Parker Peters wrote:
I've welcomed new users. I really wish our welcome message included item links to the dispute resolution areas (broken as they are) these days. I think it would help new users who get into a conflict when being bold, since bold behavior often leads to conflicts with others. For that matter, why isn't a welcome message automatically generated on the creation of any new account's talk page, so they'd instantly see a "You have new messages" bar and be able to see the welcome message? Why not do that instead of waiting for an admin to come along and do it?
I don't know that an automated message will help. The templated welcome messages that I have seen strike me as very cold and impersonal. A pleasant welcome without references to a lot of rules would be more friendly. When one person shows a willingness to answer question and be a mentor it gives the newbie someone to turn to.
I've screwed up and blocked someone in a conflict of interest. Twice. I apologized later, but the damage was done. In one case I didn't apologize until the 24 hours was up, because I didn't calm down quick enough and nobody - thanks to the "contact the blocking admin first" stupidity we have these days - was willing to unblock once I logged out. I got two "I want to talk to you about this case" messages, but since I didn't respond, nobody unblocked. In the second case, I unblocked after 10 hours, but only after another admin contacted me on IRC. Their statement was that they wouldn't unblock as it would be "incivil" to me to do so, but they thought I should reconsider.
Sounds like somebody needed a reality check. There is nothing uncivil about a single reversal with relevant comments. It merely deals with the fact that none of us can be online 24/7
Yes, it does bother me that I did this, and yes, this is partially why I'm leaving, or at least taking a decently long wikibreak. Because I'd seen this behavior in others, but catching myself doing it makes me unhappy with myself, and realizing that I did it in part because I'd absorbed the "admins are gods" culture in Wikipedia makes me worry I'd do it again on another bad day.
Congratulations for being able to recognize when you do this yourself. Too many spend a lifetime here incapable of understanding that they are sometimes the one at fault.
- I've seen plenty of edit wars and enforced 3RR. Three times in my memory
someone's unblocked someone that I blocked for 3RR/edit warring when they were tag-teaming someone else. Yes, they technically didn't violate 3RR. Were they trying to provoke the other guy into it? Damn skippy they were. Policy says you block both sides in an edit war, not just the 3RR violator, and I was following that.
I've never supported 3RR, but one needs to remember its purpose, which is to calm an argument, not to solve it. Persistently using it as a punitive weapon tends to lose track of its purpose.
Ec