially affiliated IRC channels (by refusing to act or pretend that all is well), or disclaim the affiliation but refuse to dissociate either (cake have/eat) procreating this deliberate, hypocritical and morally indefensible limbo. Clean up the #admins in a meaningful way or remove all links to it and let the folks have their chat, just like the team tags do! This all are not new ideas and have been stated in some form multiple times. However, please don't talk the "channel is now good and reformed". It just does not cut it and the editors would not believe such claims anymore anyway.
 * 1) Feb. 7, 2008: Admin Moreschi roamed into a channel out of the blue exclusively to whine about Irpen. I think it is worse that he spoke about me behind my back having no courage to say things in my face than the particular word "a bastard" he chose, but that aside, he was met at the channel by a level-30 chanellop. That chanellop told Moreschi that he "probably shouldn't do it somewhere so leaky" and tried to alleviate Moreschi's worries by reminding Moreschi "Well, you've still got a block button" "*chanellop hints". This pleasant conversation had several consequences:
 * 2) When I confronted Moreschi about his conduct this person had no courage to respond at all
 * 3) However, my request for explanation did prompt a discussion at... (sigh) #admins. The discussion was not about the Moreschi's conduct though. Instead it was about "leaks" and it was initiated by another channelop
 * 4) Yet another level-30 channelop was present at the channel, took part in discussion and did nothing of consequence
 * 5) The case was finally analyzed by yet another level-30 channelop and a sitting arbitrator, (see here). The analysis called this blockshopping and a request to take it somewhere "less leaky" as an attempt to restrain Moreschi. Case thus considered "handled".
 * 6) March 13, 2008 an admin blocked for a clear case of 3RR came to the channel to shop for an unblock. He called his content opponents, long time contributors with a long history of content writing, "two POV-trolls". Again, the user, a long time champion of citing WP:CIV, had no courage to say things of that sort to their face, but at #admins it was considered "OK": not only wasn't he called to order, but he talked himself out of the block. Details available here and here
 * 7) March 14, 2008, an admin who is widely active in wikipolitics (an arbcom clerk, no less, among other things) called a female user "a bitch" (in her absense) over her attempt to draw attention to her pet project through posting a call for participation at another user's talk (she later reverted that). At this time, the admin was politely asked to cut it by an arbitrator who was at the channel. The admin's response to the call to order was defiant, he claimed that he would have said the same in her face. There is no evidence that the said admin went ahead and said this to her face, which I think, although revolting, would be less objectionable than doing so behind the woman's back, but that maybe just me. The admin was not sanctioned in any way although it would have likely prevented an incident below that took place just hours later.
 * 8) On the same date, an IRC admin who happens to be a [former?] "volunteer Communications Coordinator at the WMF" called an absent non-admin user "an idiot and a moron" over this, perhaps a gullible but honest mistake without a doubt. There was no action at the channel
 * 9) Mar 25, 2008: A different but a very IRC active admin who tried to bait Giano with "civility policing" warnings and questions had his comments removed. He ran to the channel asking "someone else" to help "to stop fucking with my questions to Giano so I dfon't have to edit war?" [sic] Is it just me or others see a double paradox in this all being over the civility policing itself (1) and the help being asked so that "[he does]n't have to edit war" (2) ?
 * 1) This whole idea of ombundsmanship by "good" ops of such closed media as checkuser log and #admins can only work with proactive ombudsmans since affected users usually don't know about being abused. So, channelops have to act vigilantly upon each case of abuse even if they found out purely by accident. Otherwise, it is all meaningless.
 * 2) The corrupted medium cannot be fixed from within by definition. Attempts of outside reform are vigorously thwarted but not by the "community", as some suggest, but by no one other than the channel's regulars
 * 3) This all continues for so long due to a deliberately maintained ambiguity of the channel's status that allows those who shared David Gerard's views and preferences to both claim the cake and eat it too. Not only attempts to improve the channel meaningfully are thwarted, the attempts to disconnect the channel from the Wikipedia are thwarted too. In a bizarre twist, the attempts to subject the channel to a meaningful WP oversight are also thwarted (and again only by the channel enthusiasts.)