User talk:EventHorizon/archive2

Reversion
I am sorry you felt that way about my reversion. I have no objection to the article on Wikipedia covering criticism of Wikipedia. However, there is a very important difference between factually describing criticism and editorializing in third person ("ranting"). This difference mainly lies in whether the criticism is specific, and whether it can be attributed to specific supporters (as opposed to "many consider..."). I felt that your addition was mostly on the wrong side.

I find the description on your user page that I reverted "without cause" to be unfair. When I revert newcomer tests or vandalism, I use the rollback function, which gives the edit summary ("Reverted edits by X to last version by Y"). In your case, I motivated reversion by calling your addition a "rant", which is a concise and on Wikipedia widely used term for text that is POV, even when only subtly so. I had hoped that you would ask for clarification in case you had indeed understood the neutral point of view policy on Wikipedia, and disagreed merely about my conception of your addition appearing non-neutral. And indeed this is what you did, which I was happy to find out about.


 * Now, if he had felt my summary was biased, he could have easily made changes to what I had written

This is what I did -- removing text is also a way of changing it :-) Since the problem I perceived was that none of the text you added was backed up by references/specific attributions of opinions, I felt that none of it was justified to be included in the form it was written.

Peace,

Fredrik | talk 21:49, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Fredrik,


 * I will articulate more on this matter later. Anyway, I have a tendency not to like when (excluding cases of vandalism) people do complete reversions of an article. No one likes to have five or ten or sixty minutes of her time erased, and it's possible that some very good contributions can be lost just because some people disagree with another user.


 * Of course, I don't have a problem with people making grammatical changes to others' work, bold edits, and POV work. I think all of our contributions end up needing POV work at some point. The problem is that, when people simply revert non-vandalistic changes, often it results in a did-not/did-too game because both sides just keep reverting. The three-revert rule doesn't really help; it just delays the problem.


 * So, I'm extremely hesitant to revert another person's entire edit, unless it was vandalism or patent nonsense. Everyone has something of worth to add to this thing, right?


 * Regards,


 * EventHorizon 04:54, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. Fredrik | talk 20:02, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Onion
Hi, EventHorizon--I'm afraid I can't be of much use to you in providing a point-of-contact. But if you have general questions about the comedy-writing biz, feel free to e-mail me at yankeefog at yankeefog dot com. (You can also respond via my user talk page, but I'm (marginally) better at responding to e-mail than at responding via wiki-edits.) --Jacobw 15:42, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Relationship to Jerzy
[The following two 'graphs including sig have been copied from User talk:Jerzy to their logical place in this sequence, by Jerzy(t) 00:47, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC):]
 * I liked your work on the Sophocles article.


 * A question, as it's been a long time since I've written to Wikipedia: when you come upon something that's not exactly clear, how do you deal with it in editing? For example, you read something and have no idea what the person meant to say. Do you leave it as it is, or remove it as incoherent? A few bits I was working on last night, I had no idea what the people meant. EventHorizon 04:48, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

EH, thanks for the compliment and welcome back to WP. It is with some sadness that i respond to your request at User talk:Jerzy by suggesting that you seek such advice from another of the many, many experienced WP editors. That request may well be sincere, and to the extent it is, it deserves a response from someone who can wholeheartedly respond to it without the excessive attention that i would simultaneously be giving to a suspicion that you are already connected to the affair currently under discussion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Talk:Ambition (card game).
 * If you are, my assessment is that my energy would produce nothing i value;
 * If you are not, the assistance you could get from me would be compromised (at the very least in the form of inefficiency) by my (in that case mistaken) concerns about that possible connection.

So i limit myself to this smidge of advice: if you really have a history with WP, resume the use of your previous username. (You can get a replacement password if you've lost it.) I am hard-pressed (unless you intend disruption) to imagine a history that would be as damaging to your credibility in pursuing the program your user page states, as will your claim to have a history that you choose to conceal here. Collegially, Jerzy(t) 01:39, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)


 * What is this Ambition card game story? I can't make sense out of that deletion debate. Who is 259/Mike Church?


 * I haven't used my old account since the summer of 2003, and I'd rather start anew. It's true that I'll be losing what administrative privileges I had, as well as the influence and weight that comes with ~2000 edits, but I'm willing to start fresh and new as a beginner. If people don't treat me with respect as a "dark horse", they won't if I reveal my 2000 edits of history. So far I haven't had any problems. EventHorizon 05:03, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[The following two 'graphs including sig have been copied from User talk:Jerzy to their logical place in this sequence, by Jerzy(t) 00:47, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC):]
 * You wrote on my talk page something about the "Ambition controversy". As I said when I replied, I'm not connected to that issue, and I don't really understand what the deal is. It seems bizarre that a card game would be so divisive.


 * I am curious, because this episode seems to be one that's important in the community, and it happened while I was on hiatus from Wikipedia. Furthermore, all the back history is so opaque that it's impossible for me to get a coherent feel of what's going on. To benefit my curiosity, what is this "Ambition" issue? When did it start and why are there so many strong opinions? EventHorizon 03:00, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I Stand Here in Amazement

 * The entire former contents of this sub-section may be found, in context, at User talk:EventHorizon/Archive 1; they involved personal attacks, and the issues involved seem resolved at this point. --Jerzy(t) 07:04, 2004 Dec 18 (UTC)

Spin-off Discussion re Ambition

 * (Not Jerzy, but I'll interject.)


 * You asked: Who is 259/Mike Church? That's part of the problem-- no one knows. It has been proposed, variously, on and off Wikipedia, that:


 * Mike Church does not exist. (Proven false: A Mike Church does exist, and he's a student at Carleton.)
 * User:Mike Church is not said Mike Church, but an impersonator and a troll.
 * Mike Church = 259.
 * Mike Church = UninvitedCompany (a user who, on the surface, seems to have opposed MC.)
 * "259" is a 31-year-old political speechwriter in the Chicago area intending to hire MC into his consulting firm and wanting to clear his reputation. (Unlikely, only because Wikipedia didn't damage MC's reputation anywhere but Wikipedia, where he is basically persona non grata. Elsewhere he remains unknown.)
 * Mike Church is Jimbo Wales's sock-puppet account. (Highly unlikely; it's not known if Jimbo even has a sock-puppet account, and there's little reason to see why he would do this.)
 * This "Ambition" is an adaptation of a game played by pirates in the 19th century that this MC hopes to market at his own. (Very unlikely.)


 * In other words, there are a number of crackpot theories out there, none of which are very likely. I'd say it's reasonable to guess that 259 and the other supposed MC socks are not him, only because, if they were, Mike would have to be a lot more clever than he seems. What I read of Mike is a young, arrogant, hothead not capable of that sort of subtlety, and not capable of writing prose at the same level that his supposed "socks" are able to command.


 * What is known is that some "Mike Church", with a Carleton email address, exists and claims to have invented Ambition. So far, no one has challenged that claim. Several accounts, used solely for the vandalism of one of User:Isomorphic's subpage, appear to be unequivocal MC socks. However, other accounts were accused of being MC sock puppets, left Wikipedia, and were later proven (by state/country-of-origin verifications, etc.) not to be MC socks.


 * My belief, and I consider myself neither pro- or anti-Church, is that Mike Church should come clean about his activity, on his user page, and put all the suspicion to rest. In exchange, WP community would offer to erase all the back material on Talk:Ambition (card game) and Talk:Carleton College. Then there would be no more suspicion and the issue would be singularly uninteresting to everyone. However, I highly doubt that any such compromise would ever come to term; it means corralling a number of humongous egos, including that of a person who stormed off Wikipedia in disgust.


 * I'm signing anonymously, out of a desire not to get into this mess, but if you want to know who I am (so I can verify that I'm not partisan in this debate) we can chat. Did you say you left in 2003? I've got a guess at who you are/were.


 * Regards,


 * 152.163.100.133 05:32, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * There have been plenty of assertions by anonymous IPS or pseudonomous newbies, of non-sockpuppethood relating to Church and/or 259. Many reliable users -- i mean those with substantial, positive, and (need i say?) verifiable track records at WP -- nevertheless find the accusations compelling.  I am unaware of any WPian with such a record who believes there is any of the charges can be disproven.  (This suggests that any claim of proof that such an accusation is false, in the absence of reference to an endorsement of the claim by a reliable user, is no more helpful than any instance of the Big Lie. )
 * In this case, the assertion that IDing the country an IP is allocated to can (combined with knowledge of a person's whereabouts) suffice to disprove a sockpuppet claim is false. And anyone who understands what a proxy server is would find that obvious; anyone of normal intelligence who's even heard of anonymous-remailer sites should be able to re-invent proxy servers in their head while adding long columns of numbers.
 * --Jerzy(t) 00:47, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC)


 * Two former paragraphs of this sub-section may be found, in context, at User talk:EventHorizon/Archive 1; they involved personal attacks, and the issues involved seem resolved at this point. --Jerzy(t) 07:04, 2004 Dec 18 (UTC)


 * It sounds like no one knows anything, then. That's not a big surprise.


 * Are you looking for me to chime in on this matter with my opinion?


 * I'm not ready to do so yet; it seems that this is a very complex issue with a lot of back history and negative energy. But let me get the story straight: this guy got into a fight over a card game? EventHorizon 17:56, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Explanation
The card game isn't half of it, really. Mike Church is basically someone who refused to get along with Wikipedia, and Wikipedia refused to get along with him. Most of the history is actually in Ambition (card game), which has been deleted, but some of it can still be found.

He (or someone else) started a page on his card game, Ambition, about a year ago. He made a lot of edits to the page anonymously, but all from the same IP range (167.22, I think) so it was obvious who was making them. He claimed that he didn't realize this would be ill-received; I tend to believe him.

His assets were strong writing skills, a willingness to be constructive with other people (as long as they didn't attack his card game), an adeptness at rewriting/cleanuping bad articles, and creativity in terms of writing useful articles most other people would've have thought to create. His flaws were that he was somewhat of a leftist POV pusher, and he tended to write articles on "trash" topics (in the quiz bowl sense of the word, e.g. pop-cult trivia) of borderline inclusibility, including (deleted) articles on crude memes from late-night comedy shows. Still, he mostly got along with Wikipedia over everything but his card game.

Mike actually wrote the article before Ambition became famous, and tried to link to it whereever he could. Most of his links were appropriate, but occasionally he pushed the envelope too far. He once wrote an article on an "Ambition trolling phenomenon" that he probably started, and that wasn't notable by any standard. It was apparently an effort to make a second-degree link between Internet troll and the page on his card game. This kind of behavior would lead to a backlash from the community in which legitimate links to Ambition (card game) were removed.

He was nominated for adminship by another user and summarily rejected. He left Wikipedia shortly after in disgust, nominating Ambition (card game) for deletion (for the second time). It survived.

The big issue now with Mike is that he may be editing pseudonymously (as might anyone) and there's no trust. A major part of this is that 90% of people who comment on the matter, from either side, do so anonymously-- those who post "pro-Church" fear harrassment from the community, those who post "anti-Church" fear harrassment from Mike. (I consider myself neither and am hedging my bets on both sides.) Both sides have accused the other of sock puppetry, and both sides have probably used it. User:Isomorphic wrote a damning subpage about Mike, who proved him right by transparent sock vandalism. Most of the people originally listed on that page were not MC socks, but the fact that Mike went and vandalized the page suggests there was something to hide. My guess is that User:38 and User:MathyGuy23 were the "true" sock puppets, as well as the transparent vandals against User:Isomorphic's page. The rest of that page is pretty much crack theory, though, and most of Wikipedia has accepted that.

User:259 plays the role of Mike's representative. All I know about "259" is that he's an older friend of Mike's who is very secretive about his offline identity, but is definitively not Mike.

The "Church issue" is extremely divisive: depending on whom you ask he's either a Randian hero or a devious shyster who used Wikipedia to manufacture his own fame. My opinion? He's neither: he's a decent guy who made some mistakes in an unforgiving Wikipedia. My advice is that you not comment on the matter until you've thoroughly researched it, and accept that you'll probably end up taking some flak on one side or the other. If you criticize Mike, expect to have your page (ineffectively) nominated for deletion; if you support him, anticipate having your identity questioned. 172.161.36.242 05:46, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

User:EventHorizon's response
Oh, I have an opinion. I don't know everything about this issue, but I know enough.

Keep in mind that I have no personal association with Mike Church, I've never played Ambition, and I really don't care on a personal level about him or his game, not at all. However, I do care about what the Mike Church debacle says about Wikipedia.

He's evidently, yes, a guy who "made some mistakes in an unforigiving Wikipedia." The matters at Talk:Ambition (card game) and other pages should be deleted. Why? Because they're now irrelevant to Ambition itself, and relevant only to the controversy they prolong by existing in the first place. If anybody wants to write an Ambition page, Wikipedia can confront the matter as it comes with a clean slate. It's obvious that most of the accusations about Mike Church aren't true; if some are, so what? I'm not saying Mike should be nominated for bureaucrat status; I'm saying that he has the right, if the "Ambition issue" re-emerges, for it to be discussed with a clean slate.

I do think that an Ambition article is probably worth including, but I wouldn't be qualified to write one, and I don't know who would be. Certainly Mike should stay away from it. If no third party steps forward to write the article, Wikipedia can go without it. EventHorizon 06:56, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

All in Summation
First off, User:Jerzy might claim that my motives were in relation to this "Mike Church" character and the card game, Ambition. He can say that. The record shows, however, that Mr. Jerzy was the first person ever to bring up Ambition. I didn't even know Ambition existed, and I still don't know who this Mike Church is.

I care about intellectual and social justice on Wikipedia. When I see or sense something wrong, I speak out about it. If this is going to make me a problem user in your eyes, Mr. Jerzy, well that's just a sacrifice I'll have to make. Oh well. EventHorizon 03:40, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Personal Attacks

 * The entire former contents of this sub-section may be found, in context, at User talk:EventHorizon/Archive 1; they involved detailed discussion of personal attacks, and the issues involved seem resolved at this point. --Jerzy(t) 07:04, 2004 Dec 18 (UTC)

Thanks
Hi Mike. Nice clarification work on Auction. Isomorphic 21:05, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Who is Mike? EventHorizon 01:59, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's Over, Poor Fool
EventHorizon, you may as well stop editing now. You're probably not Mike (as in Church) but you're dead here.

On matters of content, Wikipedia may be liberal, but on matters of its own conduct, Wikipedia practices censorship comparable to the Nazis. Wikipedians censor all criticism of their practices or conduct. The ultimate irony is that if the Wikipedia leadership controlled a physical country rather than some squalid, doomed backwater project, they'd ban the Internet.

The Unbreakable Principle of Wikipedia: Do not challenge the orthodoxy. You have done so several times. By commenting even briefly on official policies, you've made more enemies than you could ever know. Then, you breached the topic of Ambition, and got yourself| Churched (a lot of us want to speak out on the matter, just like you did, as well but we know we'd be throwing away 1500+ edits of work). Isn't it great how a few users have the power to discredit anyone they want? The opposition, on any matter, can always be accused of being only one person.

You'll never change the system. Save yourself the time. Why maintain the Library of Alexandria when the barbarians already run the fucker? 152.163.100.133 02:25, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Response
I'm not a "poor fool". Really, what are any of these users going to do? Disagree with me? I disagree with them. Accuse me of being someone else? Please. I could do the same thing but it's ultimately transparent. No one buys that tactic anyway. EventHorizon 03:40, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)