Twofortnights
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The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar |
| Dear Twofortnights; Very many thanks for your contribution to the development of Wikipedia. Please know that your meticulous approach is much appreciated. With kind regards; Pavel. Norvikk (talk) 10:23, 2 September 2016 (UTC) |
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The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar |
| For continuous, tireless and consistently high quality of the visa policy related edits Truther2012 (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2014 (UTC) |
Hi!
If you are wondering who I am, I am Twofortnights and I have worked on articles on Visa requirements and Visa policies since September 2013. I have greatly (no false modesty, just browse through history of those articles) improved them from horrendous state of no references, spam links infestation, incomplete information and information outdated by several years and copyright violations and I had warned admins with success about numerous vandalism instances which resulted in at least a dozen admin actions
Here is the list of articles that I have worked on
I am sorry for any possible mistakes in the table above, I have tried my best.
I have in addition created all respective maps plus also maps in all other articles.
All these articles have thousands of readers every month, as confirmed by Wikipedia article traffic statistics. Many of these articles weren't easy to write as many third world countries don't publish their visa policies nor do they notify international organizations of changes. Often they have confusing policies or inconsistent information. But still I have managed to write them and as I've noticed many of them are recently getting translated to other languages such as Turkish or Chinese.
And what happened? First take a look at The Unbearable Bureaucracy of Wikipedia just the latest article on something that the Internet is talking about for some time. And the most ironic part is that I have adhered to this bureaucracy almost to the letter, yet it wasn't enough.
Now a bit about the specific case that triggered this (for all those who don't like vagueness and philosophical approach but concrete stories). As I've said I have fought off vandalism on many pages (for an example Visa requirements for Singaporean citizens experienced such persistent vandalism that it will be locked for the next 6 months) and this was just another case. Or so I thought. A vandal targeted Visa policy of China and Visa requirements for Chinese citizens maps. His actions can be described as the so called sneaky vandalism or gaming the system. He edited the maps of Wikimedia Commons with edit summaries explaining how the source of his edits are in Wikipedia. Obviously those were lies, his map version would alter the images so much that they wouldn't even correspond to the file legend, let alone the article content. After failing to stop him from vandalizing those image files I uploaded alternative files with very clear and detailed names but that didn't help much.
OK enough with case specifics. What happened next?
I did everything by the book, I have done all these things treating the situation as mere disruptive editing without ever issuing the vandal with actual vandalism warning:
- I have warned the user using the official Wikipedia warning templates through to the last one (for this I accidentally violated the so called "3RR" because there are four levels of warning templates but only 3 possible reverts and so I had violated the no 3RR rule while waiting to issue the user with all warnings before talking to the admins to avoid the "user was insufficiently warned" lazy reponse)
- I have opened a dispute resolution discussion on the talk page of the article (which was ignored by the user I reported)
- I have added maintenance templates to warn other users about the dispute (which were removed by the user I reported and undoing these removals was considered a "content dispute")
- I have called the other used to join the discussion and stop removing templates (which he didn't)
- Finally and ironically I was the one to file an admin noticeboard incident report about the situation. If I didn't the admins would have never taken any action.
What was the admin response to my report? They decided to block me and the vandal for the equal time. In some sort of twisted inexplicable lazy response. The one that raises a question if you don't want to get involved in the merits of the case - why do you get involved at all or why are you an admin in the first place? Can such admins answer a simple question - what benefit does Wikipedia have from their actions? Not to mention the other twists where removing maintenance templates was labelled as "content dispute". The maintenance template that was removed by vandal was exactly the template pointing out that there is a dispute in the article and calling for discussion on the talk page. Undoing a vandal who was removing those templates (and adding a vandalized image file) was all packed as a "content dispute". Mhm.
An admin even tried to make adhering to dispute resolution bureacracy a fault in itself! I was scolded for being the one to add the maintenance template. How was that a mistake was not explained. Actually nothing was explained, none of the issues raised were ever addressed, instead I was always met with repetitive platitudes over and over again.
However I tried to keep my cool and I filed an official unblocking request presenting the situation clearly hoping that someone would bother to look into it.
But here is where bureaucracy really kicks in. My request was denied because hey, it was a "content dispute". Yes, there is a template with which you can warn another user that he might be blocked for removing maintenance templates, but if you actually ask an admin to do it, you get blocked and that's OK because it's a "content dispute". You need to seek resolution through talk page and communication with another user. But when you do that, and the vandal ignores it, you get blocked and that's OK because it's a "content dispute".
And what does "content dispute" mean anyway? Even if it was the case? One can vandalize image files with a false edit summary and that's not vandalism but a "content dispute"? No it's not. Let's stop the euphemisms and call things by their right names. "Content dispute" is an excuse for lazy admins. I have done everything to solve it as a content dispute even though it wasn't one, from warnings to maintenance templates to attempts to discuss things on the talk page. And I got blocked as if I did none of that, the same way the vandal that ignored all my actions for dispute resolution got blocked.
Now enough about the case.
Wikipedia has no effective measures to fight vandalism. None at all. Lazy admins can write off anything as "content dispute" without even bothering to read past the first few letters. Trying to solve the issues by the book won't hold any value in the end. You will be punished the same way someone who did none of that. Don't bother with dispute resolution, no really don't bother with it. It will take away a lot of energy to no avail. No one will appreciate it, and not just that, you will even get insulted.
It's apparently easier to silence users who have invested hundreds of hours in improving Wikipedia. Where this leads? Just Google Wikipedia for the latest news. It leads to the decline of this great website. Quality input is decreasing every day. It's the sad reality and something needs to be done about it quickly.
The whole point of administrators, rules, bureaucrats should be to improve Wikipedia and not to impose some twisted equality between dedicated editors and trolls. Their role should also be to help people like myself. I am not some great mediator or diplomat I admit that. I got here to update those articles and that's it. I can't be expected to do their job at the same time. When I ask them something I expect an answer not "content dispute, pass along". And I did ask them what else apart from the aforementioned actions was expected from me. But I was just slapped with tone deaf "content dispute".
Another great piece from a few months ago - Decline of Wikipedia states that the number of active editors on the English-language Wikipedia peaked in 2007 at more than 51,000 and has been declining ever since, down to only 31,000 people last summer. Thanks to the outdated system and disinterested admins still holding on to their positions the number will surely go down to the unsustainable levels in the next year or two.
I have no intention of allowing someone sitting in his chair comfortably and suffering from outpouring of power in the brain to smear my name and to diminish my efforts both in the past as my hard work is met with ridicule and in the future where I will not be able to fight vandalism effectively with "previously blocked" in logs.
I have decided to limit my activity thanks to those admins and their superficial approach. You won't see me again going through 42 articles updating them and then going through 42 maps updating them like when Mongolia recently changed its visa policy only to get blocked the same day by someone who thinks that the position of admin is unaccountable and that he is not required to bother with any details of the case he is dealing with and that all he is require to do is type up a sentence or two with red tape excuse.
I will most definitely not undo any vandalism anymore. I don't want to risk to be blocked for mishandling a "content dispute". However I will track all spam, vandalism, blanking, intentional addition of wrong information - all of it and especially sneaky vandalism. And I will keep track of it publicly so that we can see whose actions serve Wikipedia better, those of vandals and bureaucrats (in real and negative sense of the word) among admins or hard working users.
Such admins don't care if Wikipedia is full of false information for as long as the crazy bureaucracy is satisfied. They literally only care about procedural matters.
And of course let me end this with a note that there are great and dedicated admins out there. I explained that on my reports many actions were taken. And I congratulate them for their dedication in such atmosphere. I've reverted the edits by a vandal on another article, not three times, but thirty three times! But there was an admin who actually looked into the matter and did not just count the number of edits. The result was the block for the other user and a 6 month protection for the article. He didn't think about blocking me for mathematically crossing the line or edit warring when in fact my edits were just undoing a very similar type of sneaky vandalism. But for that an admin needs not be lazy and to actually look into the facts of the matter instead of repeating the same empty bureaucratic platitudes over and over again.
Thank you for reading, --Twofortnights (talk) 21:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)