Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Lar

SBHB's outside view

Regarding Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lar#Outside view by Short Brigade Harvester Boris

Lar can be banned from acting as an uninvoled admin altogether based on Disruption

• The diffs show that instead of commenting on cases as an uninvolved admin Lar is being rude and dissmissive to a large group of very dedicated editors.
• Lar is regularly taking the oportunity to push his view rather than acting as a neutral arbiter and evaluating the cases based on merit.

His presence as an enforcement admin is highly disruptive. Polargeo (talk) 08:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not think those diffs show what you think they show. I think while you may well have legitimate criticism of me to offer, some of which I have acknowledged, you are overreaching when you characterize my presence as an enforcement admin as "highly disruptive". ++Lar: t/c 14:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't think it was highly disruptive if I didn't think you were letting what I see as your prejudices and misconceptions manifest themselves as extreme bias, which I think is a very worrying characteristic for an "uninvolved" admin. Polargeo (talk) 16:48, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

On whether a "whatchamacallit" exists

Here, Enric Naval states "Lar really seems to believe that a cadre exists, and that WMC is leading it" and characterises this belief as a "delusion".

So let's examine this more closely. (note, to avoid unwieldy wording I will have to use a short term here, and I will use "AGW cadre". I have struggled with what a neutral short form would be for some time now, and welcome better suggestions)

First, is it even possible that such a group exists? If we had never seen any such group before, it would be a good argument that existence is improbable.

But we have seen such groups before. In the findings of fact of the EEML case, ArbCom found that there was a group of editors who were

commenting in process along "party lines", supporting each other in disputes even when otherwise uninvolved in them

and that they were using tactics including

baiting, harassment and vexatious complaints against specific users in order to have them sanctioned or driven away from participating.

So clearly we have examples of the existence of groups. Is the "AGW cadre" such a group?

The EEML group was a highly coordinated group. They used sophisticated techniques to carry out activities that subverted consensus and poisoned the editing atmosphere. While others have alleged that the "AGW cadre" have coordinated activities using emails or using Facebook. I have made no such claims, and I repudiate any such allegations until and unless evidence is introduced to substantiate them.

Making such claims is not likely to be helpful either.

But it is not necessary to use a mailing list or IRC or FB or whatever. Merely watching the activities of folk is sufficient to determine what's going on, and what "hot spots" might exist. I watch my wife's contribs and she watches mine, for this very reason. Perfectly legitimate and we all do it all the time, as there's nothing inherently wrong with it and often it can be quite helpful. (the contributions page is a tool, and like any tool, has no intent of its own, the intent is with the user)

If editors have overlapping areas of interest, watching contributions can be quite effective. Consider this wikistalk result focusing on the overlap in mainspace contributions of WMC and 5 other editors that many folk, including folk other than myself, consider among those that are candidate members of the "AGW cadre". Note the areas of overlap. Almost every mainspace article that at least three of these editors have edited is an AGW article. (the few that are not are in other areas that have had some challenges in the past... fringe science such as Cold Fusion, and creationism/ID)

That demonstrates only that these editors all have an interest in AGW, and that it overlaps with each other. Running similar analysis on other groups of editors (for example those who many could consider members of the "denier cadre") would probably show similar results. Nevertheless, it DOES show an interest in AGW (which I think none of them would deny, but it's necessary to show it if we wish to be rigorous)

Let's look at who edits the enforcement request pages: This tool: [1] when we put "Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement" in as the page to review, shows that these editors do frequent the enforcement page.

So too do others. My contributions to that page are pretty high too. So this shows only that this group of editors, with a clear interest in AGW articles, also has an interest in the enforcement page.

However, that by itself is sufficient to show that there is an "AGW cadre". But not that there is a problem that we need to act on, that is, that the editors who are statistically correlated to this cadre have malign intent, or that their activities are overall harmful. Remember, that we encourage the existence of "groups of related editors"... we call them "WikiProjects".

I'm out of time for right now. Others have put forward information around some of those points. I may follow up later, but for right now, do we have general acceptance that such a cadre does exist (regardless of anything else about it such as who might be its leader (if such exists... I've not directly made such a claim) or what have you)? Or is there a need to demonstrate this existence in more detail? ++Lar: t/c 14:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your wikistalk result purports to show, but I suggest that if you ran the same whatever on Cla68, Heyitspeter, GoRight, MarkNutley and Atren, you'd find a far, far stronger whatever the tested variable is. Hipocrite (talk) 15:16, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe this is the link he meant to do. And here is your suggested comparison. Of course, if you included Short Brigade Harvertor Boris' previous account then the correlation would be even stronger. TheGoodLocust (talk) 16:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't even know what those things purport to mean. Could someone describe what the column "No." and "Similarity" are, and what the rank order of the various pages are? Hipocrite (talk) 16:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't use that tool often but "No" appears to be the arbitrarily defined number used to identify the area of overlap . It appears to be buggy as well since it doesn't increment sequentially correctly (nor does it seem to put them all in reverse alphabetical order as apparently intended). You'll notice in the first example that after the number 16 it jumps up a huge number and then continues incrementing++ until later on when it jumps up again unexpectedly.

The "similarity," as far as I can tell, shows two things; first, it shows how many of the group have participated in that article (e.g. 2 of 6, 6 of 6), and the 2nd column identifies those individuals by their previously assigned number. The limitations of this are obviously that it doesn't show the quantity of activity overlap, simply the areas of overlap, and, as previously mentioned, it doesn't show the overlap from previous accounts (a concern in this case). TheGoodLocust (talk) 17:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The odd jumps in sequence appear to occur when it starts displaying the next person's edits. This may be intentional, but it certainly is ugly from a UI perspective. TheGoodLocust (talk) 17:20, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

If that's accurate, there are fourteen-hundred plus items that only person 1 edited, 11 hundred plus that only person 5 edited, 150 that only person 4 edited, and a massive four thousand that only person 3 edited. This seems to be evidence that if you have people with ten of thousands of edits, they overlap. I wonder how many std. devs away from random chance these results are. Hipocrite (talk) 17:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

No, you are misreading it, I said the numbers don't increment sequentially correctly and should mostly be ignored. Every single article mentioned shows overlap between at least two people - every one. Also, you are incorrectly assuming that these count edits that overlap (which would be difficult to do) - these counts areas of overlap. You can't compare apples to oranges (edits to areas).

From my count the article overlap, and keep in mind this is just articles, not talk and other areas, includes approx. 520 articles (not counting SBHH's previous account). The overlap is considerable if you consider the fact that they make thousands of edits (usually reverting others?) in these articles. For comparison, the group you suggested we compare edited in 33 of the same articles. TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:01, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the analysis... ++Lar: t/c 18:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Dividing that by median articles edited might show something. Which group would you say has greater coorelation? Hipocrite (talk) 18:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually the best thing to do would be to look at the # of edits they make to each of those overlapping articles. I recall several of these editors making hundreds or even thousands of edits in several of those overlapping articles. I have neither the time nor the tools to make a proper analysis (and my statistics is quite rusty). Cheers though. TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear: So far, due to time reasons, all I think I've established is that there is a (at least one) group of editors that have an interest in this topic area, as evidenced by the number of articles in the topic area (and, oddly, in related topic areas such as ID, creationism, fringe science, ect) that at least two of these editors have edited. Although I haven't done a statistical analysis, I'd say that the overlap between these 6 editors (there are others I feel that are in this group, I just picked those six as a starting point) is several standard deviations away from the overlap we'd see among 6 editors of comparable edit counts picked randomly. Hipocrite, did you seriously want to debate that point? I really didn't think that it was debatable, actually. I was just trying to be rigorous.

Note that we could well find other groups of 6 editors that have similar overlap in this area. I make no claims that we can't. Just that I found this one group. That's all, so far. ++Lar: t/c 18:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Lar, as someone who does work in a similar-esque kind of area, yes, I'd make the argument that if you picked six editor who all edited one article extensively that the "pattern" you alledge is hardly interesting. IE, pick six editors who edited Al-Qaeda extensively but also have massive edit counts, and you'll find an identical overlap. What is interesting is that there are editors who overlap with these editors, and eachother only in this topic area. IE - there are gadflies just here to fuck things up, and they are on both sides. Why are Atren and WMC showing up at The Hockey Stick Illusion to throw a wrench into things? Hipocrite (talk) 18:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

My concern isn't whether you personally find the pattern interesting or not, just that you (and everyone else for that matter) acknowledge that the pattern exists. You may want to ask the 6 editors I used whether they want to deny that they have an interest in this area and edit in it extensively. So far that's all I'm trying to show. Gotta fly. ++Lar: t/c 19:06, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems that what you're saying is so trivial as to be irrelevent. Probably next time you want to enter a trivial fact into evidence, you should just state it clearly, like you did here. I'll cop to having an interest in the area, and I edit it, for various definitions, "extensively." Here's a list of other people who have to cop to that also - Cla68, marknutley, Atren, heyitspeter, and so on and so forth. Big "sowhat" here, to be honest. Hipocrite (talk) 19:13, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I compared 6 editors who stood out in the Al Qaeda history and here are the results. They overlap 58 times and the only article that they've all edited was Al Qaeda itself (far less overlap when you look at the details). TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

(undent) you didn't correct for edit count. Hipocrite (talk) 19:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Nor am I going to go through every single Al Qaeda editor and look at their edit counts. Each of those editors have a good # of edits and I doubt you'll find many (any?) editors to that article with as many edits as the AGW group (it is much easier to push up the edit count when reverting). TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Note:

Group 1 (ATren et al.) - 5.7% of the articles on their list are edited by all members of the group (average 513 unique pages per group member edited in Wikipedia)

Group 2 (WMC et al.) - 0.8% of the articles are edited by all members of the group (average 5950 unique pages per group member edited in Wikipedia)

Assuming a simple linear model between editing and coincidence , it seems to me that you'd expect the proportion of coincidence in the latter group to be an order of magnitude higher. Now add to the fact that the latter group has 37% of its edits in mainspace (unweighted average per person), while the former group has 23% of its edits in mainspace (unweighted average), you'll see that the likelihood of the people in Group 2 editing the same articles is much higher than the likelihood of the people in Group 1 and the appearance of conspiracy should be much higher for the first group. Unless, of course, you approach the issue with a strong confirmation bias. Then you'll see what you expect to see. Guettarda (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you correct for the number of users? You might need to add in another editor to group 1. Hipocrite (talk) 20:02, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

No, Group 1 has 4, Group 2 has 6. I didn't pick the people. But the point is that Group 1 has an order of magnitude higher coincidence with an order of magnitude fewer pages edited. Which suggests that anyone looking at these pages and saying "Group 2 is a whatchamacallit", but not saying that about Group 1 has misinterpreted the numbers. Guettarda (talk) 20:06, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Obviously the group with fewer people will have a greater % of complete interesections if based on random chance (and also since their sample size (4 articles) is smaller). Also, I looked at both of SBHB's accounts and compared them with WMC's and together they have 173 articles in common (I didn't count repeats). I'm just pointing that out since his older account adds quite a bit more overlap as well. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:10, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The simplest comparison would be to compare groups of two - get rid of some of that noise. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:13, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, we should stop using the tool, as it's been declared "busted" by it's creator. So right, all of this was a waste of brain. Hipocrite (talk) 20:16, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe he was referring to the broken enumeration, which I'd already pointed out was broken, but which doesn't really matter in any substanitive way. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

But deleting Dave and me destroys all of Lar's conspiracy theories, since we're now talking about 4 people with advanced degrees in (pretty much) the same field. Not to mention that with an order or magnitude more edits, you'd expect an order of magnitude more intersections. So again, these are entirely innocuous numbers. Guettarda (talk) 20:49, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Deleting you and Dave means the groups can be compared more accurately. Also, I compared the % of complete intersections between the two groups, something which you brought up and which, if edits were random, would decrease as edit counts rose - instead over 10% (likely far higher w/ Boris' old account included) of their shared articles (35+ articles - which they edit a LOT) were edited by every single one of them. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and since you decided to look up %'s for group of 4 vs a group of 6, I turned the group of 6 into a group of 4 (SBHB, WMC, KDP, and SS) and found that 10.8% of their overlaps were complete (they all edited in those articles), which is a much stronger figure since that was based on 35+ samples of complete overlap while your 5% figure was based upon 2 articles of complete overap. Also, I didn't take into account SBHB's previous account, which, as I showed, adds a significant amount of overlap. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:23, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, more edits = more overlap. That's my basic thesis. And yet group 1, with a fraction the number of edits, has similar or greater proportion of overlap. So it undermines Lar's conclusion that there's some sort of evidence here against Group 2. Against Group 1 - maybe. After all, nearly all of their similarities are in climate change articles, while the rest of us overlap in all sorts of random places (Buju Banton, Great Pyramids...) Guettarda (talk) 20:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

More overlap, but less complete overlap (something you brought up). Also, the other group, which has far fewer edits, isn't nearly as statistically robust (e.g. when you said 5%, but based that off a mere 2 articles of complete overlap). As I previously stated, if we could compare the number of edits in the overlapping areas it would look far worse for WMC et all. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and for fun I included SBHB's old account and discovered the articles of complete overlap, where they all participate, goes up to 55. I'd be curious if there is any other group that has that much complete articlespace overlap. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Plenty. Here's a group with 62. Guettarda (talk) 00:01, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

55. Guettarda (talk) 00:14, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Obviously I meant another group of 4 - you seem quite taken with comparing different sized groups, but then we all know what they say about statistics. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:28, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I picked all the active editors in one small WikiProject, and got 66, which I strongly suspect would be more than you'd get with your cherrypicked editors. I also picked a couple active editors off the edit history of "cricket". In that case, I had no idea if they'd editted ANY articles in common except that one. None of these people share a professional background as far as I know. It's not like I looked for especially linked groups. Just random groups. And I think it's pretty clear that there's nothing unusual here at all. And regardless, wre talking about Lar's accusations - and there were 5 articles in common.

We had 6 people that you picked. That's fine. But once you start throwing out data because it doesn't fit your preconceptions it's no longer the data that's speaking. Guettarda (talk) 01:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

That block of text doesn't change the fact that you compared a group of 3 with a group of 4 when any smaller group would be exponentially more likely to have areas of complete overlap - this is really basic mathematics here and I have trouble believing you don't understand this. Add to the fact that several of the editors in your group have more edits, as individuals, than WMC, KDP, SS and SBHB have combined and the amusement factor nearly causes injury to my abdomen.TheGoodLocust (talk) 01:57, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Complete overlap for all spaces on wikipedia goes up to 160 pages for that group. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: Shared interests lead to overlap on editing. End of story. If I edit, for example, the article Fern, it would not be a surprise to find me also at Plants and Leptosporangiate fern, or at Roses and Floristry, depending on whether my interest is biology or gardening or floral arrangements - but you will also find others editing the same spread of articles, with more or less overlap depending upon how much they share my interests and areas of expertise. There is no need to seek a Sekret Kabal - like minds edit like articles. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 04:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

And do "like minds" tend to insert/reinsert blog posts of other like minds? Including blog posts which quote their own blog posts? I'm curious where the credulity boundry ends. TheGoodLocust (talk) 05:24, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

When there are so many articles on every detail of the topic, sometimes there really aren't many sources in the world that cover the points raised. I know nothing of floristry or botany, but, extending the example above, I'm sure that whole articles on the number of thorns on a rose stem or the average length of a fern frond would depend on very few citable sources. Of course all world-class experts in the field would know of them all and may even have contributed to a few or been mentioned there. --Nigelj (talk) 07:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The above example had nothing to do with science (it rarely does, but this defense seems to come up all the time though). It had to do with associating a climate skeptic with Lyndon Larouche, which is probably a BLP violation - the only sources were a blog one wikipedia member created which quoted the blog of another wikipedia member (and reinserted by that wikipedia member and his friends when it was removed). TheGoodLocust (talk) 16:55, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

rfc/u?

Should this not be posted here [2] ? mark nutley (talk) 21:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Thanks Mark Polargeo (talk) 22:03, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Should this be in the admins section? Not sure because it is not a complaint against use of admin tools but is a complaint regarding admin privileges. Any comments welcome. Polargeo (talk) 22:07, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd assumed you hadn't posted it to the appropriate area because this was some sort of elaborate joke and that you couldn't possibly be serious in your request. TheGoodLocust (talk) 22:20, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

This RfCU needs to be in the admin/candidate section, not the user/certified section, since it relates to admin actions, (ArbCom enforcement activities are actually given as an example) and since it's not certified. I'm not sure it's actually certifiable as it stands... for one thing, I'd like to see some diffs for WMC's attempts to resolve the dispute... to the best of my knowledge WMC has never engaged me in a way that would be conductive to resolving anything and certainly not regarding this matter. Once that's acknowledged, I'm happy to waive any need for certification, but it's nevertheless an important point. ++Lar: t/c 03:55, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Adding a few more diffs would be appropriate to ensure adherence to the letter of policy. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:35, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

That wasn't my point, at least not exactly, although it's a fair point. Rather, I don't think diffs exist to show any meaningful attempt by WMC to resolve anything. Resolution here often (especially when it is between people presumably acting in good faith and who have been around a while so just lecturing them about the way things are isn't the collegial way to get things changed) requires introspection, acknowledgement of issues, and often requires change on both sides. ++Lar: t/c 16:12, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

But the fact that you are unwilling to listen to what he has to say, the fact that you seem unwilling to assume good faith on his part is the reason for this rfc. Your attitude here just emphasises this point. Guettarda (talk) 16:27, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

WMC has highlighted his belief in Lar's bias several times. Lar's response on many occasions has been to flatly deny any bias and continue calling for lengthy bans of WMC. I see this as Lar not willing to budge one inch and he is amusingly saying this about WMC. WMC is obviously well aware Lar is tring to get him banned for any reason and is sensible enough to not try to waste too much of his time trying to reason with Lar particularly as Lar has no concept of reason here. Polargeo (talk) 20:52, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I think a reasonable person, evaluating WMC's interactions with me and others, would not find himself in agreement with you, Polargeo, or with Guettarda either. But if you can find diffs that show WMC trying to resolve a dispute (not just highlighting a belief, but actually working to resolve a dispute) using our customs of listening to the other side, responding calmly, and seeking compromise, I would be interested to see them. I listen and I compromise, as many editors have testified. Repeating the assertion that I do not without substantiation, does not further your case. ++Lar: t/c 21:14, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, one of the reasons I thought this was actually a joke was under the "Evidence of trying to resolve dispute" section there was this gem of a diff, which starts off with, "When the hell are we going to stop Lar...," and reads far more like a rant or call to arms than any attempt at dispute resolution. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:21, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I believe Lar has increased his recommendations as issues with WMC have come up - in the belief that if sanctions increased to a level that WMC found meaningful then he would alter his behavior. I do look forward to your upcoming RfC in defense of me though Polargeo since I was topic banned without any discussion at all and certainly not without the warnings and latitude that WMC has been shown for years. TheGoodLocust (talk) 21:11, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the case of Thegoodlocust, but the automatic assumption I am on one side or the other is wrong. Recently I argued against an enforcement request against FellGleeming because I felt there was a major fault in the process in that it was outside the enforcement area. In the case of WMC I think Lar's inclusion as uninvolved is the fault in the process. Polargeo (talk) 11:11, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Question

Hi, I'm just watching all of this but I did notice the comment about an editor being banned from this discussion here. Shouldn't the comments be removed and the editor told to stop, at least this should be the minimum request. When banned from something that should mean no comments, period. I did bring this to the notification of the banning administrator, 2/0 in case he wants to comment or do anything about this. Things here are, well, weird enough without having an editor who is banned from discussing things here or anywhere for that matter. Thoughts? --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:58, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I for one am not clear on what you are asking, sorry. When you say "the discussion" do you mean this RfC? ++Lar: t/c 14:02, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Lar, I was about to self delete this since it's being discussed on the sanction page. TGL is banned from discussing CC from my understanding and it's being discussed whether his comments made on this rfc and your talk page is in breach of the ban that 2/0 put into affect. Check out the CC sanction page for what I'm talkling about. They're waiting for you anyways. :) I have no comments about this RFC at all, for the record. Be well, --CrohnieGal^Talk 14:18, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah. I independently saw that request and have opined. ++Lar: t/c 14:46, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Outside view by MZMcBride

How juvenile can some of these views get? Can we try to plumb even lower depths? That includes the very silly support statement "High five" :). I was once a school teacher and this brings me right back to the group of kids sitting at the back of the room, the ones who you knew were likely to be unemployed in a year or two. Polargeo (talk) 18:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)