Levivich

BTW I noticed in a recent AE thread that you referred to me as "her". As a young person, I chose a nickname about an emotion that happened to match a female name, that I wasn't aware of at the time :) but I am actually male. For future reference, if you enable the user popups, and hover the mouse cursor over my username, you can see "he/him" (just like for yourself). --Joy (talk) 07:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Fixed, thanks for letting me know. Levivich (talk) 16:18, 3 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, Nish! Levivich (talk) 14:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, Pachu Kannan! Levivich (talk) 14:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

The sooner you file the report you mentioned the better. And if you will not be doing so, please let me know and I will file it instead. Thank you, IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:30, 9 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

@IOHANNVSVERVS: Same question is being discussed right now at AE. I think looks like maybe we're going to put together some kind of omnibus joint filing, you're welcome to join the party. Levivich (talk) 18:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Observer butting in, but this will be a bloodbath. Probably needed, but still, anyone volunteering to be part of this has my sympathy. Arkon (talk) 18:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Bloodbathing has become my annual Wikipedia tradition. Levivich (talk) 18:32, 9 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Rather than adding more text that doesn't relate to the outcome to that clump of discussions I figured I'd bring this here. I agree, generally speaking, that the doxing of anyone Vig disapproves of is bad behavior, which is why I routinely speak out against it. I do, however, think that an off-wiki platform to blow off steam and talk shop is valuable. I've pointed out my issues with "doxing to dissuade" or "doxing as punishment" there, but I'm a bit more murky about where the line is when demonstrating COI/UPE.

The issue, as I see it, is that right now WPO (the forum) is more or less transparent. All that's needed to get into the non-indexed sections is an account. Many people edit under their on-wiki names. If some sort of BADSITES proposal passes then we have the same source of the same doxing and harassment with less transparency about who is involved and less of the pushback that has happened.

Looking at personal attacks/harassment there is also tough because we can't even agree where the civility line is on-wiki, never mind on a different platform. On top of that, non-functionaries aren't empowered to act based on off-wiki evidence. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:42, 11 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I look at the public forums right now and I see two threads dedicated to complaining about two editors. That's totally unnecessary and inappropriate. I don't believe any employer anywhere would tolerate employees setting up public forums in which they openly gossip about/complain about/shit on their co-workers. No school would allow students to do that to each other or to their faculty. It's just way over the line of common decency and there is no excuse or justification for it. One can point out problems with articles without having threads dedicated to gossiping about editors. There's a huge difference between the exposes on the WPO blog and the bullshit in its forums. There is no reason to blow off steam in public forums, when there are a million private methods of communication available (including, literally, on the same website). Levivich (talk) 15:00, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

So you think that the WPO forums would be fine if they were private? I don't want that to come across with an accusatory tone, I'm just trying to figure out where your line of okay is.

Personally, I prefer anything without a privacy concern to be public partly because as we see in the existing WP:NPA and WP:HARASSMENT, Posting personal attacks or defamation off-Wikipedia is harmful to the community and to an editor's relationship with it, especially when such attacks violate an editor's privacy. Such attacks can be regarded as aggravating factors by administrators and are admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. and Off-wiki harassment, including through the use of external links, will be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. we can use those public attacks as evidence on-wiki, provided it is handled correctly. That's better than secret communications and collusion, in my eyes. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:14, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Just sticking my oar in...I think it's a dick move to trash your colleagues in what amounts to a public space. I think it's totally okay to have there be consequences for it. I'm not sure what those consequences should be -- disapproval, certainly -- but off the top of my head I'd be willing to consider a one-way interaction ban for someone who regularly trashed a colleague publicly offsite. Think editor X is an idiot/moron/imbecile and totally willing to trumpet that in the public square? Fine, but please stay away from them here. Valereee (talk) 15:20, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Just a tip (so to speak): mixing the metaphors "sticking my oar in" and "a dick move" might evoke imagery you hadn't intended. EEng 19:55, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

hahahahaha...wait, they use OARS for that? Valereee (talk) 20:13, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

"J'accuse! Of thinking forums would be fine if they were private!" Yes, I think it would "fine" -- meaning tolerable -- if the gossiping/trash-talking were contained to private fora, including the private forums on WPO. We can't do anything about that, people will always talk about other people and complain about the people they work with, etc., in private. That's just human nature. The online version of that is private discord servers and whatsapp chat rooms and message boards and so on. But doing it in public is just doing it for attention -- it's that the people who do it want everyone else to see them doing it -- and that's inappropriate, toxic, hostile, etc., basically intolerable. What makes it absolutely insufferable is when those same people (not you) who do the public trash-talking then also want to be immune from any on-wiki consequences of said public trash-talking. Even more insufferable, f'ing sanctionable if you ask me, is when those people who do the public trash-talking but want to be on-wiki-immune from it then go and thumb-scale on-wiki by voting, closing threads, etc., all in concert with the public-off-wiki-trash-talking. The worst version of it is when people do this sequence: trash-talk somebody on WPO, come over to Wikipedia and "do something" about it (like close a thread in a particular way), then go back to WPO and brag about what they did on-wiki like "I just closed the thread". Some of us (again, not talking about you) have done this sequence multiple times. I really can't stand that, and I don't understand how anyone else can stand it. Levivich (talk) 15:29, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I appreciate that you draw a line between my participation there and what you object to. I try to stay away from any actual on-wiki related stuff aside from the same commentary I'd make on a talk page or in response to a query here.

If you think it is sanctionable, gather up the links and diffs and send it to Arbcom. That's what they make the big bucks for. Only functionaries can actually act on off-wiki evidence, so it doesn't actually matter what I think about that behavior, but we can see what the people in the big offices think. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:34, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't care about people getting sanctioned, I care about people changing their ways. I'm more interested in the WPO regulars (and here I do include you) becoming convinced to "take that shit to the back room," than I am in any of the WPO regulars being sanctioned on-wiki for any of it. BTW, I think the tactic has been successful so far. The on-wiki public opprobrium over the doxing thing seems to have caused WPO, writ large, to rein it in, and that's a success. Now if y'all would agree to take the trash talking to the back room, we'll be good. Levivich (talk) 15:56, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

concerning your invisible spellchecker and WPO, writ small, I've yet to read any confirmation that Vig has been rained out. (SashiRolls 17:16ish 12 July 2024 UTZ)

I haven't run my RFA there yet, so my clout is limited, but I'll see what I can do. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:58, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I believe in the power of the Radish. Levivich (talk) 16:48, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ouch! Just to lighten things up re 'the power of the Radish' (ῥάφανος in classical Greek) See Rhaphanidosis.Nishidani (talk) 17:08, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

The mind of Nishidani is a strange place indeed. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:10, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

There are way too many relevant see also's in that article. TIL several words I wish I hadn't. Levivich (talk) 17:15, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I haven't look at the article yet, but is figging in the see also? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:16, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes it's there. Fortunately we haven't got an article on 'dating', which was a common practice when I was young, even in nice middle class families. A jocularly paternal finger-poke at what euphemistically was also call an 'acre', if one was so absent-minded as to bend over in company and leave oneself exposed. I can never quite rinse my ear's memory of that connotation when I listen to English speakers abroad talking about getting a date. By the way, Firefangledfeathers, perhaps, but an allusion to that punitive practice occurs in Aristophanes's The Clouds, and the professor who led the class was of Anglican persuasion, but a very diligent philologist, and when that and other ripely vulgar passages were encountered, he would commend the definitive work on classical obscenity written in Dutch by a woman who became a classicist after a first Phd in theology, and illuminate that kind of language with great learning, and a comic touch. The world I grew up in had a tolerance that is now lost in the cult of political correctness (and perhaps that is why I get in trouble occasionally here).Nishidani (talk) 19:49, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Everything you say confirms my suspicions. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:52, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps you could refer it to ANI or a psychoanalyst;) Nishidani (talk) 19:55, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Or a proctologist or at least a gardener. Levivich (talk) 19:57, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

At the university, were anyone to complain, the matter would be taken up by the appositely named rector.Nishidani (talk) 20:02, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

At online universities, the e-rector. Levivich (talk) 20:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

VG. Rectors often get a proctor to look into matters like that, perhaps with nosepegs handy. Nishidani (talk) 20:08, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

To wind my foul incursion down, may I cite the following, which I was reminded of a few second ago when controlling an edit to Robert Hughes

One of the complained-of images attained, if not immortality, a widespread fame: it was Rupert the Bear, hero of a widely popular children's comic, endowed with a long, stout, yet somehow winsome phallus. This caused much outrage among England's family-values supporters, even though decency precluded its reproduction in the very tabloids that spent the most space baying for the blood of the indecent Australians.' Robert Hughes, Things I didn't know: A memoir, Knopf 2006 p.358.

If my mind's strange, blame Downunder.Nishidani (talk) 20:20, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I came here to contribute in my usual thoughtful way, and to that end I...OH. MY. GOD. Dumuzid (talk) 20:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply