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This page is divided in two main sections, one in English, to open the discussion to the wider Wikimedia community, and another in Portuguese (Português), for those who lack enough command of the English language to participate in the broader discussion. Vapmachado 17:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

English

Wish list

The current election policies have run it's course. Electing people on any Wikimedia project based on number of edits and percentage of votes has failed, and in no way helps the healthy development of those projects.

Anybody that is willing to run for election and/or be elected should make it's real identity known.

Elected user should possess a wide range of qualities and qualifications, that would make them a real asset to the project has to reduce to the possible extent the risk of becoming a immediate liability, and a major obstacle to civility, growth and development both in the short and medium range.

Human qualities and project quality must take precedence over quantity and number of edits.

No minors should be eligible for any position whatsoever.

Technical tasks should be carried by those technically qualified, but under the direct supervision of editors with much more broader qualifications.

No one should have more that one position at any given time.

Separation of powers, main activities and responsibilities are a must on any project.

Everybody should be elected for a limited term, with suitable but also limited reelection rules.

Projects without enough editors to fill all necessary positions, should be smaller partners of a larger project or recruit enough people on other projects to fill all open positions

This surely is a very incomplete and poorly organized list. I'm sure that there are people more qualified than myself who could present a well structured and coherent system that Wikimedia projects urgently need to put in place if they really aspire to become what they are supposed to be.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

Vapmachado 18:14, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Virgilio's comments

Virgilio A. P. Machado Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:43:41

I know that nobody has the guts to do it, but I wonder... I wonder what would happen if all administrators, bureaucrats and so on where told to take a hike. What would happen if new requirements for being administrator and so forth included assuming real identities, and a set of real world qualifications. What it would be like to grant amnesty to all that are currently banned and/or blocked. What it would be like if there was separation of powers, and secret balloting. I wonder what it would be like if Wikimedia projects would borrow a little more from democratic principles. Yes, I wonder... Scary thoughts aren't they? No surprise though, coming from someone who is the scourge of countless Wikimedia projects and a troll according to many.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

In reply to Virgilio's comments

Virgil Mosaic Bardo Museum Tunis 618px

Virgil between History and Tragedy

WereSpielChequers
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 10:28:47

In reply to Virgilio's comments:

1 "What would happen if all administrators, bureaucrats and so on were told to take a hike"

I don't know about other projects, but within a few days, perhaps hours the English Wikipedia would be trashed. With no admins to block vandals or delete attack pages, and no pages that were admin only for editing then not only would spammers and cyber bullies have a field day and the most common templates would be magnets for penis picture vandalism. Within a few days or at the most a week or two the foundation and all the wiki mirrors would either have to go offline or revert to the last "clean" version of the pedia in read only mode.

Then the foundation and or one or more other organisations would reopen for editing having recruited a set of moderators. I'd hope that one of the forks would be an advertising free volunteer run wiki much like Wikipedia and with many of the current administrators, I'd be surprised if at least one of the forks wasn't commercially run, advertising funded with paid moderators. Assuming there was some notice of the decision to tell the admins to "take a hike" the transition to a fork might be quite seamless, and the mirrors would probably have the sense to stop taking updates from the moment you handed Wikipedia over to the vandals.

2 What would happen if new requirements for being administrator and so forth included assuming real identities,

Even if you paid them, a lot of people would baulk at disclosing their real world identities when blocking paedophiles and the point of view warriors of every contentious issue on the planet. There are sites that went down the route of requiring all editors to identify, and providing you aren't ambitious and don't want a large community that can work. But I'm not aware of any site that has allowed anyone to edit but required those who deal with its vandals to disclose their real identity, more common I think is to allow anyone to create an account but pay moderators whose real identity is known to the office but who have role accounts for editing.

3 and a set of real world qualifications.

Interesting but what qualifications would you require? Better qualified people cost more and expect work that requires some of their expertise. For deleting spam and attack pages and blocking vandals you certainly don't need a high school diploma. IT literacy, written fluency in the relevant language and some communication skill and the ability to spot vandalism is required. I'm not aware of a relevant real world qualification, but our existing though flawed request for adminship process is effective at weeding out those without such skills.

4 What it would be like to grant amnesty to all that are currently banned and/or blocked.

It is just fine, providing we continue to only grant amnesty to those who accept the terms of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_offer A blanket amnesty on other terms would only make sense if we wanted to compete with Encyclopaedia dramatica.

5 What it would be like if there was separation of powers,

Not very different from today. At the moment the same admin can't block someone and decline their unblock. If you had two different groups, admins who blocked and another group of editors who considered unblocks then things would be a little slower, especially when an admin blocked someone by accident and had to get an unblocker to reverse their mistake. So slower, more bureaucratic and less efficient, but most editors would never notice a difference.

6 and secret balloting.

We use Secret ballots for Arbcom elections, it makes sense to do so when you are deciding which 8 out of 13 candidates to support and you wind up voting against some candidates because you think that others are better for the role. We don't use secret ballots for appointing administrators because, speaking from experience, rejected candidates want to know why they were deemed unsuitable and what they need to change or learn before trying again.

7 I wonder what it would be like if Wikimedia projects would borrow a little more from democratic principles.

It would be much easier to change things, and we would all have to get used to changes happening that didn't attempt to compromise with our objections. In a democracy if 51% want to implement a change and 49% prefer the status quo then the 51% win and the 49% lose. In Wikimedia both "sides" need to understand each other and try to come up with a solution that achieves what the 51% wanted but without doing the things that the 49% didn't want. In practice that isn't always possible and sometimes you get a logjam where most people want change but we don't have consensus for a particular change, however we are only just over ten years old and I doubt if any of our logjams are even as old as that. One of the interesting things for our next few decades will be to see how successful we are at eventually getting consensus solutions to problems that currently seem intractable. Personally I'm optimistic and think that a measurable minority of the problems that currently evade a consensus solution will have been resolved even before the end of our second decade.

8 Scary thoughts aren't they?

No. But thanks for posing them.

Regards

WereSpielChequers


FT2
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:48:08

More comments: [my format]

1 "What would happen if all administrators, bureaucrats and so on were told to take a hike"

  • Apart from the oddness of having a community choose people it wishes to do these roles and then telling them to "take a hike" (the community choose these, they aren't imposed), WereSpielChequers has it right.

2 What would happen if new requirements for being administrator and so forth included assuming real identities,

  • If you want to identify influential users I suggest you start with Featured Article writers, for surely the people who write content and are involved in its assessment as being shown to the world on the main page and described as highest quality (and most authoritative by implication) are highly influential users. Which is to highlight the illogic of the question.

    Administrators are not highly influential compared to two other groups - those who write high quality content (main page, tagged as "featured article" etc) and the mass of general users who together create the ethos of the site and a lot of any social issues. Administrators get a lot of attention because they have a disproportionate involvement in addressing abuse and inter-user misconduct, which is largely what the tools handle, but not convinced this makes administrators of any great stature in the community.

3 and a set of real world qualifications.

  • What would the point of this be? Neither in theory nor practice do administrators have specific roles in content work. Should we require real-world qualifications from editors generally? I think not - the skill an editor needs is editing, which is to say the ability to review sources and summarize them fairly. They usually don't need topic-specific qualifications to do that.

4 What it would be like to grant amnesty to all that are currently banned and/or blocked.

  • Probably dispute and disruption mayhem. Most bans and significant duration blocks - the vast majority - are people whose interest is vandalism, attacks, and spam. Of the rest the vast majority again are people whose way of working involves incidental or deliberate degradation of the editing environment for others or for readers. A small minotiry may well benefit from review, but not nearly enough for a general unconditional amnesty to the vast majority who probably would not.

5 What it would be like if there was separation of powers

  • This prsumably means we have people who edit, and people who handle disputes/operate the tools. Presumably those who use tools would either be recruited directly as non-editors, or would give up editing. I cannot see a better way to create a group of users who don't know how to use tools wisely, than to demand one or the other of these. It's far better that we keep as it is - users who use enhanced tools are editors first and foremost, come from the community, are nominated by the community, and still remain immersed in the community as editors thereafter.

6 and secret balloting.

  • Not convinced either way on the "secret ballot" issue nor a strong view on it. There are also advantages to seeing specific views and being able to weigh them and comment on / discuss them.

7 I wonder what it would be like if Wikimedia projects would borrow a little more from democratic principles.

  • You don't say which principles. The ones that polarize society (Republicans/Democrats, for example, who attack each other rather than look for points of similarity)? On a wiki page people ultimately have to learn to co-exist. Those who can't or won't gradually sooner or later gain wider attention for that reason. I think that's a lesson most democratic countries could learn from us, not the other way round.

8 Scary thoughts aren't they?

  • No. I don't find them scary at all. Thanks for them.

FT2


Dan Rosenthal
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:41:43

On Apr 10, 2011, at 6:28 AM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
> 4 What it would be like to grant amnesty to all that are currently banned and/or blocked.

> It is just fine, providing we continue to only grant amnesty to those who accept the terms of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_offer A blanket amnesty on other terms would only make sense if we wanted to compete with Encyclopaedia dramatica.

I think it would even be fine without such an offer. Unless we're talking about an amnesty followed by an inability to re-block those who abuse it, I think this would only be a irritation in the short term, especially if it's done in an opt-in rather than opt-out manner (i.e., you must put the {{unblock}} template on your page and ask for the amnesty in order to be unblocked/unbanned).

-Dan

Can it get any worse?

AltonTowers-Oblivion 450px

Virgilio A. P. Machado <vam@fct.unl.pt>
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 20:47:58

Of course. No doubt about it. We have now reached a level beyond personal attacks. Now my name is used as a thread. So much for "focus on the comment, not the person making the comment."

Will I ever address the comments made? As sure as day follows night.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado (Vapmachado)


Victor Vasiliev
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 21:12:16

Pity you prefer to assume bad faith (I'd even say worst faith) instead of replying to the comments (discussing a tone of a messages is neighboring with personal attacks in Graham's hierarchy of disagreement).

Now, following your logic, when we use Newton's laws of motion to solve a physical problem, we are focusing on Newton's personality. Nice?

--vvv


Virgilio A. P. Machado <vam@fct.unl.pt>
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 21:54:48

My sincere apologies. Did I stated that it could get worse? I had no idea or prior knowledge that there were people in this list exchanging posts with Newton. Whenever any of you has a chance, please give him my best regards.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado (Vapmachado)


Ashar Voultoiz
Wed, 20 Apr 2011 06:04:32

On 10/04/11 22:47, Virgilio A. P. Machado wrote:
> Of course. No doubt about it. We have now reached a level beyond personal attacks. Now my name is used as a thread. So much for "focus on the comment, not the person making the comment."

> Will I ever address the comments made? As sure as day follows night.

You are complaining about being considered as an inconvenience since may 2009. What about taking this less personally and get back to the [edit] button?

--
Ashar Voultoiz

Priorities

  1. Elections. Fail
    1. Open ballot. Fail
    2. Unlimited terms. Fail
    3. Criteria: number of edits. Fail
    4. Criteria: percentage of votes. Fail
  2. Anonymity. Fail
  3. Minors. Fail
  4. Administrators. Fail
  5. Multiple hats. Fail
  6. Separation of powers. Proposal
  7. Checks and balances. Proposal
  8. Accountability and transparency. Proposal
  9. Small project management. Proposal
  10. General amnesty. Proposal

Voting in the XXI century

The more I think about the prevailing requirements to vote on Wikimedia projects, the more I associate them with the past. A time when only men could vote, or whites, or people who could read and write, or had a certain number of school years. I believe that now the most common requirement is to be an adult. I wonder what requiring being and adult with an university degree would do to the number of eligible voters on Wikimedia projects. Would it also have an effect on the quality of the decisions made? I wonder.

No. I'm not proposing or even suggesting any of that. I thing it is very valuable for children of any age, and adults of any background (being able to read and write should be a given here, although sometimes I wonder...) to participate in one of the most democratic practices: voting.

People who started some of the policies on Wikimedia projects must have been dazzling brilliant, or baffling BSers. Or they might have just lacked the right age, knowledge, experience, and/or, sadly, not enough drive, curiosity or whatever to even look around them, watch some TV, movies... Maybe they came from outer space...

You see, when you look at voting in civilized societies the first thing you run into is voter registration. On countries where that is not possible, what you have is some system (paint on a finger) to ensure that nobody votes twice. Another thing is that the way you vote is nobody's business but yours. Voting is by secret ballot. Voicing your opinion is one thing, but when it comes to voting, if you are a candidate, who do you vote for: you or one of your opponents (if there is one or more)? Who knows?

Nobody here votes by raising his or her arm, colored card in hand or not, a popular system in certain environments and assemblies. The medium doesn't facilitate that. However, it allowed for another very specific voting method to take hold: signing or signing and justifying. This raised another problem: making sure that the same person is not voting more than once using different signatures, since no voter registration exists and for other reasons.

Another important and area of concern is electronic voting, this being about virtual communities who work collaboratively. By necessity, votes need to be cast by computer.

The challenge then is to implement a voting system that's only accessible to eligible voters, whose votes are secret, and ensures that they only vote once in any particular issue.

Since the issue is who might be eligible to vote, I'll venture into that. We have unified login don't we? So, once you have an account with Wikimedia, what is the problem with a registration to vote on any Wikimedia project? What do you need to register? What is always and everywhere required? You need to identify yourself to some body responsible for running the elections. Then you get some sort of access number or whatever that lets you vote once and only once on each election.

Can it be done? I'm sure it can. Gentlemen, we can rebuild this voting system. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first community fool proof electronic voting system. Wikimedia projects will be those communities; better than they were before. Better, fairer, faster. Your mission, should you decide to accept it will be to design such voting system. As always, should you or any of your IM force be hired or contracted by some private business, the Wikimedia will disavow any knowledge of your actions, and claim the work was done by unidentified Wikimedia contributors. This comment will eventually be archived and forgotten.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

Vapmachado 17:43, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

On anonymity

  • Access to nonpublic data policy (2007 06 02)
  • Identification noticeboard (2008 01 23 to present)
  • Wikipedia Watch
    • "most of the administrators at Wikipedia prefer to exercise their police functions anonymously. The process itself is open, but the identities of the administrators are usually cloaked behind a username and a Gmail address. (Gmail does not show an originating IP address in the email headers, which means that you cannot geolocate the originator, or even know whether one administrator is really a different person than another administrator.) If an admin has a political or personal agenda, he can do a fair amount of damage with the special editing tools available to him. The victim may not even find out that this is happening until it's too late. From Wikipedia, the material is spread like a virus by search engines and other scrapers, and the damage is amplified by orders of magnitude. There is no recourse for the victim, and no one can be held accountable. Once it's all over the web, no one has the power to put it back into the bottle."
    • Can you sue Wikipedia?
      • "It turns out that about half of the more than 900 administrators are even more anonymous than the so-called "anons." This is because no verification is required by Wikipedia's software to obtain a username. All editing under a username shows only the username as the editor, and does not show an IP address. Due to the fact that Wikipedia deletes its logs after a few weeks, this means that a username is often more anonymous than an "anon" without a username. Even if you serve the Foundation with a subpoena, chances are good that they will be unable to provide an IP address, or anything else that might identify an anonymous administrator.
        This is deliberate on Wikipedia's part, and their official policies brag about the privacy this provides. Those who reveal the true name behind an anonymous username get banned immediately, and the information deleted. Wikipedia does not want to know. Courts of law refer to this as "willful ignorance."
    • Wikipedia's Hive Mind
      • "Once a person is disconnected from the consequences of his actions, he cannot be expected to behave responsibly. And that, boys and girls, is the story of how Wikipedia lost its way. Stay away from anyone who hides behind a screen name."
  • Administrator accountability (2009 11 25 to 12 20)
  • Identification (2010 11 27 to present)
  • Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt (2010 11 29)
  • Two layers of privacy (2011 01 31)
  • Wikimedia Foundation OTRS identification policy (2011 02 04 to 27)
  • Dangers of giving real identities
    • "There are just so many horrendous dangers when leading people to give their real identities, around a horde of mentally questionable people. There are no "membership restrictions" in this non-country-club mob of join-at-your-own-risk potential victims. It is equivalent to suggesting, "Everyone has the good-faith option to drop their shields in this gunfight, and trust that no one will actually shoot them, just assume all shots will continue to be near-misses". Of course, there will continue to be people, gaming the system, who will use false "real identities" and when seeking an advantage, will escalate their common ad hominem attacks to perhaps insult someone's occupation, neighborhood, corporation, or family (or dog, etc.) to fill an argument with numerous distracting insults to confuse others, and foment a massive cloud of unbearable hostility into the wide-open arena, possibly scaring people's co-workers, company, family members, and "Toto, too" with hideously memorable, vile, disgusting wiki-puke venom gushing from their obviously twisted, demented, warped, psycho selves. Some people are utter, total raving lunatic, nutjob, wackos. Remember, throughout the ages, people have had their tongues cut out, and perhaps for what might seem to be justified reasons. Just visit a mental asylum, for some weeks, and observe the patients' behavior before they are released back among the general public. Please remember, mental illness and psychopaths are real and are a real danger."
      Wikid77, 00:45, 4 May 2011
    • "Many thanks for your comment. You described a situation that I am very familiar with. Many others may also have strong feelings and opinions about this issue. That is why I asked "Where do you think would be the right place to start a project across projects and languages where the question of editors of all "ages" sharing more about themselves on their user pages could be addressed? I believe that would be the ideal place to centralize the advantages and disadvantages of anonymity vs real identity; identity verifiability; user page improvement and protection." Do you know if such a place already exists? If not, do you know where such place might be? Would you like to be informed if that gets started? Would you be willing to lead that effort, contribute or at least would it be OK with you to quote your post there? You have contributed extensively to the talk about the March 2011 Update and seem to know a lot about Wikimedia projects, having edit on Wikipedia for more than six years. If I didn't comment on what you wrote it was, most likely, because I felt I didn't have anything to add. That's actually the case of your two comments, made this past May 4, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
      Sincerely,
      Virgilio A. P. Machado
      Vapmachado, 06:11, 5 May 2011

NEXT:

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/UseRealNames

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/PostAnonymously

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/PenName

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/WhyUseRealNames

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/UseRealNamesDiscussion

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 22:23, September 1, 2011 (UTC)

Minors

Info icon.svg As of 11 April 2007, CheckUsers must be at least 18 years of age, of legal age in their place of residence, and willing to provide identification to the Wikimedia Foundation in order to qualify. [1]

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 05:00, June 24, 2011 (UTC)

The only way of contributing

  • Contributions don't require editing, Quim Gil, 18:46, 12 April 2011
    • - Editing is not the only way of contributing, therefore it's good to think explicitly of 'contributors' beyond 'editors', and think of contributions that don't require editing.
      Which is parallel to the well known
      - Developing is not the only way of contributing, therefore it's good to think explicitly of 'contributors' beyond 'developers', and think of contributions that don't require coding.
  • get back to the (edit) button?, Ashar Voultoiz, 06:04, 20 April 2011
    • [Vapmachado is] complaining about being considered as an inconvenience since may 2009. What about taking this less personally and get back to the [edit] button?
  • George Orwell: "Why I Write", Chris Keating, 11:48, 12 Sep 2011
    • "I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:
      (i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.
      (ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.
      (iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
      (iv) Political purpose. Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude."

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 04:05, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

General amnesty

foundation-l -- Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List

Marc Riddell
Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:34:15

[...] banishment from something, whether it be from a working project or a country, means that person is being openly, or even surreptitiously, destructive of the body, the substance, of the project or country, not merely being critical of it.


Milos Rancic
Sat, 9 Apr 2011 12:46:12

there should be limits on sanctions. For example, I think that we should limit all non-spam as well as some troll-like behavior blocks to, let's say, two years.

All civilized places on Earth have restrictions on punishment system if it is about minor offenses. And our system is dealing with minor offenses, as all major offenses should be handled by judicial systems.

And that's Board's job, too.

Strategy wiki

WereSpielChequers
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:34:51

I suspect that launching a completely new wiki where all banned users could come and troll [my bold] was slightly too brave and open a move for some editors, and that it would have been better to have run Strategy as a project within meta. In fact if we are serious about the simplification agenda then migrating the contents of Strategy to meta would be a logical step to take, perhaps also with a rename to "new ideas" as that was what it effectively became.

WereSpielChequers


Virgilio A. P. Machado <vam@fct.unl.pt>
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 21:47:59

Only now did I realized that Strategy consubstantiates most of what I thought was a distant hypothesis. I wonder no more. It's right there before my own eyes and for everybody to see. Strategy is such a great project that I don't even know if it has any administrators, bureaucrats and so on. Never noticed any of them. Never felt the need to look them up for any reason whatsoever. If what was sated is correct, that Strategy is a "completely new wiki where all banned users could come and troll," I'm very sorry to be the bearer of these disappointing news: editing and discussing in Strategy is a breeze. Please bear in mind that I do not have a 100 per cent knowledge of everything that has been written in Strategy. I'm given testimony based on my own experience and observation. I can even provide some quantitative data about that experience, whose analysis is beyond the scope of this post.

A very dear friend of mine, who is a sysop, ex-bureaucrat and checkuser of the pt.wiki, who has been careful enough to publicize in 12 of 19 edits that I was either banned or blocked in the pt.wiki, while never mentioning a single accomplishment of mine on pt.wiki or any other Wikimedia project, follows me everywhere I go like a good pet. As soon as I started to participate in the ongoing Strategy discussion, at 2:19, on March 13, 2011, a little over 24 hours later, at 4:10, March 14, he started editing on the same project, allegedly "to help on vandalism combat," presumably from this vandal (add that to scourge and troll). Why does your pet dog follow you everywhere you go? Because they love you and want your company. Anyway, he has been completely out of luck.

Moving to Meta as an alternative to Strategy, would be a giant step back for Wikimedia. Meta is the worst of the worst Wikimedia projects I know. Of course, Meta Queens and Kings (no pun intended, please read Rullers) are free to run any "new ideas" page they see fit, but I wouldn't put any of my money on it. As a matter of fact I would like to see them do it, so that we could all have the benefit of the results.

Before I finish, as the runner up to Meta's undisputed leadership, let me mention the Brazilian Wikipedia, where to this day both me and my students are still the object of vandalism and abuse. It is so bad that nobody dares to do anything about it, despite my continued pleas, and I have the evidence to back every word that I'm writing here. The Bronze goes to the English Wiktionary.

On the other end of the rainbow (again, no pun intended) is a pot of gold called Portuguese Wikibooks. It has been a privilege for me and my students to work there. On every virtue, every human quality that you may think of, the guys that run that project are absolutely outstanding. I should know. I am the same person, and they handle all the grief I cause them as true civilized human beings. It has been an honor to be in such company.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado (Vapmachado)


I wrote to early. Theo10011 did the honors, June 1, on Wikimedia Strategic planning, with the complicity of all other project administrators and community members, including Sue Gardner, Philippe Beaudette, Erik Möller, Hydriz, and a dear companion Mono, with a final touch by Avicennasis. Some administrators have left in a hurry since then, while more unsavory characters are joining in to help spread havoc in one more Wikimedia project. They can't stand courtesy, decency, reverence, privacy, independence, respect, and dignity.

With the cooperation of Matanya, a boycott of the work on the Portuguese Wikibooks has also been orchestrated. This has concluded the "de facto" baning of this user from all Wikimedia projects. It shouldn't go without saying that the unbearable grief caused by that cast of characters has prevented the user from eating, sleeping, working and having sex, not necessarily in that order.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 06:24, August 28, 2011 (UTC)

Theme always in vogue

Farewell messages

  • Anonymous aka DV8 2XL
    • The short reason why I stopped editing at Wikipedia is simply that it was no longer any fun. Scanning my watch list, reverting vandals, cruft patrol, and troll abatement had become just another duty that had to be performed in a duty-filled day. Creating new content, the reason I joined the project, had become more the exception than the rule (2006 08)
  • Bogorm
    • Cet utilisateur a interrompu son activité ici [...] (2008 10 01)[2]
  • Filll
  • James Michael DuPont
    • I have lost interest in wasting my time on wikipedia after being harassed by WhiteWriter and his friends while editing articles related to kosovo. The serbs are stalking and harassing anyone who even wants to add simple facts and make life difficult for anyone. It is a real pain. I hope that you will get them under control some day, they are really messing wikipedia up. thanks, mike (2011 04 09)[3]
  • Jim Leff
    • I was once an active Wikipedia editor [...] (2008 07 31)[4]
  • Kyle Gann
    • Left Wikipedia; reasons given here (2007 05 05)
  • Law Lord
    • I have had enough of administrators who lack manners[5] and Law Lord
  • Sherman Cahal
  • Yann Forget
    • I experienced the same [Point of view editors who attempt to control the content of articles to advance their cause. Anything they put into the article is gospel. Anything you put in has a poor source or is original research. This is not a new problem. Establishing a minor point is the work of days.], and I stopped working on French Wikipedia because of that. (2011 03 29)[6]

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 00:06, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

How bureaucracy works: the example

If I understood well, Americans don't have such bad feelings toward the word "bureaucracy" and its derivatives. In Europe it is different. When I tell to Gerard that he is better bureaucrat than me, he feels offended; although I thought about specific virtues, not defects; and although I've defined myself a number of times as a Wikimedia bureaucrat.

That difference lays probably in 300 years of different developments of societies. Franz Kafka wasn't living in 18th century, but in 20th. Horrors of bureaucracies wasn't so obvious in 18th century because it is hard to say that any kind of sensible bureaucracy existed then. Arbitrariness of feudatories and rulers was much bigger problem. And at least in the case of bureaucracy, Americans had much more luck.

As you could see I am usually use the "American" meaning of the word "bureaucracy" and its derivatives. Complex societies can't exist without more or less good bureaucracies. Unlike many of my friends, I appreciate good formal bureaucracy. This is the minimum and it is much better to deal with formal bureaucracy than with informal relations. As a user of [social] institutions you can count on formal bureaucracy, while it is not possible with informal relations.

However, to be effective, bureaucracy has to be managed. This is particularly true for very complex bureaucracies, and Wikimedia is already a very complex bureaucracy. And it (bureaucracy) is not managed well.

The main problem with not well managed bureaucracies are not well defined responsibilities. In other words, it is not possible to say that one person or one group is responsible for some malfunctioning. It is the product of the right decisions at the lower level of complexity, which creates malfunctioning at the higher level of complexity.

That means that I am not blaming anyone particularly, but that we have increasing number of the problems of that type; which means that all of us have to think how not to make such mistakes.

[...]

[Foundation-l] Milos Rancic Sat Sep 25 15:53:05 UTC 2010

Mission control

RFP/Portuguese Wikipedia Qualitative Researcher

Some straight talk first

The WMF does not have a good enough understanding of the structure and dynamics of the PT:WP community. There is a quantitative research being conducted on PT:WP. The WMF is not sure in what direction to steer the quantitative research and might not quite understand emerging numeric trends. The PT:WP active editor base is not increasing at the same rates as in the past and the WMF is not sure about what to do and what specific recommendations should be made to the PT:WP community about it and how to assure that the PT:WP community will follow those recommendations.

There's a lot of money in Brazil and the WMF would love to get more of it

After the usual filler, the WMF recognizes that it does not understands the structure and work dynamics of the Brazilian community, and the Portuguese Wikipedia. It lacks both qualitative and quantitative knowledge. Besides the results expected from the Editor Trends Study (for Portuguese), the WMF would like to know about admin activity, new editor activity, and general editing stats. It is hoped that someone with good qualitative insights will help steer the quantitative analysis so that some meaningful results will be obtained and/or help interpret the quantitative results, mostly from a cause-effect point of view.

NEXT

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 05:03, October 6, 2011 (UTC)

RFP/Global Education Program

NEXT

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 05:03, October 6, 2011 (UTC)

Humor

Cuddles

A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa, taking her faithful aged poodle named Cuddles, along for the company.

One day the poodle starts chasing butterflies and before long, Cuddles discovers that he's lost. Wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch.

The old poodle thinks, 'Oh, oh! I'm in deep doo-doo now!' Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap the old poodle exclaims loudly, 'Boy, that was one delicious leopard! I wonder if there are any more around here?'

Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees. 'Whew!' says the leopard, 'That was close! That old poodle nearly had me!'

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So off he goes, but the old poodle sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard.

The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, 'Here, monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!

Now, the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, 'What am I going to do now?', but instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says.

'Where's that damn monkey? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard!

Moral of this story....

Don't mess with old farts .. age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill! Bullshit and brilliance only come with age and experience.


List of vandal fighters, defenders of the five pilars, morality and good manners, who came ashore here, displaying what they are really made of


Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 22:42, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Português

Façam como eu digo

Atenciosamente,

Virgílio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 02:27, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

Tema sempre actual

Os debates seguintes passarão, na devida altura, para a secção dos debates arquivados.

Atenciosamente,

Virgílio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 04:55, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

Adeus Wikipédia

Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2010 06:06

To: wikipt@lists.wikimedia.org

From: "Virgilio A. P. Machado" <vam@fct.unl.pt>

Subject: Mais um «lapso»

As minhas desculpas por, mais uma vez, vir perturbar a «paz podre» desta lista, mas esta é a única via a que tenho acesso para fazer publicamente o seguinte pedido.

Só há pouco me apercebi que, por coincidência (para quem acredita nessas coisas), um dos administradores a que aludi, na minha mensagem de 25 de Março p.p., eliminou certamente «por lapso», a marcação {{ensaio}} de uma das «minhas» subpáginas (minha só porque tem lá o meu nome).

Estou impedido de desfazer estes «lapsos». No meu entender deveria ser o próprio administrador a desfazer o «lapso». Parece não haver muita inclinação para certas pessoas limparem o seu próprio «lixo», por qualquer outro editor poder fazê-lo, tal como acontece com o lixo que atiram para a rua, usando o mesmo raciocínio.

Assim, caso o administrador, não esteja disponível para o fazer ele próprio, muito agradecia que algum editor de boa vontade recolocasse a marcação {{ensaio}} na página

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usu%C3%A1rio:Vapmachado/Adeus_Wikip%C3%A9dia

O histórico pode ser consultado para mais detalhes.

Aproveito a ocasião para concretizar que a edição errada do mesmo administrador é esta:

http://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Recep%C3%A7%C3%A3o_%28armaz%C3%A9m%29&diff=19412596&oldid=15446090

feita, infelizmente, sem conhecimento da matéria e sem qualquer fonte e deve ser revertida, o que, mesmo que quisesse, estava impedido de fazer pelo CA, a não ser que usasse algum «meat puppet» e já se viu qual é o resultado, quando isso contraria ou questiona as acções de certas pessoas.

Atenciosamente,

Virgílio A. P. Machado

Vapmachado 00:38, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Adeus Wikipédia II

AntoniusJ

Cachorrinho está latindo lá no fundo do quintal

Carlos Botelho

Cláudio Aarão Rangel

FML

Geraldo Junior

JLCA

Junius

Kiko58

Loangray

Luferom

Manoel Rodrigues Júnior

Manuel Anastácio

Mateusc

Atenciosamente,

Virgílio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 03:06, July 18, 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedistas desaparecidos

  • Clique no título acima para aceder à página

Discussão: Wikipedistas desaparecidos

  • Clique no título acima para aceder à página

Blogs

Atenciosamente,

Virgílio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 04:08, August 30, 2011 (UTC)

Comentários

Atenciosamente,

Virgílio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 06:52, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

Debates e votações arquivadas

  • Clique no título acima ou num dos anos abaixo para aceder à página

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Resultados de votações

Atenciosamente,

Virgílio A. P. Machado

Vapmachado 19:13, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Humor

O balde

Um velho senhor tinha um bonito lago na sua enorme herdade.

Durante bastante tempo deixou de dar o seu passeio até ao lago. Mas naquele dia, decidiu ir ver se estava tudo em ordem.

Pegou num balde para trazer fruta das árvores do pomar. E, ao aproximar-se do lago, ouviu vozes femininas, animadas, divertidas...

Era um grupo de mulheres, muito jovens, a tomar banho no lago, completamente nuas. Todas fugiram para a parte mais funda do lago, deixando apenas a cabeça fora da água.

Houve uma que gritou:

- Não saímos daqui enquanto o senhor não se for embora!

O velho respondeu:

- Calma moças, eu não vim até aqui para as ver a nadar ou para as ver a sair nuas do lago!

Mostrando o balde, acrescentou:

- Eu só vim dar de comer ao jacaré...

Moral da história:

Idade e experiência de vida, «sempre» triunfarão sobre a juventude e o entusiasmo


Lista dos lutadores contra o vandalismo, defensores dos cinco pilares, da moralidade e bons costumes, que aqui deram à costa, mostrando de que massa são feitos, na realidade


Atenciosamente,

Virgílio A. P. Machado

vapmachado 22:23, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Other

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

Vapmachado 21:35, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

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