This editor can edit this entry and tell us a bit about themselves by clicking the Edit icon.
2007-10-03 21:04:50 Welcome to the Wiki. Please consider the importance of using your RealName. Your comment on the page for candidate Joe Spector was in really poor taste given that you aren't using your real name. Davis Wiki is going to have to establish social norms for dealing with people who can't be mature about elections and the issues related to them, and you've opened that discussion anew in a very bad way. I can see no reason to not revert your comment off of his page. —JasonAller
2007-10-03 21:58:28 I'm still thinking about what positive behavior would look like for elections and I'm thinking that: adding factual information to candidate pages, endorsing the candidate you support, and or helping out with another questions for candidates page are all good things to do. The questions for candidates should probably be done by someone who can be impartial. —JasonAller
2007-10-03 22:23:38 I rarely use my real name online. This is primarily for safety reasons, as everybody knows there are some seriously (and sometimes dangerously) disturbed people in the world, and many of them hang out online. Wiki is one of the few sites I've seen that encourages use of real names; most online safety info warns against this. I'm not concerned about being associated with my opinions, as those who know me personally can tell you. But this is a relatively small community, and I have no interest in coming home some night to find some fool waiting to confront me because his panties are in a twist over something I've said online. As for the particular post you mention, I have the misfortune of knowing this candidate personally. The thought of this man having even more influence over the lives of children in our community than he already does makes my blood run cold. For the record (since some viewers of this conversation are probably already wondering), I don't have an affiliation with any of the other candidates. I haven't even made up my mind which of them I'll be voting for yet. You mention maturity?? How mature is a man who throws tantrums against his neighbors for trimming their own trees and shrubbery, because in his view they are lowering the oxygen content in the air around his house? You want factual information? If I choose to, I could post a rather long list of the behavior's I've personally witnessed. Hmmmm.... you've posted two responses to me within an hour? My first thought is that you're not exactly an unbiased observer here. —NiftyWitch
2007-10-03 23:01:20 About the Hmmmm... I can understand that posting twice within an hour could be somewhat extreme behavior — in some social networks, by some standards. OTOH, I don't know that much about this Wiki and I have already seen that JasonAller is one of the folks who (a) are extremely active on a variety of pages and (b) seems to me to have in mind a positive ideal of what this Wiki could be in most of his on-line actions. I don't think he's motivated by a bias about politics or this election in these comments. Readers can make their own judgements. I also think you've got a point about "most online safety information." I'd just comment that this Wiki is not like most of the Internet. I don't think that makes it any safer, but I think that the general use of real names is a saving grace for what (I speculate) would otherwise become an example of why wikis don't work. —DougWalter
2007-10-04 09:34:06 Very good points, Doug. I do recognize that Jason's one of the more active folks here. To clarify, the two almost back-to-back responses in themselves don't necessarily indicate a bias. However, it seemed odd to me that with the level of activity on this site he'd choose this particular page/post to focus on, and (in my view) seems to be a little too interested in protecting this candidate. To be honest, my first thought in reading his responses was, "Hey, this must be one of Joe's supporters". I understand why many here have a preference for the RealName use, but to assume that those of us who choose not to are merely trolls is a bit of a leap. "Davis Wiki is going to have to establish social norms for dealing with people who....." To me, a statement like that reeks of the kind of censorship that Davis has traditionally not supported! In other words, "We don't like your opinion, so we're going to make up a new set of rules to prevent you from voicing it." And that my friends, is another example of how to make a Wiki that doesn't work. —NiftyWitch
2007-10-04 09:51:06 Hey there—
The folks who objected to your comment are objecting to its usefulness — trying to give suggestions on how you can improve it. It's not useful because no one knows you (you're using a pseudonym, and the wiki has a strong community norm around using a real name), so nobody can go, "Hmm, yeah, I know that guy. I trust his opinion." The other point is that you don't give any examples that make your comment useful outside the context of just this "trust." Here, lemme try and explain:
"PLEASE DO NOT ELECT THIS MAN TO OUR SCHOOL BOARD! I have the misfortune of knowing him personally. It's bad enough that he's allowed to practice in this district as a school psychologist. Please vote for sane, stable people to guide our children's education. I could list a number of examples as to why he's considered to be mentally unfit to practice, and certainly to serve on our school board."
Why is it "bad enough?" What are these examples of why he's mentally unfit to practice, in your words? What makes him non-sane, in your eyes?
Again, I'm not objecting to your opinion at all — I'm just trying to explain why people might find your comment objectionable. —PhilipNeustrom
2007-10-04 10:09:13 Your comment was very vague and handwaving when it came to specifics. You insinuated there were many reasons but you didn't list a single one of them. Honestly, nobody here is ever going to intentionally get in the way of somebody with complaints that are useful to others about anything in the public eye, and a person who has chosen to run for public office is certainly in the public eye. The entire wiki is structured to be a resource for the complaints you seem to have. You're also using a new account with no history to it so we had no idea who you were. We're friendly here, so don't think there's any animosity toward you... otherwise a bunch of people wouldn't have run in and offered you assistance and advice on how to write a more useful complaint about the fellow. By the way, I'm Evan Edwards, but my wife, Sarah, calls me Wokky (it's an old old nickname). We have traditions here just like any group of people working together, and it sometimes takes a little while to "jump into the conversation" and for us to get to know you... but you are very welcome here. Otherwise we wouldn't care so much to try to explain and offer help. —JabberWokky
2007-10-04 16:18:37 The simple fact of the matter is that in order for people to take your complaints into account—they must have an idea of your real name and a sense of what he did. Understand that it is easy for anyone to post anything on the web. —DavidGreenwald
2007-10-04 18:46:03 There are times that I look at the wiki and am reminded of the broken windows theory of neighborhood decline. We've managed to make it through both the Covell Village issue and the 2006 City Council Election without things devolving too badly. I saw your first version of your comment as I would a broken window; an invitation for others to engage in the same behavior. I do admit that it is hard to figure out how to approach each new situation with a person who has not made many edits. Please keep in mind that it was only your second edit that I was responding to. I had no larger context to place your edit in. Thank you for your willingness to discuss things since then with the variety of editors who have already commented. Maybe you'd like to help out with November 2007 Election/School Board/Questions to candidates by contributing a questions? —JasonAller
2007-10-04 21:48:42 Ms. Witch, I know it may feel like people are ganging up on you, but I wanted to weigh in on this issue, in part so that you wouldn't feel censored or slighted. You've broken several norms in a community people are very passionate about maintaining. The Davis Wiki is somewhat unconventional in that it does not maintain Neutral Point of View and encourages community members to constructively share their opinions. The opinions that hold the most weight come from users who have shown that they are part of the community and contribute to the wiki. You have come to our community and started talking trash about someone without telling us who you are, or establishing any sort of credibility. Expressing negative opinions is ok, coming to the wiki solely to express unqualified negative opinions about one person is likely to ruffle some feathers. I hope this gives you a better feel for out community and how things work. Feel free to stop by the IRC channel if you'd like a more conversational discussion. —ArlenAbraham
2007-10-08 17:42:06 NiftyWitch is a troll. She hides behind annonymity for "safety reasons." Her postings are misuse of an award winning service for the Davis community. —SharlaDaly
2007-10-08 18:52:20 RANT: Fascist Wiki Jackass! Author Message niftywitch Wanna see my roadkill impression?
Posts: 508 Group: Registered Joined: Jan 2007 Status: Offline
Post: #1RANT: Fascist Wiki Jackass!
I found out this week that one of the candidates for our local school board is my ex-landlord. This guy is as loony as a latrine rat! Seriously folks, I could tell you stories......
I happen to discover that our esteemed candidate has a page on our local Wiki site. So I post a comment advising people not to vote for this clown, because he's a nutjob (not in those exact words, but I was rather blunt). Another of my friends also backed me up with a comment of his own.
Last night, I have on my user page a couple of comments from some fool who is apparently one of the local "Wiki-Guru's". He's thrashing me for the post I made, and in a roundabout way accusing me of being a troll, and HAD BOTH POSTS REMOVED FROM THE CANDIDATE'S PAGE!! Oh, and this is priceless....
Quote:
Davis Wiki is going to have to establish social norms for dealing with people who can't be .....
Censorship, anyone??
http://daviswiki.org/Users/NiftyWitch
http://daviswiki.org/Joe_Spector
Silence isn't always golden. Sometimes it's just plain yellow.
~~ Jan Kemp
My Yuwie referral link! http://r.yuwie.com/niftywitch
2007-10-20 21:49:43 I apologize for the attempt at humor with my jab at your user name on Joe's page. I was mainly taking issue with the anonymity of your statement. It does not seem fair that statements like that can be entered into a dialog that is one sided with negativity. I do not know how one, such at yourself, came to see all of this on Joe's property. I would hope that people would not judge me on whether or not I deserve their vote on the basis of how clean my room is. Or the fact that I am a secular humanist. —RobRoy
2007-10-27 11:45:40 Arlen— while I am relatively new to the site (though not to Davis itself), the posts on Joe's page aren't my first on Davis Wiki. To those commenting on my first post, which admittedly didn't have a lot of specifics — I didn't have the opportunity to go into more detail at that time. However, immediately jumping to the conclusion that it was a mere "trolling" was also inappropriate. Few bothered to ask, but all to many were more than happy to make assumptions. Morris — what's your point, besides trying to identify me and thus place myself and my family at risk?? Rob — if that was an attempt at humor, it was seriously weak. And if you've paid attention to the information I'm posting, it goes far beyond the "messy room". I have no interest in electing someone to the school board that I would have reported to CPS had I seen the place when his kids were still living in it. —NiftyWitch
2007-10-28 05:03:18 Nifty, what are you afraid of? Do you think Don Winters is going to send his seventh period class to your house after school to beat you up? Using something that Joe Spector did not endorse against him is not fair. This all seems very personal. I have had this type of faceless jabs at character happen to me in my own campaigns so I usually take the side of the person brave enough to put themselves in the vulnerable spot of public service (that is unless the claims are substantiated and can be upheld in a court of law - see sixth amendment). I see the only other edit you have made on the wiki has to do with a complaint over a property management company - you certainly are concerned with appearances and only seem to have negative things to say. You wouldn't happen to have any flying monkeys i could borrow for Halloween? —RobRoy
Comments:
You must be logged in to comment on this page. Please log in.