[WikiEN-l] Moderation on this mailing list

[Rich Holton]

Ron Ritzman wrote:
> On 2/21/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Perhaps I'm misconstruing your point. Is your question rhetorical, or
>> actually seeking information? Are you suggesting that, if a "newbie
>> editor" were to simply walk away, there would be no problem?
> 
> If the newbie's (or anybody else's) change to an article is reverted
> and he can't make his case in the "talk" phase then yes "walk
> away"[1]. There's no consensus for his change. A "dick" phase is not
> going to change that. If he strongly feels that. If he strongly feels
> that the article is being defended in a state that violates policy
> then there are "non dick" paths he can follow such as rfcs or arbcom.
> If he can't get satisfaction there then hey that's life. You can't win
> them all.
> 
> 1. "Go play elsewhere" is a better way of putting this. There are
> plenty of "undefended" and abandoned articles that need attention.
> 

Perhaps you're using the idea of "defending" an article differently than 
I am. From the context of Parker Peter's original post that you were 
replying to, we're talking about someone who is, in good faith, trying 
to improve the article, and an admin "whacking" them for doing it.

As I see it, one can legitimately defend an article against vandalism, 
against overall POV, against the addition of questionable and 
unreferenced "facts", and against unintelligible incoherence. There may 
be others I'm not thinking of right now, but these are specifically 
defined violations of policy (except perhaps for the last one), and we 
all want to defend articles against these.

But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being 
bold in a good faith effort to fix an article. A newbie being bold is 
not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy. Quite the contrary, we 
encourage it. If a change to an article does not violate policy but is 
reverted, and then the change stonewalled on the talk page, the 
"defender" is violating policy ([[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles]]), 
and this is particularly damaging when the "defender" is an admin.

-Rich Holton