SlimVirgin's contribution appears to be an essay rather than evidence, and probably does not belong on the evidence page. It strictly gives her opinion and line of argument on the issue, without citing any actual events or diffs. Daniel Brandt's contribution is similarly mostly in the nature of a statement of opinion, though it does at least make some references to actual events. These statements would be better placed on a talk page, or as proposed principles or remedies on the Workshop page, than on the evidence page. *Dan T.* 04:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Mongo quotes a conversation he and I had back in 2006 as evidence that I was a "harasser" and a "troll". Says Mongo:
I would just like to point out that the conversation I had with him was a good faith discussion, and I sincerely apologized to MONGO for upsetting him by discussing an unpleasant subject with him. [1]. I did not find his distress at all funny-- the "funny" is a 2007 quote from a completely different context that had nothing to do with MONGO.
Ironically MONGO's mischaracterization of my 2006 interaction with him probably violates NPA and CIVILITY, but I think repoting it to one of the notice boards would probably just inflame the situation, not resolve it. I know MONGO has had trouble with this in the past, and I sincerely am open to any suggestions as to how I can help MONGO understand that I am not trying to harass him/troll him. -- Alecmconroy 05:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The noble goal of protecting people from harrassment is hardly served by cheapening the very concept of "harrassment" by labeling legitimate commentary with that name. *Dan T.* 12:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Regarding Mantanmoreland's evidence link (to an attack site attacking the attacker who made an attack site! how neat!) where it alleges "spyware" on WordBomb's part: I'm a techie geek myself, so I'll comment that, while the technique used by WordBomb to pretend to be somebody else and do a sneaky technique to gain information about others was not very kosher, it wasn't as all-powerful as the critics would like to scare everybody into thinking. He didn't embed viruses, trojan-horses, or spyware on Slim's computer, in the sense that those things are generally regarded by computer professionals. What he did was send an HTML file that included an embedded image on his server, which, if opened in a web browser on the end user's computer, will cause the graphic to be requested and thus a log entry made at the server's computer giving the IP address of the requester, and possibly some other information such as a referrer URL where the image was embedded. This could reveal some personal information, but it won't scan the user's hard drive and transmit information from it to the sender, as implied by the comments. Probably the writer is referring to how, if a referrer URL is given to the file on the recipient's local hard drive, that would reveal facts about their directory structure, but at least the browser I use has the good sense not to send private files like that in its referer data; perhaps this might vary for other browsers. Anyway, good sense in safe computing, in this time of widespread viruses, spambots, and the like, is to be highly wary about opening any files that come to you in ZIP archives from people you don't know well. *Dan T.* 16:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
This is part of a general pattern of using loaded terminology, like "stalking", "harrassing", and "spyware", in a manner that is highly stretched and contorted to cover things that are not quite what you say they are, in order to convince people that there's a uniquely evil thing to get into a moral panic about. *Dan T.* 16:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Durova's list of famous authors who used pseudonyms brings up the question "And your point is?" It's apparently intended to argue against the straw man that "Pseudonymity is crooked and evil" or something to that effect. Maybe some on the "attack sites" are actually arguing that (though on some of those sites the authors use pseudonymity or anonymity themselves). However, it is not something that seems to be a common line of argument here. Rather, some have been suggesting that preserving the secret identities involved is not as intense a moral imperative as proponents of pseudonymity argue, and "outing" is not necessarily as much of an act of pure evil as is regularly suggested, though doing it against the outed person's wishes is certainly not a nice, polite thing. The famous-persons list actually bears this out, since the real names of those people are actually known and are included in the opening paragraphs of their biographies. One might add the case of James Tiptree, Jr., actually Alice Sheldon, a notable science fiction author of the '60s through '80s who was a woman writing under a male pseudonym, and was in fact outed against her will by a fan who stalked her to the post office box where she received her correspondence. That's just the sort of behavior that's treated as the apex of evil when done to Wikipedians, but her "outing" was in fact reported in the science fiction press, and I don't know of any publications being declared "attack publications" and banned from being referenced in the more respectable SF magazines as a result of mentioning the author's real name once she had been outed. *Dan T.* 11:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
In the specific instance of Will Beback's behavior toward Teresa Nielsen Hayden, what I gather from corresponding privately with him is that he harbored some suspicion that we were the same person (or some such) and when I lost my temper and told him to get lost, he then had a look over at Making Light and found material that displeased him and so began cutting all links.
A quick trip to Google would establish pretty clearly that TNH and I are very different people. I know her and she worked in the same office as my husband at the time of the incident, but I am not her.
As nearly as I can tell, focusing on patterns in edit history, etc. (and substituing that for on a sensible evalution of whether two wellknown non-anoymous people are the same person) is partly what led Will Beback to make a mess. -- Pleasantville 12:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I am puzzled by what was up with this edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FAttack_sites%2FEvidence&diff=159318236&oldid=159233886, in which comments by someone going by "Name Redacted" were removed on the basis that the person speaking was a banned user. Since the individual hadn't come to the point yet, it wasn't clear what he intended to say. But it seems a bit off-key to censor such comments in what is essentially a discussion of censorship. -- Pleasantville 12:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I am disturbed by the tone adopted by some editors in discussion of Teresa Nielsen Hayden and of Making Light in the context of te various discussion pages of this Request for Arbitration. I request that contributors to this discussion refrain from snide remarks and use of deragotory terms such as "kooky", in keeping with the spirit of WPCIVIL and WPNPA. -- Pleasantville 13:57, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
How much evidence has been submitted privately in regards to this case? How much private discussion has occurred between individuals with interest in this case and the arbitors?
None, Some, Lots?
This case appears to be a public airing of grievances and evidence, but is a large amount of private pleading taking place off Wiki? Uncle uncle uncle 20:11, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
As an aside, the whole notion of secret evidence is a sort of dangerous one. I hope, for example, that in a case against a specific party where that party might be facing sanctions, they would be allowed to see all relevant evidence that was submitted against them, for example. I don't think it's much of a problem here, where we've had so much public discussion, but it would be unfortunate to ever see a case where Arbcom said "You're banned on the basis of secret evidence that you didn't have a chance to rebut and we're not telling you what the evidence was". Seems like humans have tried that kind of thing in the past, and it usually turns out badly. -- Alecmconroy 23:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Just a sidenote - revealing whether or not there is secret evidence, or even the quantity of it (which was all that was asked), would not violate anyone's privacy by any stretch of the imagination. — Random832 14:06, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
SlimVirgin's contribution appears to be an essay rather than evidence, and probably does not belong on the evidence page. It strictly gives her opinion and line of argument on the issue, without citing any actual events or diffs. Daniel Brandt's contribution is similarly mostly in the nature of a statement of opinion, though it does at least make some references to actual events. These statements would be better placed on a talk page, or as proposed principles or remedies on the Workshop page, than on the evidence page. *Dan T.* 04:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Mongo quotes a conversation he and I had back in 2006 as evidence that I was a "harasser" and a "troll". Says Mongo:
I would just like to point out that the conversation I had with him was a good faith discussion, and I sincerely apologized to MONGO for upsetting him by discussing an unpleasant subject with him. [1]. I did not find his distress at all funny-- the "funny" is a 2007 quote from a completely different context that had nothing to do with MONGO.
Ironically MONGO's mischaracterization of my 2006 interaction with him probably violates NPA and CIVILITY, but I think repoting it to one of the notice boards would probably just inflame the situation, not resolve it. I know MONGO has had trouble with this in the past, and I sincerely am open to any suggestions as to how I can help MONGO understand that I am not trying to harass him/troll him. -- Alecmconroy 05:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The noble goal of protecting people from harrassment is hardly served by cheapening the very concept of "harrassment" by labeling legitimate commentary with that name. *Dan T.* 12:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Regarding Mantanmoreland's evidence link (to an attack site attacking the attacker who made an attack site! how neat!) where it alleges "spyware" on WordBomb's part: I'm a techie geek myself, so I'll comment that, while the technique used by WordBomb to pretend to be somebody else and do a sneaky technique to gain information about others was not very kosher, it wasn't as all-powerful as the critics would like to scare everybody into thinking. He didn't embed viruses, trojan-horses, or spyware on Slim's computer, in the sense that those things are generally regarded by computer professionals. What he did was send an HTML file that included an embedded image on his server, which, if opened in a web browser on the end user's computer, will cause the graphic to be requested and thus a log entry made at the server's computer giving the IP address of the requester, and possibly some other information such as a referrer URL where the image was embedded. This could reveal some personal information, but it won't scan the user's hard drive and transmit information from it to the sender, as implied by the comments. Probably the writer is referring to how, if a referrer URL is given to the file on the recipient's local hard drive, that would reveal facts about their directory structure, but at least the browser I use has the good sense not to send private files like that in its referer data; perhaps this might vary for other browsers. Anyway, good sense in safe computing, in this time of widespread viruses, spambots, and the like, is to be highly wary about opening any files that come to you in ZIP archives from people you don't know well. *Dan T.* 16:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
This is part of a general pattern of using loaded terminology, like "stalking", "harrassing", and "spyware", in a manner that is highly stretched and contorted to cover things that are not quite what you say they are, in order to convince people that there's a uniquely evil thing to get into a moral panic about. *Dan T.* 16:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Durova's list of famous authors who used pseudonyms brings up the question "And your point is?" It's apparently intended to argue against the straw man that "Pseudonymity is crooked and evil" or something to that effect. Maybe some on the "attack sites" are actually arguing that (though on some of those sites the authors use pseudonymity or anonymity themselves). However, it is not something that seems to be a common line of argument here. Rather, some have been suggesting that preserving the secret identities involved is not as intense a moral imperative as proponents of pseudonymity argue, and "outing" is not necessarily as much of an act of pure evil as is regularly suggested, though doing it against the outed person's wishes is certainly not a nice, polite thing. The famous-persons list actually bears this out, since the real names of those people are actually known and are included in the opening paragraphs of their biographies. One might add the case of James Tiptree, Jr., actually Alice Sheldon, a notable science fiction author of the '60s through '80s who was a woman writing under a male pseudonym, and was in fact outed against her will by a fan who stalked her to the post office box where she received her correspondence. That's just the sort of behavior that's treated as the apex of evil when done to Wikipedians, but her "outing" was in fact reported in the science fiction press, and I don't know of any publications being declared "attack publications" and banned from being referenced in the more respectable SF magazines as a result of mentioning the author's real name once she had been outed. *Dan T.* 11:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
In the specific instance of Will Beback's behavior toward Teresa Nielsen Hayden, what I gather from corresponding privately with him is that he harbored some suspicion that we were the same person (or some such) and when I lost my temper and told him to get lost, he then had a look over at Making Light and found material that displeased him and so began cutting all links.
A quick trip to Google would establish pretty clearly that TNH and I are very different people. I know her and she worked in the same office as my husband at the time of the incident, but I am not her.
As nearly as I can tell, focusing on patterns in edit history, etc. (and substituing that for on a sensible evalution of whether two wellknown non-anoymous people are the same person) is partly what led Will Beback to make a mess. -- Pleasantville 12:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I am puzzled by what was up with this edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FAttack_sites%2FEvidence&diff=159318236&oldid=159233886, in which comments by someone going by "Name Redacted" were removed on the basis that the person speaking was a banned user. Since the individual hadn't come to the point yet, it wasn't clear what he intended to say. But it seems a bit off-key to censor such comments in what is essentially a discussion of censorship. -- Pleasantville 12:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I am disturbed by the tone adopted by some editors in discussion of Teresa Nielsen Hayden and of Making Light in the context of te various discussion pages of this Request for Arbitration. I request that contributors to this discussion refrain from snide remarks and use of deragotory terms such as "kooky", in keeping with the spirit of WPCIVIL and WPNPA. -- Pleasantville 13:57, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
How much evidence has been submitted privately in regards to this case? How much private discussion has occurred between individuals with interest in this case and the arbitors?
None, Some, Lots?
This case appears to be a public airing of grievances and evidence, but is a large amount of private pleading taking place off Wiki? Uncle uncle uncle 20:11, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
As an aside, the whole notion of secret evidence is a sort of dangerous one. I hope, for example, that in a case against a specific party where that party might be facing sanctions, they would be allowed to see all relevant evidence that was submitted against them, for example. I don't think it's much of a problem here, where we've had so much public discussion, but it would be unfortunate to ever see a case where Arbcom said "You're banned on the basis of secret evidence that you didn't have a chance to rebut and we're not telling you what the evidence was". Seems like humans have tried that kind of thing in the past, and it usually turns out badly. -- Alecmconroy 23:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Just a sidenote - revealing whether or not there is secret evidence, or even the quantity of it (which was all that was asked), would not violate anyone's privacy by any stretch of the imagination. — Random832 14:06, 4 October 2007 (UTC)