On Wed, 2003-05-07 at 13:49, Tony Wilson wrote:
The point, Cunc, is not the worth of the edit (though it was (a) in the wrong entry, and (b) grossly one-sided - communist governments tend to be rather good at somethings, notably health care and education: which of course, Fred being Fred, he was determined to utterly ignore).
"Fred being Fred" is a fatuous ad hominem comment. Even if that's an expression of your honest judgment of Fred's motivations, it's best avoided.
The point is is the dishonesty. Go look at that edit history: it was no accident, it was repeated 19 or 20 times, with no apology.
I see a classic edit war, in which Jtdirl and 172 repeatedly deleted reasonable (if imperfect) text while SHOUTING THAT FRED WAS ENGAGING IN POV VANDALISM and threatening banning and Fred reinserted that text. By the time you got into the game Jtdirl's actions had eliminated any semblance of civility.
After about the 10th time, Fred began marking as minor his reinsertion of text that was being deleted without any attempt to deal with the text in a respectful manner.
You may consider it dishonet, though others could consider it being polite to the general Wikipedian public who don't care.
Repeatedly deleting Fred's text without attempting to incorporate it into Wikipedia is a much more egregious abuse of Wikipedia mores than what Fred did.
That said, Fred should not have used the minor tag. But it's certainly a lesser offense, in my eyes.
Then look at the wild and untrue accusations made about other contributors on the list.
What wild and untrue accusations, exactly? You mean, "HIS VANDALISM HAS HAD TO BE REVERTED NEARLY 20 TIMES HERE. HE HAS DONE THE SAME ELSEWHERE"?
Did you see *me* yelling? So why am *I* suddenly placed in the path of this loose cannon on the mailing list?
One rule for all. That is fair. If Fred's actions are acceptable (which I dispute), then what shred of an excuse does he pin his opposition to Abe on?
How would you characterize Jtdirl's comments and actions, for example, calling Fred's contribution "vandalism" from the very start?