Marc Riddell wrote:
on 9/25/09 5:36 PM, Fred Bauder at
fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net wrote:
It is more a matter of editors taking back the
wiki from the tiny
minority that is abusing others. You can't vote for people who openly
advocate not enforcing civility rules and expect the arbitration
committee to do much. Look back in the history of the arbitration
committee and you will find that its original purpose was to deal with
gross violations of Wikiquette, see
Erik Moeller wrote:
"RK was tolerated because he contributed good material. But how much good
material has not been contributed because of his well documented
behavioral problems? In my opinion, we need to set clearer rules on
Wikiquette and be serious about enforcing them, with a well-defined
protocol of warning, temporary banning, permanent banning etc. Maybe
there could be a 5-10 member Wikiquette "committee" where violations
could be reported and decisions would be made by voting."
Fred
These comments are refreshing, and the suggested actions would have an
enormous impact on the quality of collaboration in the Project. All healthy,
constructive collaboration must include healthy, constructive dialogue.
Traditionally, though, the problem has been underestimated. One need not
adopt the language of "regulatory capture", as David Gerard does, to
look the issues in the eye:
(1) There is actually no substantive consensus position that uncivil
editors are a net negative to the site;
(2) Practical implementation of measures has proved completely divisive;
(3) The waters are fairly comprehensively muddied by those who take up
tactical positions amounting to the assertion that any arbitrator who
attempts to enforce the civility policy is part of the problem, not part
of the solution.
In terms of "crafted" remedies, we see this clearly enough in that
civility paroles have proved hard to enforce, and those who do try to
enforce them are (fairly systematically) embroiled by insult. This
rather suggests we have gone past the point where ad hoc solutions might
have worked.
Charles