[WikiEN-l] Moderation on this mailing list

[Ray Saintonge]

Ron Ritzman wrote:

>On 2/22/07, Rich Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>But one can not legitimately "defend" an article against a newbie being
>>bold in a good faith effort to fix an article.
>>    
>>
>But what if previous consensus has determined that it "ain't broke"?
>
How can such a "consensus" possibly have been reached when this bold 
person was not a part of the discussion?  How can you know that someone 
who was not there doesn't have a completely different unexplored outlook 
on the subject?  It could even be that those who were a part of the 
"previous consensus" are no longer around, and that today's consensus 
might be comppletely different from the previous one.

What has to be accepted as a fundamental principle of collaborative 
communities is that very few, if any, consensuses are final.  They are 
all open for reconsideration.  It may seem tiresome to keep going over 
the same material again and again, but that is a small price to pay for 
the fruits of being truly collaborative.  No vote should ever be 
considered permanently closed.

The implication for admins who must deal with a bold edit is that they 
should provide the bold editor a link to where the "previous consensus" 
was reached.  He could then review the discussion, add his comments or 
vote, as the situation requires.  The fact that the old discussion is 
deep in the archives or was previously presumed closed should have no 
bearing on his action.

>>A newbie being bold is
>>not, in and of itself, a violation of any policy.
>>    
>>
>No it's not. And if the newbie is being whacked by an admin acting as
>the article's pit bull after a bold or two then yes, the admin himself
>should be whacked.
>
>This should never happen...
>
>bold/revert/bold/whack
>
>However, this is what we see in too many of these cases...
>
>bold/revert/bold/revert/dick/whack
>
3RR is still a part of this context.  The first bold action and the 
first revert can probably be very simple actions.  The second bold tells 
everyone that the person has an issue that goes beyond a simple 
correction and should be explained, but a failure to give proper 
explanation can be excused through lack of  experience.  The second 
revert (presumably by an admin) should include an attempt to open a 
discussion that is not just boilerplate.

>>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 can be responded too by the dispute resolution procedures.
>This is mentioned in WP:OWN. If the "newbie editor" responds with
>"dickery" then whether or not he's right or wrong he will get whacked,
>not for the bold but for the dickery and I don't believe you can argue
>that he was goaded into being a dick (uncivil, personal attacks etc.)
>or somehow magically made to act like a dick by the article's "gang".
>
You make it sound like it's only newbies that engage in dickery.  If the 
dickery is in the form of goading or from a gang why is it so immune to 
being argued?  What's good for newbie dicks is good for admin dicks.

Ec