<CPOV> Community run or royal decree?

Gregory Kohs thekohser at gmail.com
Tue May 4 16:09:38 CEST 2010


It may be interesting to observe the following recent incident that ran
across all Wikimedia projects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=360060669#Thekohser

http://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiquote:Administrators%27_noticeboard&oldid=1119503#Global_ban_enforcement

And perhaps most tellingly:

http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource:Administrators%27_noticeboard&oldid=1870066#Global_ban_enforcement

In summary, about two months ago, Jimmy Wales was spoofed into thinking that
a Wikiversity project was setting out to undermine Wikipedia.  He stepped in
and began blocking and desysopping long-time contributors to that project.
He also matter-of-factly stated that "as far as he was concerned" the user
Thekohser (that's me) is blocked from all projects.  A few weeks passed, and
after I began to draw attention to the fact that Wikimedia Commons hosts
exploitative images of children fellating men, another user took it upon
himself to make sure Jimmy's decree was made law throughout the land.  He
and Jimmy didn't even know that a "global account lock" feature exists on
Meta Wikimedia.  This is the gentleman who worked to have my account
globally blocked:

http://web.archive.org/web/20000930112202/www.cris.com/~Jeffg/gski109.jpg

This is me:

http://www.mywikibiz.com/File:Gregory_Kohs_headshot.jpg

The public relations mantra of the Wikimedia projects is that they are
"community run", at least in theory.  But, it would seem that royal decree,
executed by mustachioed sycophants, is the actual practice.

As a footnote, if anyone is interested in some of my various contributions
to Wikimedia projects over the past couple of years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arch_Coal&oldid=76592206

<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alec_Head&oldid=316417922>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Job_sharing&oldid=299529822

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Line_management&oldid=301438047

<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lippe-Weissenfeld&oldid=316412877><http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Looking_Glass_Falls&oldid=76523009>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Fuel_Gas&oldid=238999676

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Propositional_function&oldid=309988531

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Half_International&oldid=300305693

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zale_Corporation&oldid=76232040

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kurume_hybrid_Azalea_x_Rhododendron_%27Firefly%27.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ben_Franklin_Bridge_from_Adventure_Aquarium.jpg

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AFundraising_2009%2FSurvey&action=historysubmit&diff=1556772&oldid=1544535

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Funding&action=historysubmit&diff=1908812&oldid=330554

Apparently this sort of content is so utterly subversive to the Wikimedia
community and mission, it calls for an extraordinary "global ban" from all
projects.  Why is that?

-- 
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354
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