Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 2/22/07, Rich Holton richholton@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