Cease And Desist

On behalf of the stewards, I am requesting that all concerned parties immediately send mail to abuse@blueyonder.co.uk detailing their experiences with the bullying activities of this anonymous vandal. I can confirm that the abuse team at Blue Yonder has already been in contact with him regarding his activities, which violate both their Terms and Conditions and their Acceptable Use Policy. Further complaints about him will be extremely helpful and will be appreciated. -- EarleMartin

The above was removed in the first part of a DoubleEdit by Anon. I strongly urge those who are interested in the integrity of WardsWiki to check http://c2.com/cgi/RecentChanges for such DoubleEdits.

My ISP is happy for me to use 2 ip addresses - they even asked me to use their proxy address, and so does their website, as it tends to reduce the load on their servers! Would you like the url? -- Anon

Anon: I am ordering you, as a duly appointed representative of Ward Cunningham, the owner of this site, to cease and desist any and all activities on c2.com. Any further edits made by you will be in direct contravention of the policy of the owner of this site, who has delegated authority over it to the steward team. All further activities by you will be reported to your ISP as a violation of not only their user policies but the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (c. 18). -- EarleMartin

Anyone could make that claim. Other pages say anyone can edit.

Stewards are entitled to make claims. Others are not. That's called authority. -- EarleMartin

As I said above, my ISP stated explicitly they can only request that kind of thing if Ward himself publishes rules of that kind on his site. -- Anon

I'm another blueyonder customer, so I'm curious - how does anyone know what Ward has delegated to the stewards?

Anon, I'm puzzled. You've got a wiki full of people who don't want you here, to the point of complaining to your ISP. So why are you still here? What do you get out of this? What is it you wish to accomplish? At the very least, give us some insight into your motivations and the person behind your edits. Surely having your edits reversed, your ISP complained to, having to work around security mechanisms, and bearing the brunt of regular streams of anger can't be very pleasant. If you're so adamant on remaining active, even to the point of risking loss of one ISP and having to switch to another, wouldn't it be better to work toward some greater cooperation and understanding?

I've been here for many years. The generally correct spelling and grammar on Wiki is to a considerable extent due to my editing of thousands of pages to correct errors.

Any prior objection to me related mainly to that activity. Despite the original title of this page, Colin wasn't discussing terms; nor was anyone else. He had several times admitted that I was right (or at least raised a valid point) on technical issues relating to his coding and physics challenges. However, he then couldn't resist sniping at my attention to detail, hinting that as others hadn't done so, I must be in the wrong anyway. His binary search coding problem insists on attention to detail in some areas, so his objection was groundless. Some of his physics questions are rather odd in that way as well. In one case, he asked what moves the moon gradually further from the Earth. What sort of answer is possible? Pressure of sunlight? Divine inspiration? The only sensible answer available was gravity; read carefully and you'll notice the question tries to make you think gravity couldn't do it, by referring to the Earth and conveniently not mentioning the tides again, even though they were mentioned just a little earlier. Some insight into Colin's personality is obtained by noticing that he's never attempted anyone else's challenges on Wiki, even though he's routinely tackled lots of technical problems in his studies off-wiki.

Anon, you've criticized Colin and attempted to rationalize your actions in this one case, but not answered a single one of my questions. I'm not interested in your assessment of Colin's personality, I'm interested in your motivations. So, once again: Why are you still here? What do you get out of this? What is it you wish to accomplish?

I wish to improve Wiki content. I note that Colin stated I had made demands for control on Wiki. That was completely baseless, as I have done no such thing. -- Anon

Why is this so important to you?

It's in my nature. -- Anon

Is it more important to you that Wiki content be improved than to be accepted by the Wiki community?

If a whole group of people discuss something, but the method requires each person to take their turn, some of those turns may seem minor or distracting. But it shouldn't be seen as objectionable; it's just a by-product of the way EditConflictResolution works. There are few binding criteria - for example, I don't need elaborate criteria to spot most spelling mistakes. -- Anon

This does not answer my question. A "yes" or "no" would suffice, though expanding on your answer would be nice.

I don't assess it's importance or its acceptability. I correct spelling and grammar because the mistakes are there and can be corrected. Technical issues may require some discussion because the point being made isn't clear. Sometimes, I don't even notice who made the original point. To me, correcting mistakes is not a personal issue at all. -- Anon

Interesting, but that still doesn't quite answer the question. Please, answer "yes" or "no".

The two simply aren't comparable. I assume that improvements will be seen as such. I am not trying to be personally involved in a community, which is a questionable concept anyway, and I don't understand what such acceptance means or why anyone would need to know anything about me, as distinct from what I write. Community acceptance shouldn't matter, as anonymous edits aren't even separated, let alone identifiable. It's pointless to assess editing on the basis of who did it, rather than the resulting text. Is the community those who edit, those who just read or both? If they don't edit, I don't know whether they accept me or not. I don't think the stewards represent any community. -- Anon

[See MustEliminateImperfection -- Eliz]

Your response is interesting. I will probably come back to it, but given your statement that "community acceptance shouldn't matter," you regard improvements to wiki as more important, if even just slightly, than community acceptance. Is that accurate?

Not really - the two aren't comparable. -- Anon

Okay, then let's look at this slightly differently. Do you feel it is more important to improve wiki content than accede to the wishes of the active members of this wiki?

Yes -- Anon [Irrelevancies removed. Anon, you have no right to ask for anything on this site. I repeat my warning to you that every word you write here is in further violation of both your ISP's policies and British law. -- EarleMartin]

My understanding is, because of your cracking activity, the stewards are unable to freeze the wiki. I'm sure not only your ISP but Ward is interested in this.

Please stop endless deletions and redits.

Please have a look at http://c2.com/cgi/RecentChanges and work out how many edits have happened in the last few hours.

Please read WhatWikiShouldBe.

At the moment it is as if the WikiImmuneSystem is attacking Wiki itself.

I have pondered quite a lot today whether to say anything.

All the people involved are of course free to ignore what I am saying.

Anon, if you read this, I would have put it on your home page too.

-- JohnFletcher

It's pointless to address only one party. Colin instigated this issue by insisting that I use email rather than Wiki, but then ignoring the email on somewhat dubious grounds. As far as I can tell, his entire objective was, and still is, to set me up for criticism. He's proven himself untrustworthy and deliberately misquoted me, so I now can't trust his word even on matters of fact. -- Anon

I'm sad that Colin wants to leave the Wiki party, but I support his decision to do so. And if he wants to come back, I'll support that. -- Eliz

This is a self-imposed WikiMindWipe, similar to what happened with Sam Gentile in ages past. I am also sad that Colin is leaving. I am angry that it was due to an anonymous pest. (Note that Colin's web site retains most of the technical juggling information that he had shared with us here.) -- IanOsgood

Colin said he isn't leaving. However, he's deleting various things he introduced, even though many are of interest to, and involved interaction with, others. A good example, falsely labelled OffTopic, is CoNeutron.

He started out doing a more careful cleaning. No doubt he would be still, if you weren't opposing him with an EditWar. -- DanMuller

It may have been more careful, but he still deleted entire conversations and relevant facts, not just his own opinions.

It doesn't matter, as I have my own copy of all the pages in question, and will intermittently restore some of them in a random fashion using whatever means is needed. -- Anon

Perhaps folk should recall that Wiki did NOT fall apart when Sam left, even though most of his comments were eventually restored as anonymous comments.

Blueyonder, you do realize that what you're doing is now actually illegal, don't you? That's not a threat, but a call to introspection. -- DanMuller

I think you'll find that Ward invites anyone to edit Wiki as they see fit. That's stated clearly on this Wiki. -- Anon

Editing is open for intended uses of C2 wiki. Editing is regularly blocked to prevent spam and vandalism. Indiscriminate reversion of other people's edits is vandalism; activity which appears to be the application of automated scripts to enforce edits is vandalism. I personally believe that excessive editing of minor and ambiguous punctuation details is vandalism, but I recognize that as a debatable point.

We are not talking about the published CodeWord; we're talking about unpublished security mechanisms that you have apparently circumvented. Hence the reference to illegal activity earlier.

Nobody's interested in debating the finer points of your justifications with you; this has been amply demonstrated in the past as being an entirely pointless excercise. You are persona non grata on C2 wiki, and have been for some time now, ever since you started using automated scripts to enforce your notions of right and wrong on wiki. Continuing to edit here is in violation of the published wishes of site administrators. -- DanMuller

Nonsense - I haven't used automated scripts, and Earle knows that. Colin was "vandalizing" if you like by removing other people's edits along with his own. The intended use, as stated by Ward is "as you see fit". Mere conventions are not universal; they come and go. I've been in touch with Ward by email, and he's not raised any objection. -- Anon

Prove it. Quote us some of your correspondence. If you're telling the truth, Ward won't mind. If you can't do that, it shows you're a liar (as well as a bully and a sociopath).

Your activities are unwanted and illegal. I am going to ensure that they cease, believe me. -- EarleMartin

Don't be silly. Email is confidential, but I wouldn't make a false claim knowing you could simply ask Ward for a "yes" or "no" on the matter. Several emails were exchanged with Ward. -- Anon

To be pedantic, his claim was that he exchanged some e-mails with Ward, and Ward did not object to his activities. He did not suggest that Ward knew his identity, that Ward knew the activities were occurring, or that these activities were topical to the messages in question. -- JasonFelice

Ward knew he was communicating with the user of a specific IP address, because I wrote to ask him not to ban it. The type of editing from that address was discussed, so he was fully aware of it. It closely paralleled current activites. The ban was not out of dislike of the nature of the dispute, but out of concern that a script for automatic editing might be running. I'm not even in the same country as Ward, so my identity was neither relevant nor asked for. It's well-known, and stated by Ward on this site, that anonymous editing is okay. I had one call from my ISP, so I explained the situation and told them this as well. They agreed to check that I was being truthful by telephoning Ward, and that was the last I heard from them. If they changed their mind, I'd just use a different ISP and carry on. -- Anon

The ban was not out of concern for automatic editing. You choose not to make distinctions based on intent or effect. If someone has the time and obsessive nature to manually produce the same effect, that is just as unwelcome as the use of a script. Similarly, anonymous editing may be OK in general, but it's certainly not OK as a technique for deliberately evading the intent of the operators of a site. Anyone with a mature moral sense would know these things innately, without having it spelled out. I do so here not for your benefit, because I'm quite sure that you're a very smart fellow who recognizes these distinctions and chooses to ignore them. This explanation is for the benefit of any other readers that might skim over your excuses quickly, to encourage them to think more carefully about them. I'm also not going to ask why you do what you do, because I think I already know - it shines through the excuses. As for the communications with Ward, I'll disregard that until I have confirmation from that source, which I've requested. -- DanMuller

With regard to your first sentence, Ward said it was. Wiki isn't restricted to certain types of people in the way you suggest. I don't have the purpose you suggest. -- Anon

Ward wasn't the agent of the most recent banning, so if he did say that, he spoke without direct knowledge. There are indeed no restrictions against "certain types of people". But certain behaviors are unwanted and, when they persist, have been and continue to be cause for banning. -- DanMuller

It wasn't the most recent, and Ward said he personally imposed it manually in the first place. -- Anon

Please do not delete this page which is currently relevant.

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