On 7/6/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com I suggest you drop any stereotypes you may hold and respond with a real contribution when a real suggestion arrives, rather than being solely negative and dismissive.
I suggest you stop insinuating that I disliked that suggestion because of the source, and acccept the fact that I thought it was a terrible idea simply based on its own merits (or lack thereof). And I also suggest that you accept the fact that I will be negative and dismissive on any policy proposals which I think are terrible ideas.
Being dismissive about any idea is unproductive, and that's why I suggested you consider a different approach. Being dismissive projects the wrong image, especially from anyone who is an admin. You are entirely correct that I was overly broad in my criticism of you. I apologize.
If we kept the "standard" 3RR in addition to a new page based revert rule, one editor certainly could not hold pages hostage. I didn't see anything in the previous proposal that suggested throwing away the old (but actually pretty young) 3RR rule.
A page that is constantly kept locked by the actions of one individual against a huge consensus of other editors is one held hostage. See [[Apartheid]] for an example.
Why do you permit the hostage of the article, rather than addressing the single editor? How is it possible that a single user can keep a page locked when he can only revert 3 times before being blocked, yet the "huge consensus" could certainly revert many times that number of times?
Did you look at the history? He uses variable IPs; whenever he's blocked, he simply reboots and gets another. He's used at least 11 userids and 30 IPs so far.
I asked because I didn't know the answer. I will try to help think up a viable solution.
What policies or procedures do you suggest to correct this existing deficiency that isn't helped by the "ain't broke, don't fix it" policy now in place?
I suggest broader admin powers regarding obvious trolls. But I don't imagine that will go down too well with a number of people on this list.
As long as they're dealt out with a courteous, polite explanation, I'd support a lot more than you might expect. What harms the project, in my opinion, is not the punishments themselves, but the curt attitudes of some administrators, and the lack of patient explanations. Most people don't usually mind taking responsibility for their actions, as long as they are treated with respect in the process.
Please don't criticize people for searching for alternate paths to a solution, especially if they're people who you don't think have contributed in a positive manner recently. We should be encouraging proper behavior at every opportunity.
Please don't describe my criticisms of ideas as criticisms of people, and please don't tell me to stop doing things I haven't done in the first place. My initial statement was solely about the idea itself, and described quite clearly what I didn't like about it; I neither said nor implied about the individual making the suggestion. You, on the other hand, wrongly assumed I disliked the idea because of its source, and criticized me, not my response. You should first model "proper behaviour" before encouraging it in others.
Jay.
I see no reason why anyone has to be perfect before suggesting improvements to anyone else. Instead, I think we can build a virtuous circle, if everyone is willing to assume good faith of the other instead of taking offense.
However, I made a very poor assumption about your motives. I apologize again. Thank you for pointing out the errors in my last email politely. As proof of my apology, I offer to make three good faith referenced, content contribution edits to any articles in Wikipedia you choose. Just name the article(s) you want improved.