G'day Steve,
I wish we had editorial judgment. Specifically, I wish
we had a way of
determining which of our editors had good judgment, and empowered them
to do so.
I was going to suggest that we do. Those with good editorial judgment
are the ones who don't follow the rules anyway, and so the system sorts
itself out by making those who need the rules most being the only ones
who follow them. However, I thought about it a bit too much, and that
led to this post.
Bear with me for a moment, we're talking about a matrix in words again.
There are four possibilities:
1. Those with good judgment who follow the rules
2. Those with good judgment who Ignore All Rules(TM)
3. Those with poor judgment who follow the rules
4. Those with poor judgment who Ignore All Rules(TM)
Now, of these, the process wonks with good judgment tend to become less
wonky as time goes on, promoting the worthwhile aspects of process but
acknowledging that when it leads to an absurdity one should never follow
process to the letter.
Those with good judgment who do what they think is in the best interests
of the encyclopaedia tend to get away with it. Boo-yah!
Those with poor judgment who ignore the rules get blocked, because the
rules would be all that keeps them from being dickheads. I don't intend
to cry too much over them.
Finally, we get to those with poor judgment who follow the rules. These
people are a *problem*. They don't seem to care about doing the Right
Thing or the Wrong Thing, they don't seem to know what's appropriate
behaviour and what isn't, they don't seem to be capable of saving their
grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without ... you
get the idea. This is a problem for five reasons:
a) They get upset at those of us who are willing to make editorial or
administrative decisions even though we *haven't* received orders
signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queries, lost, found,
subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft
peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.
b) They can make some really rather shit decisions, because of that
"process can lead to absurdity" thing mentioned above.
c) They refuse to accept that there's anything at all silly about
their behaviour, becuase the rules say such-and-such, and how can
it be wrong if they're following the rules? This same point of
view leads to the famous "instruction creep", as they to make more
rules, subconsciously trying (I reckon) to provide enough
guidelines to blindly follow that they can never be held
responsible for anything.
d) THEY CORRUPT THE YOUTH!!!!! In more sensible terms, what I mean is
that new users tend to assume that Wikipedia, given its size and
status and their own experience with the Real World(TM), must be a
bureaucracy. Process wonks are only too happy to oblige. I recall
one anonymous user told he couldn't copyedit an article on a video
game character without discussing it on the talkpage first!
e) Which leads me to my biggest complaint: they get the rules *wrong*.
It's bad enough to insist that we all follow the rules regardless
of the end result, but when *they don't even know what the rules
are*, they become a menace. This is my current hobbyhorse: the
"Chinese Whispers Effect". It means that someone with the wrong
idea about policy but who thinks he knows what he's talking about
will attempt to impose his view of policy on other editors, who
will misunderstand and take an even more corrupted view ... and so
on.
Examples include: the video game talkpage thing above; someone on
DRV who attempted to use the definition at [[Rough consensus]]
(mainspace article!) to argue that my satirical Administrator
Discretion Zone really did exist (!!!); the fellow who opposed an
RfA because "there is no excuse, *ever*, for not using the
{{testN}} templates to warn someone"; the people replacing removed
{{prod}} tags because the article author isn't allow to remove it
(or because the reason for removal wasn't considered sufficient);
the people insisting articles must be speedied because "it fails
WP:CORP"; and ... well, how long do we want this list to *get*?
The more intelligent actions (not to say there haven't been some
blindingly stupid actions too) of Wikipedians like Lar and to a lesser
extent Aaron Brenneman and Xoloz have convinced me that people who
espouse a "process is important" view can be worth listening to at
times. Process wonkism is not necessarily the enemy of Clue, but
Cluelessness when combined with wonkism is a bloody menace.
There are some Clueful editors --- see "corrupted youth" --- who merely
hung out with the wrong crowd and are salvageable. However, there are
others out there who are too ignorant to bear; too arrogant to teach[0];
too bossy to ignore. What's the answer?
<snip/>
[0] I'm the first to admit I can be an arrogant prick at times, too.
Arguably, I have taken on such a persona to write this post. I like
to think, though, that in comparison with the people who've
inflicted their stupidity on this community in the guise of
upholding policy, I've earned it.
--
Mark Gallagher
"You shit-lover! Off-brusher! Jaded, bitter joy-crusher! Failure has
made you so cruel!" (Never get Amanda Palmer angry)