Page Vandalised 2 Times

[edit] Re: AMA

Nicholas I have to agree with you, we have lost sight......I have the feeling in a week or two AMA is going to fall on its sword. Is there anything that you recomend that be elimated, fixed or changed to prevent this? Æon ^{Insanity Now!} _{Give Back Our Membership!} 21:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear Aeon: Thank you for your message. I do believe it is possible to fix the AMA in its present state, and my views on how to do so are as follows:

• Drop the formalistic structure immediately. The AMA does itself no favours by appearing "opaque" to the rest of Wikipedia, and - I believe - wastes a huge amount of time on activities that accomplish nothing towards the goal of delivering advocate services; what this means is the AMA ends up existing merely for its own sake, rather than its stated purpose on Wikipedia. The whole business of pseudo-legal ideas, elections, vast lists of minutiae as formal "meetings", formal authority, bizarre constellations of "teams" with strange acronyms, etc. needs to be killed off rapidly. As I noted on the AMA talk page, these issues were in part the reason that Esperanza met the fate it did, and need to be got rid of not only so the system is more efficient, but also so the perception of the AMA by the rest of the Wikipedia community is no longer one of a secret clique that serves no purpose other than to provide a club for its members. Transparency is essential in any dispute resolution initative.
• Cease being an adversary of the ArbCom. A number of arbitrators have expressed an extreme dislike of the AMA based on past dealings with advocates in arbitration cases, and indeed Raul commented on the MfD to that effect. The AMA has carried on a consistent policy of thumbing its collective noses at the arbitrators, an extremely unwise course of action that is liable to lead to the arbitrators eventually losing patience and seeing that the initiative is indeed deleted and salted for good. Often, this combative attitude towards the ArbCom has been in the name of justice and "due process" - two terms liable to raise the ire of any Wikipedian, and even more so an arbitrator - and, although I am not specifically defending the ArbCom, I have worked with many of the arbitrators for a number of years here on Wikipedia, and I consider they would not show a dislike of the AMA unless they have a good reason to do so.
• Actually look at what is happening in the advocate cases. Further to my remarks above about the AMA getting wrapped up in its own organisational folderol, it seems the AMA is spending more time on its own internal squabbling and setting of formalisms than actually checking to see if its advocates are doing their job properly. A concerted effort needs to be made for people to check the quality of work being done, whether the advocate is actually working on the case or has instead "dropped the ball", check that the advocate is being sensible and is not "wiki-lawyering", etc. This must not be implemented as a formalism; instead, all AMA members should, from time to time, have a good look at the cases, and watch for this - the Coordinators should be ensuring this is happening, but appear not to be doing so at the present. It takes only one bad advocate to create a bad name for the organisation as a whole. This is not, however, to be taken in support of restrictive advocate selection - it's just people have to keep their eyes open and maintain common sense about what is acceptable.
• Define clearly what an advocate should actually be doing and make sure, further to the above, they are sticking to it. It must be made clear to advocates that they are there to represent and advise the user, but not there to act as lawyers, nor to defend the indefensible. Although I can see logic in the idea that everyone has a right to representation, the idea that even the patently guilty should be defended is one carried over from law, and not one that belongs here on Wikipedia. In this case, the arbitrators are perfectly justified in being irritated at AMA advocates officiously trying to gum up the works of arbitration when defending users who obviously need punitive action to be brought against them for the good of the community. In short, the AMA absolutely must work with the community's interest in mind as well, not just that of its clients.
• Simplify the request process. Although the new-version request page is not intrinsically difficult to follow, the overall appearance of it is one of unnecessary complexity, and I found from my work at the MedCab that getting users to jump through convoluted hoops in order to request assistance will achieve nothing other than a ream of paperwork and endless administrative work. It needs to be succinct and actually glean from users what is needed to carry out the case in a concise manner.
• Permit "ordinary people" to implement changes in the AMA - the suffering of the submission of proposals before anything is changed, and officious attitudes held by its coordinators on the subject, is utterly pointless. I would implement the {{sofixit}} idea instead, in that people just fix whatever is broken. This reduces the task I have described above of rehabilitating the AMA down to something possible, rather than something that would inevitably fail due to the insufferable stream of proposals that would be needed. Indeed, this is an issue that annoys me personally as I am extremely tempted to jump in and fix these things - but I know if I was to do so, I would not be well-received, due to this rigid structure of authority and pseudo-democracy.

I hope this outlines a potential strategy on what needs to be done. Should there be any way I can help with this, please do let me know. Yours, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 03:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re:Ideas from the Closing Admin of the MfD

Thanks. I wonder why he didn't do the same to my userpage. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 03:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is this what you mean in defending Steve's personal attacks?

This was Steve's original personal attack, before the AMA deletion issue arose. Remember, he took over my case February 6 and became my AMA Advocate of his own free will and then did nothing.

• (copyed from Wikipedia talk:Association of Members' Advocates - emphasis added)

"I am leaving my position aside for a moment and speaking as an individual. With that out of the way, I must say Matisse, that overall you have not lent yourself to be helpful with the Starwood case, your Advocate, or anyone else within the AMA that you have interacted with. On the contrary, nearly every person who has touched your case has become almost immediately frustrated with your approach, attitude and demands. " אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 04:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[1]

Is this what you mean by justifying his public personal attacks? Please read Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/November 2006/Mattisse

• (quoted from my former AMA Advocate in response to my complaint about Steve's public comments:)

  Hi Mattisse, I think you are a good faith editor and your actions involved in the Starwood case were entirely legitimate. Also, I believe that some other editors deliberately acted in a manner to increase your stress levels and push you into making an error of judgement. Overall, I think your decision not to be directly involved in the ArbCom case was prudent and the end result was fairly reasonable. Addhoc 14:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The fact is a sockpuppet was enabled in Starwood by the AMA Advocate. That sock puppet was harassing me among others and was part of a sock puppet ring that had been in operation since last spring and had been harassing me for six months. The sock puppet's AMA Advocate was irresponsible in that case. He has subsequently offered repeatedly to apologise to me and in other ways has been very kind to me. I appreciate his offers but I don't want an apology. All I want is for an AMA Advocate to say that the organisation will take steps to be more careful about the sock puppet issue in the future. No one has. Instead, the AMA Coordinator, who is supposed to be my AMA Advocate, has chosen to personally attack me in public although he refuses to communicate with me personally or close my case or tell me what is being "investigated".

Recently I have had several quite pleasant interactions with AMA Advocates. I do not have problems with other AMA Advocates or on Wikipedia now that the sock puppets are gone. My only problem is Steve's personal attacks.

I was not the original person to use the phrase "sockpuppet enabling service". That is someone else's phrase. Is that person being personally attacked also?

If you can give me some advice as to how to get my case closed I would appreciate that very much. Please help me on this issue or help get me released from having Steve as my AMA Advocate. This is a main reason why I continue to feel AMA is an irresponsible organisation. Cheers! Sincerely, --Mattisse 23:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I notice you have several talk pages and I do not know which one to respond to, so I may respond to both. Cheers! --Mattisse 23:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yes I am

I was not the first person to use the phrase "a sockpuppet enabling service". In fact, I am not sure if I did use it, as I am not the type to use clever wording like that. Why did not someone merely say that AMA would at least address the issue? That is all I wanted. Why can he not take my statements "as a blunt statement and not a personal attack" especially as I did not single him out by using his name as he did me. Why is he taking this so personally? I was frustrated that AMA was not taking my concerns seriously and would not even say they would put my concerns under consideration. In fact, the whole AMA seems to lack AFG. So I find it strange that you accuse me of that.

You are telling me to AGF but you appear to be defending Steve's lack of AGF. Remember, he was my AMA Advocate at the time (and still is) and had refused to communicate personally with me since February. Remember also, that one sock puppet released from Arbitration by his AMA Advocate was still harassing me, and at the time had filed an AMA complaint listing me along with several others including an Arbitrator, and the case was accepted by AMA. (It is "under investigation" also as the sock puppets in the case was indefinitely blocked.) I was under a great deal of stress. He told me in February not to contact him so I have not done so and essentially had no AMA Advocate through this stressful period. I still have not heard from him regarding my case. Since Starwood essentially was decided in my favor (but the decision was recently) I have no problems except my AMA Advocate and his personal attacks on me. All I want to know is what is going on, what is being "investigated" in my case and when will it be closed. If he believes I am a nasty demanding advocee, a bad person whom nobody likes, then why does he not release my case, why did he take it to begin with? And an advocee, you are saying, should AGF when his AMA Advocate does not?

I am weighing what my options are, given his behavior and his lack of AGF, his continuing personal attacks naming my name, his refusal to contact me although he is my AMA Advocate, the fact that AMA has an opened a case for a sock puppet against me. It appear you are suggesting I go to ANI? I have not had much experience with ANI. I need an AMA Advocate to help me deal with my AMA Advocate. I just want this over with. I am not a bad person. I do not have problems with others on Wikipedia. I have good relationships with other editors. I find this whole thing bizarre. Sincerely, --Mattisse 01:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] P.S.

One of the Arbitrators told me a few days ago that I was an excellent contributor and that it was a pleasure to help me out of my sock puppet difficulties. I do not think I am a trouble maker on Wikipedia. I believe Addhoc summed up the situation correctly in his comments to me. Did you read them? Sincerely, Mattisse 01:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I do not understand your post to me.

I will give you my perspective since I do not be expressing myself well to you. You are asking me questions I have already answered on your page so please forgive the repetition.

1. I have never attacked Steve personally. He has attacked me personally by name twice. My comments on the AMA MFX page were not directed at him personally -- that was furthest from my mind. Yet, he did not AGF and saw my comments as personal attacks. I was frustrated in general that no matter what I said or diffs that I offered, no one responded by saying that AMA would at least consider the issue. I was not the only one making this complaint. Maybe I made it more forcibly as my bad experience with an AMA Advocate supporting a sock puppet was so recent and that the Advocate obviously acted only as an Advocate and did not bother to check out the obvious clues that his advocee was a sock puppet. It is inexplicable why Steve took general factual comments and assuming bad faith saw them as directed as personal attacks against him. Many AMA Advocates contacted me personally and all were supportive and none were hostile. Two tried to enlist me in helping AMA come up with better policies.

2. Steve issued a warning on my talk page, so I issued one on his. (I learned a long time ago through the six months of sock puppet harassment that if you do not take steps early after an accusation, you end up being a victim.)

3. Steve has forbidden me to contact him so (aside from warning him about personally attacking me) I do no post on his pages nor email him and have not since February). This is the situation even though he is my AMA Advocate. Out of frustration I have posted on the AMA pages I have come across to try to get information and help. AMA is very confusing about where to post, so I try to draw attention to my problems when I run across an AMA page.) I have received many personal supportive messages from other AMA Advocates both on my talk page and by email, but no one can help me get Steve off my case. Why did he take my case without asking me if he thought I was such a bad person?

4.' I have had no response from Steve since February (this is April). He has been my AMA Advocate since he arbitrarily took over my case in February, just when I needed help the most. He then told me he was busy having a baby, moving, etc. and did not have time for me at the present, that he would get back to me when he had time. He has not contacted me since, except posting a warning on my page a few days ago.

5. Once again I say the "sockpuppet enabling service" was not originally my phrase. Further, many made similar charges on that page. One of those persons probably made the "sockpuppet enabling service" comment first. As I said before, I am not the type that comes up with clever wording like that.

6. You again say that Steve has not attacked my personally. I again repeat the following which are quotes (emphasis added by me:

"I am leaving my position aside for a moment and speaking as an individual. With that out of the way, I must say Matisse, that overall you have not lent yourself to be helpful with the Starwood case, your Advocate, or anyone else within the AMA that you have interacted with. On the contrary, nearly every person who has touched your case has become almost immediately frustrated with your approach, attitude and demands. " אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 04:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[2]

"Another large complaint is, keeping tabs on the quality of Advocacy cases. This is the source of all historical criticism (which, I may add, came from the period of time where the AMA was not functional and completely "ad hoc") and some recent criticism with a few disgruntled advocees (but I do not wish to discuss in detail how I was harassed by Mattisse here)." אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 16:07, 6 April 2007 (UTC) [3]

Again I quote from another AMA Advocate:

• Hi Mattisse, I think you are a good faith editor and your actions involved in the Starwood case were entirely legitimate. Also, I believe that some other editors deliberately acted in a manner to increase your stress levels and push you into making an error of judgement. Overall, I think your decision not to be directly involved in the ArbCom case was prudent and the end result was fairly reasonable. Addhoc 14:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Again I ask, if Steve thinks I am such an awful person, why did he take my case, why will he not get off my case, what is he investigating, when will this all end?

7. I am in no danger of being blocked. I have not attacked anyone personally. I contribute greatly to Wikipedia. I have something like 17,000 mainspace edits and specialise in getting Feature Articles through the copy editting process and into Feature Article status. Any attempt to block me would be stopped or ended shortly I am confident. No one else sees any problems with my behavior except Steve (and perhaps you). The Arbitrators and others have made it clear they do not see me as a problem but rather as an excellent contributor.

8. The sock puppets have not all been blocked as one of the sock puppet's AMA Advocates got him off the hook in Arbitration, as I explained before. He 'left' voluntarily because of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Jefferson Anderson as he saw the writing on the wall. Since he had 'left' he was not blocked. His AMA Advocate was warned in Arbitration that this was common behavior on the part of sock puppets. That sock puppet continued to harrass me and others after he was "sprung" from Arbitration by his AMA Advocate. Hence the opening of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Jefferson Anderson. Although he 'left' Wikipedia on February 15 before he could by blocked on Wikipedia; none the less his AMA Advocate sent him a congratulatory note upon the closing of the Starwood Arbitration on March 24. [4]

This is my experience of the matter. The Arbitrators went through a great deal of effort to shut down the sockpuppet ring operating at least since Spring of 2006. See User:999, the user the AMA Advocate wantedto email personal information about me to. I can provide you with much more evidence if you need it.

So, do you have any suggestions as to what to do? Steve has forbidden me to contact him directly so that is out. (I only realised recently that Steve and The Thadman were the same person.)

The only avenue I can think of at the moment is to go to ANI and as for help to get Steve to resign as my AMA Advocate in view of his personal attacks on me, his refusal to contact me, his refusal to do anything for my case, including refusing to resign. Can you think of another recourse? Sincerely, Mattisse 12:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please recommend that he refrain from making personal attacks other places .

I have not been allowed to contact Steve since February. His first post on my page in the last few months was in the last few days. The problem is not that we post on each other's pages. Neither of us have any desire to do this.

My request is that he stop making personal attacks around Wikipedia, now having mobilised the AMA Advocacy communication against me. He has made me a target of hate with his remarks, so that the AMA Advocacy focus of dissatisfaction is now on me as the problem. I have been effective ostracized from the AMA Advocacy program by his public personal attacks on me. I need to get help for this. Where can I go? Sincerely, Mattisse 17:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

P.S. He asked for the comments but you have archived you pages and I could not copy my comments to you. I made no personal attacks or harassing remarks targeting him as he did me. Please explain that to him. My comments on the MFD pages were general, and I received positive feedback from other AMA Advocates on them. They did not see them as targeted at Steve/The Thadman. I need to get help for his hate of me. Sincerely, Mattisse 17:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please show me

Please show me where I have made personal attacks on Steve/The Thadman. There was no need for him to mention me by name repeatedly, "blunt" statements or otherwise. Where was I to get help over these last months since February? Sincerely, Mattisse 17:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)