JAY JG said:
>
>
>>I mean, you expect to
>>get into an edit war and then ask others to either come to your
>>assistance or relax the 3RR so you are permitted to continue?
>
> I don't "expect to get into an edit war", nor have I ever suggested
> "relaxing" the 3RR;.
Okay, so if you won't get into an edit war and you won't hve a problem
with 3RR enforcement if you do, what is the problem? Has the topic of
this discussion drifted while I wasn't looking?
>
>>I think this is a highly contentious way of interacting on Wikipedia,
>>and not one to be condoned. Talk pages exist for a good purpose.
>
> Indeed they do. If only people used them, rather than POVing and
> "original research"ing articles, and then edit-warring to preserve
> their POV and original research insertions.
So this is all about "other" people, then?
>
>>Revert
>>limits and guidelines counseling against edit warring also exist for a
>>good purpose. Edit warring is *not* considered a good way of dealing
>>with problems.
>
> No, it's not; however, it is sometimes the best of a number of bad
> choices. If only there were other remedies that actually worked
> effectively all the time.
>
Perhaps I didn't put it clearly enough: edit warring is seen as a major
problem. It is never "the best of a number of choices" to engage in
silly warring. Where there is an edit dispute, get more people to look
at the article. That solves the problem far quicker and more effectively
than tit-for-tat editing. I simply don't buy your claim that you alone
are capable or and willing to determine which of two people, you and the
other edit warrior, is doing good edits.
Slim writes:
> One of the problems with 3RR-policy enforcement
> is that admins are supposed to treat equally the
> editor who is inserting an unreferenced,
> unsubstantiated claim, and the editor who is
> trying to get rid of that claim. One is violating
> [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] policy, while the other
> is trying to enforce it. Yet both are blocked.
> If the editor trying to enforce policy isn't allowed
> to violate 3RR, then s/he must go through dispute
> resolution; put up an RfC (which rarely brings
> useful results); or apply for mediation (which
> can take months to arrange). Meanwhile the
> nonsense sits there for 24 hours; then maybe
> there's another brief flurry of reverts, then it
> sits there for another 24 hours; and this can go
> on for weeks, until the less determined editor backs off.
> If the process takes priority over the product,
> that's fine.
Right - and the process should never take precedence over
the product. We must remember that the goal of Wikipedia is
to produce a trusted, accurate, free encyclopedia. The
goal has never been to make a list of rules to blindly
follow for their own sake.
That's why we have group discussions, and don't enforce
policy with 'bots.
> But if it's the production of an accurate encylopedia
> that is the priority, then this is not fine.
> Surely, for this reason, when looking at 3RR
> violations, admins should be allowed to take into
> account who was violating Wikipedia's editorial
> content policies and who was trying to preserve them.
Thank you for putting into words what I was hoping someone
would say. I agree wholeheartedly. Some people make 3+
reverts (effectively a fourth or more reverts) in order to
damage Wikipedia, or to blatantly violate our NPOV policy.
Long-time trusted Wikipedia contributors on occasions have
to fix this damage, which sometimes requires reverts.
Blindly following the 3RR policy without taking context
into account is not sensible; it gives an edge to vandals
and POV-pushers.
If our goal is to create an accurate encyclopedia, then we
are obligated to use some common sense in deciding when to
punish someone for violating the 3RR rule...or when to say
"Good job, you stopped this damage, and now the calvary can
come in and prevent further damage from the person you are
dealing with."
Smoddy writes:
> If an editor has reverted a page three times in a 24 hour
> period, with the exception of **blatant** vandalism, they
> should be blocked. Period. This ensures even-handedness.
No, this does not ensure even-handedness. It only ensures
that trouble-makers are given a way to effectively cause
enough trouble to ban or block geunine and trusted
contributors. Blindly following rules for the sake of
following rules is an anathema to every legal and
rule-based system in the world, whether political,
religious or technical. We should not be
Wikipedia-fundamentalists. Surely Slim is correct in
saying that we need to allow common-sense, at least on
occasion.
Sincerely,
Robert (RK)
__________________________________
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Can I ask that developers use LiveJournal -
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wikitech/ - to
keep people informed about problems on the Wikimedia
servers and what's being tried to fix it? People are
much happier about something being broken when they
know why and what's being done about. We also need one
central low-noise source for information, and I feel
the LJ is probably the best bet for that.
Ta,
Dan100
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> From: "JAY JG" <jayjg(a)hotmail.com>
> I supposed you could take the issue to
> Wikipedia:RFC, where the conflict could be ignored just as most other
> article content conflicts are ignored.
I've taken article conflicts to RFC two or three times. Each time I've
gotten two or three helpful responses, that were quite useful in
resolving the conflict. Your mileage apparently varies....
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
Slim writes.
>
> Some of the editors writing in this thread seem to believe there are
> teams of editors willing to delete original research wherever they find
> it, so that no editor is ever left isolated dealing with a POV pusher
> who's inserting nonsense. That just isn't true
I assure you that it is. Any time you spot a POV pusher filling an
article with unverifiable tripe, just leave a message at [[User talk:
Tony Sidaway]] and you and I, we'll be that team. If there are two of
them, we'll get a third guy; and that way there's no way anybody will
have to breach 3RR.
Cool Hand Luke writes:
> If your edits really are the editorially correct thing
> for the article, it should be no problem to get someone
> else to revert with you. Thus only the allegedly
> irrational party of an edit war will break the 3RR, but
> not the supposedly NPOV editors do.
Nice theory. But in practice this is simply false. Most of
our articles have very few people who actively edit on them
or who are even qualified to even edit them. Sure, hundreds
of people do edits on [[God]] or [[Prophet]]. But how many
people can recognize vandalism or abuse on [[Process
philosophy]], [[Conservative responsa]] or esoteric math
and physics articles?
In practice very often we cannot easilly get someone else
to help us revert or edit, at least not for a few days.
I've asked for help on articles, only to have other editors
say "I don't know enough about the topic; I can't do
anything." JayJG points out this same issue.
Again, I am not saying that we should throw away the 3+
revert rule, or any other rule. But we DO NOT blindly
enforce Wikipedia rules with 'bots. Sysops are supposedly
human beings with some amount of common sense. Let's see
some evidence of this. If I want to be part of 'bot
community, I'll play Doom 3 in single-player mode.
Robert (RK)
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Since people would quickly get tired of me announcing this, I won't keep
repeating it in future weeks. But as the word is still trickling out and
people are just developing the habit of checking, I wanted to let
everyone know that the second issue of our new community newspaper, the
Wikipedia Signpost, is now available for you to read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost
--Michael Snow
Update: nearly managed to do all five edits in 1 hour 45 minutes.
>I can't tell you how frustrating it is getting this message every
submission
>for the past half an hour (or more):
>
> "Sorry- we have a problem...
> The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request."
>
>Particularly annoying when it's in the middle of a series of linked edits.
>Gah.
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I can't tell you how frustrating it is getting this message every submission
for the past half an hour (or more):
"Sorry- we have a problem...
The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request."
Particularly annoying when it's in the middle of a series of linked edits.
Gah.
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Cassini Huygens is today the most updated article on the net.
Congratulations.
------
This said, just a comment.
During months, the Cassini-Huygens mission was only on ONE article,
called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini-Huygens.
The Huygens probe article was JUST a redirect.
It obviously did not need an article. The content about the probe (only
european) could very well be under an article about the craftship
(american european, with of course, american name first).
When the Huygens page was created, it was immediately made a redirect,
with the argument : redirecting to Cassini probe, since Huygens is
basically a subsystem of it.
Sorry, there is no such thing that as a Cassini probe. There is a
Huygens probe.
And the Huygens probe landed, NOT the "Cassini" probe.
Only yesterday, the article was split and the real probe authorized to
have an existence on its own.
It was not because it was a unit in itself, it was MERELY because the
Cassini page was too big.
I forgot, a good part of the Huygens article was about its critical
flaw. The good points were in the Cassini article.
The images of the landing were not on Huygens article, they were on
Cassini article
-------
It does not matter ?
Well, I think it does.
It makes far too much light on the american part of a project and forget
the other involved. For me, it is the perfect example of how bias is
lightly, oh ever so lightly, included in some articles.
Without probably anyone noticing.
I am sure it was not done on purpose at all. This is just a view of
things so different between one culture and another.
For european, this is a joint project but a european success.
For american, according to what is implied by the article division, it
is basically an american (and a bit european) success.
--------
Does it matter really ?
Well, I think it does.
Go on google, and look at "Cassini-Huygens landing site".
Look at results, Wikipedia IS there.
now, look at "Huygens landing site"
Look at results, right, Wikipedia is not in the first page.
Only on the second, and only for Cassini.
This is very very small thing ?
I do not think so. Most people look at the first search page. They do
not go further.
It is Huygens which landed. Not Cassini.
One look for a european probe and finds only an american mission.
--------
The articles are great. But the bias is there. Google has it more true
than us.
Anthere