Baleted Excerpt from Joshua P. Schroeder's Wikipedia Talk Page
Cold fusion talk
I saw the decline at RFPP. Give me a good argument as to which IP you believe is a banned user and why, and I will block if I'm convinced.—Kww(talk) 16:30, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what to do at this point. The 208.54.5-starting IP address is a dynamic IP address from the same part of the country as User:LossIsNotMore. Enric Naval just did an SPI on User:Ura Ursa and this user was found to be operating three socks, but we could not connect them to LossIsNotMore due to it being stale. Immediately after this investigation, the anonymous IP started editing (as though to skirt what they thought would be an IP-ban). Now Ura Ursa is editing and the IP is editing and they're all just essentially harping on the same arguments over and over again trying to railroad a version of the article through on the basis of sock-puppet consensus from what I can see. Extremely confusing, but what can we do? jps (talk) 16:34, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I've blocked Ursa Ursa, Ginger Conspiracy, and Why Other. Let's see what happens as a result of the autoblocking.—Kww(talk) 16:44, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I've blocked 208.54.5.57 as well. Some of your defenses got removed when I removed his material from the talk page. It may help other editors if you pointed out that I was helping you against socks, not attacking you.—Kww(talk) 00:03, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay. Thanks for the help. It's weird how that page tends to inspire downward spirals. jps (talk) 00:20, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
This was neither weird nor a downward spiral. At worst it was a flight of fancy (an instance of abductive reasoning) that was (hopefully) honing in on a better understanding of Shanahan's hypothesis of CCS. —Albatross (talk) 04:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
If you want to contribute to Wikipedia, why not ask to be unblocked/unbanned? jps (talk) 04:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Fair question, Joshua. My contribution is not so much to Wikipedia, per se, but to the collaborative learning process of small groups of collaborating (or even competing) scholars (some of whom are congregated here on the CF talk page). But the main reason is because of Moulton's Nth Law of Bureaucracy: Once a bureaucracy makes a mistake, it can't be fixed. In this case, one has to reckon not only Moulton's Nth Law of Bureaucracy but the Corollary to it: Once a corrupt bureaucracy makes a mistake, not only can it not be fixed, it can't even be mentioned. Evar. —Moulton (talk) 12:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
The above dialog is the most surreal I have seen on Wikipedia. I thought blocked users cannot edit, especially using multiple accounts. - BorisG (talk) 05:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
And of course, there's Moulton's Zeroth Law: Given sufficient narcissism, any personal shortcoming will be blamed on a bureaucracy or other externality. Its corollary: Given excess narcissism, such self-justifications will be couched in sententious pseudoprofundity and offered as if they had educational value. MastCell Talk 04:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
See Narcissistic Wounding. —Montana Mouse (talk) 11:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
For sure. Woonpton (talk) 04:55, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Now that's a law to live by! My anger towards the governance structure of Wikipedia would seem to indicate that I have sufficient narcissism. However, I don't believe there is anything of educational value in my disgust so perhaps it's not in excess. It's unclear to me as to whether the "will be couched... and offered" indicates necessity. “Vanity is my favorite sin.” — Al Pacino jps (talk) 04:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Anger is the affective emotional state one would most likely feel if one were encountering an unexpected episode of injustice, unfairness, or a denial of due process. But such anger would arise only if one were expecting fairness, justice, or due process. In a protracted discussion on this specific issue some two years ago, we learned that Wikipedia doesn't do due process. —Albatross (talk) 12:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
There's nothing necessarily narcissistic about feeling anger toward the governance structure of Wikipedia; it only means you've got a reasonably healthy ego strength and some intelligence. But I'm not sure we were talking about you anyway. Woonpton (talk) 05:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Another good rule! But for those of our "colleagues" who are fans of Wikipedia governance, is it possible to tell which of the two attributes they are lacking? jps (talk) 05:24, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Or the converse: if someone isn't a fan of Wikipedia governance, is it possible to tell whether they are narcissistic and self-delusional and blaming their own inability to conform to the Wikipedia model on "bureaucracy," or smart enough to understand that the system is stacked against them even though they are following policy? (I actually think it is not that hard to tell the difference.) But as far as the fans of the governance structure, I suspect that many of them have seen only its good side; they've never seen the corrosive effects it can have in areas of fringe science and other contentious areas, in which case they may be lacking neither ego strength nor intelligence, but merely information. Woonpton (talk) 06:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
No governance structure is perfect, and Wikipedia is only 10 years old. - BorisG (talk) 06:40, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
See The Governance Model of Wikipedia. —Montana Mouse (talk) 11:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)