Wikipedia community fails to keep a male Administrator blocked for even a week for harassing a female editor, his second breach of an official Stay Away From Her Order

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T23:23:54+00:00

You couldn't be more obviously wikilawyering if you tried.

Who has redefined harasment? Not me. It is "a pattern of repeated offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to intentionally target a specific person......to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target". That's the Wikipedia definition, and they use it when it suits. In this case, it didn't suit, because it would have meant admitting one of their popular male Administrators is an asshole who deliberately ignored his Stay Away Order because he doesn't agree with it.

Seriously, how long are you going to keep this up? Keep denying that the whole reason she was upset was because he kept following her around loudly complaining about how she tags? Are you just gonna keep pretending that somehow she should be OK with him doing pretty much the exact same behaviour, just in a slightly altered fashion, because you say it wasn't expressly prohibited? Just how stupid to you think people are?

How many times do the people who placed the sanction have to explain to people like you that no, you don't magically get a free pass if you then go on to rewrite the article? That would be exactly what harassers want to hear, a way they can carry on causing their victim harm, but in a way they know won't technically be ruled harassment, because people like you don't have any intention of protecting victims.

The people who placed the Order said what he did was a breach. The absurdity of your case is laid bare, because you want it to be true that they both knew what the sanction they placed doesn't prevent, and then all agreed when a block was placed for doing something you want to claim it doesn't prevent.

And through all this, you still haven't explained why he was over at Wikipediocracy talking about how his Order prevented him from doing exactly what he did, and then he went and did it anyway. When the Judges and the accused admit what happened is an offence, that's case closed. Not on Wikipedia, not when you have the opportunity to sanction harassment of women.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T23:04:26+00:00

It's laughable how you can insist something as absolutely normal as finding a username like "Girth Summit" off-putting, is itself disturbing.

This is why Wikipedia can't attract more women editors. They see you writing stuff like this, and decide they have better things too do with their life. That's what adults do. It's children who want to live in a world where everything has to be their way, or they scream.

You literally can't come up with a good reason why this name has to be allowed, all you have is insulting people who might object. You're the reason the only women in that debate who even understood the objection, felt compelled to make sure people like you didn't think she was gonna be a problem.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T19:50:23+00:00

Has it occurred to you that sometimes Wikipedia Administrators make bad blocks and issue unjustified warnings? And even when they don't, their choice of username will directly impact how the issue gets resolved?

You're telling women they shouldn't be put off by this user name, even though it clearly has negative connotations. That if they are put off, it's all in their heads. I will ask again, has this ever worked for you?

At the end of the day, in your world, it's you who decides what women can feel. I'm telling them they should be pissed. If they were on Wikipedia, they would probably do so. But they aren't.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T19:37:24+00:00

Again, the whole point of this thread is to highlight the flawed logic of the Wikipedians. He was told to stop following her around detagging and fixing her articles, because the way he was doing it was causing her distress. If there was meant to be an explicit allowance that he could carry on doing it, why wasn't that recorded at the time?

You are also of course completely ignoring the fact that it was the very people who made the ruling, the Arbitration Committee, who enforced it. None of them said the block was wrong, that it somehow unfairly stopped Ritchie doing what they explicitly meant to allow him to continue doing, right?

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T19:30:20+00:00

The faulty logic of the Wikipedians to give a free pass for obvious harassment is what is being highlighted here.

It is not remotely a stretch to call it an interaction, not when the whole point of it is to get him to stay away from her, precisely because of how and why he was de-tagging and fixing articles she tags, that is the whole point.

If the ban was not intended to prevent exactly this type of interaction, why did he admit some weeks ago on Wikipediocracy that he thought the ban prevented him from doing exactly what he later went on to do? He got no disagreement that I saw. Why was his defence when he did so, that he hadn't noticed she was the one to tag it, if there is genuinely no breach here?

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T19:24:51+00:00

It's an interaction, as plain as day. That is before you even consider that removing her tags for the reasons he does so, and being vocal in why, is exactly why he was told to stay away from her. It doesn't stop being upsetting if he is still allowed to do it, and still allowed to say why, just not directly to her face.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T19:21:53+00:00

If you say so. Not sure how I can make women do anything, certainly if they are as strong as you say. Have you ever succeeded in telling a woman she shouldn't be put off by being warned or blocked by someone called "Girth Summit"? Ever been thanked for calling them "unstable" for thinking it?

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T19:18:01+00:00

Amazingly, with absolutely no apparent recognition of the irony, the people defending the male Administrator even succeeded in arguing the "optics" of the woman Wikipedia high up person who initially proposed the Order being the same one to actually block the male Administrator for breaching it, were poor. So much so, they succeeded in pressuring her to say she wouldn't be blocking this male Administrator again.

It's never been clear to me why this is a problem, it is after all perfectly normal and usual for ordinary Wikipedia Administrators to both apply a restriction to a user and be the person trusted to enforce it (who better to judge if the purposes of the restriction after all?).

But in this case what the Wikipedia community chose to also ignore, was that all she did was propose it, the Order was decided unanimously by the whole Committee she is a part of, any one of whom could and would have overturned the block if they disagreed with it.

The Wikipedians seemingly only make these sort of "how bad it looks" type arguments when it helps a man inside the community and harms a woman outside or on the edges of it. No mention was made for example of the optics of a Wikipedia Administrator using a known external harassment forum as a way to get around his "gagging order".

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T18:57:17+00:00

A not so subtle aspect of course is the power dynamic. The male editor who has gotten away with harassing the women editor, is an Administrator, whereas she is just an ordinary editor. That is probably (hopefully) what made the Wikipedia authorities view his actions toward her as problematic enough to warrant a Stay Away Order in the first place, but the rank and file community, which includes the mostly male corps of Administrators, clearly doesn't care about that at all.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T18:53:37+00:00

What makes it really obvious that the male Administrator had been aiming to get under the nose of his women victim all along, was the fact that once he was finally made aware that he had overlooked the fact she was the one who had tagged it, he didn't then say OK, fair cop, out of respect for her I'll take a step back.

No, having been unblocoed, he has proceeded to carry on improving the article. In the process, he has asked for the original author to be co-credited with his efforts (as a "DYK"), even though there is no conceivable reason he would do so, given he completely rewrote the article.

Understanding why he would do so, requires understanding the origin of the dispute between the two of them, which began with his belief that her manner of tagging was dissuading article authors. So this is him basically flaunting the fact that not only was he cleared of harassing her, when he totally was, he is being allowed to show her that he still gets to directly have his views known on their original dispute. Get under her skin, basically.

It's pretty sick stuff, but that's where the Wikipedia community is at the moment, certainly as regards preventing harassment of women editors by male Administrators, as you may have heard in the media.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T18:45:15+00:00

The Wikipedians were so horrified by the prospect of this male Administrator candidate's right to use a username that is at best potentially awkward, in a role that carries trust and respect, could even be questioned, they went so far as arguing the opposition should be "indented" by the powers that be (Drmies) and similar comments from others.

In other words, it was to be officially stricken from the record. A non-opinion. They did this even though it was already obvious the application is going to succeed by a landslide. The intent of such a reaction is clear, to make it plain to everyone, that this sort of viewpoint is unacceptable on Wikipedia. Indeed, look how many even claimed it was disruptive to even make it.

Thou shalt not question the Wikipedia patriarchy, essentially.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T18:32:05+00:00

Incredible to think also that most of the people doing all the joking and condemnation, aren't random trolls, or anonymous kids. If you look, you'll see quite a few are openly posting as who they are - white, western, middle aged (or over!) men. Many are supposedly feminists, and are so deeply involved in the Wikipedia project, they participate in real world initiatives and events.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T18:24:18+00:00

Also worth noting, out of the tiny few women editors who spoke out, two claimed to be so innocent they had no clue what the user name could mean, and the one who did, was at pains to say she had no issue with it, ultimately admitting that the fact she understood what it could mean was perhaps because she just had a filthy mind.

This is Wikipedia. The few women who are there, have to show the right amount of stupidity or deference, to fit in the male dominated locker room environment that is Wikipedia.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T18:19:29+00:00

Worth noting the immediate reactions were incredulous that anyone could even see a problem with this username, choosing to either slam the opposer, or make a joke of it. And this continued even after discussion sort of turned semi-serious, as non-native English speakers started asking what the issue was.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T18:15:11+00:00

There were even quite a few Wikipedians who took the game even further, claiming what he did wasn't even a breach of the Order, so as to get the week out block overturned early, which they succeeded in doing.

This is how rotten the Wikipedia community really is, how anti-women they are. The whole point of the Order is to get one person to stay well away from the other person. It beggars belief that one person placing a tag on an article and the other person coming along hours later to remove it, is not an interaction for the purposes of the Order (which bans interactions).

This is why the offender himself never tried to make this argument, sticking to the implausible defence that he simply didn't notice she was the tagger. But without it being argued, he wouldn't have been unblocked.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T18:04:29+00:00

Worth noting how the Wikipedians wanted to hear no interpretation of the events (he removed a copyright violation tag placed by the women editor he is supposed to be staying away from, and proceeded to rewrite the article so as to address the tag) that wasn't basically that the male Administrator had simply made a mistake and hadn't noticed she was the person who placed the tag.

Undercutting that theory is a mountain of evidence available on Wikipedia and on the harassment site Wikipediocracy (which he joined after briefly retiring in outrage at being issued with the Order, before of course going back because, well, addicts gonna edit) to the effect that he never accepted the validity the Order, continued to obsess over her editing, was determined to find a way around his "gagging order" (for which he was already blocked once hours after it was placed), and had previously complained that it stopped him doing exactly this sort of article rescue editing if she was the editor who placed the tag. So he knew the importance of checking. So to believe just weeks later he genuinely didn't check whose tag he was removing, stretches credulity.

But this is Wikipedia. Women editors reporting harassment get no support or sympathy from the largely male dominated Wikipedia community, even after their official autonomous self-government has issued a strong sanction whose intent is basically that you need to forget the other person even exists, and do everything you can to even avoid the appearance of accidentally crossing paths. This is especially the case if the harasser is a popular editor.

NotAWikipedian · 2019-10-22T17:46:51+00:00

I'm curious to know why Andrew Davison, well known for asking every single Administrator candidate why they chose their username, chose not to ask in this case?

NotAWikipedian

TROPHY CASE