Thanks again for the support to those who support me, and also to those who don't but are dealing with this respectfully (i.e. just about all of us by now). I didn't know if using this list would be more productive than my earlier experience, but I'm glad it has been. I'll try to answer all the points here in another group-response. If I miss your point, it's only because I forgot it, not because I'm avoiding it-- don't be afraid to ask again! So, here are some thoughts and specific responses:
Yes, I did see one (1) request in one (1) early edit summary to take it to the discussion page. I went to the discussion page, and I saw that that person (Texture) had not added anything. Given that s/he was being insulting and a liar, I didn't think there was a point in starting what I thought would be either a monologue or a non-rational exchange; maybe I should have anyway, I don't know. If nothing else, it would have removed a gripe against me. If anyone else had started a discussion there, I certainly would have continued it. I checked the discussion page several times throughout it all, and never saw any new commentary there.
Stormie said the onus is on me as the contributor to start the discussion. I disagree. Should every edit be preceded by a discussion? I would think the onus to start the discussion would be on the person who is the first to disagree, thereby making it apparent that discussion is needed. (Not that any party can't start a discussion, of course, but since you mentioned it....)
Furthermore-- and this is true for any such collaboration, not just Wikipedia-- a deletion is a more drastic change than an addition, and requires more of an explanation. To delete something without explanation is basically censorship; a non-censor's approach would *add* another viewpoint, or at least reword the existing phrase. So that's another reason why I think the onus to justify one's actions was on the others, because they were the deleters. Maybe this isn't Wikipedia practice, but maybe you can see why a newcomer might think it is.
And no, Stormie, I do not see why "the way [I] went about inserting it" met with such hostility. I think someone who would react with hostility to what I did should rethink why they would react that way, IMO. I did only reasonable things, and I treated everyone involved at least as well as they treated me.
As I explained earlier, I firmly think that my addition reduced the POV-ness of what was there before.
As for my violating the 3-revert rule, I saw the others as being more guilty of that than I was, even if they were three different people. I was just undoing their unjustified, POV deletions, which seemed a lot more like vandalism than what I was doing. That's how I saw it, anyway. If someone HAD warned me about the 3-revert rule, I would have asked why it was being applied to me and not the others.
Yes, I remember seeing a lot of specific policy violations. I'll try to make a list in a subsequent email, as requested.
I did call Texture a newbie, even though I could tell he'd been around longer than that. I called him a newbie because he was acting like one-- misusing the word "vandalism", being insulting, generally non-rational, etc. How does he expect to be taken seriously? Also, since he dismissed my edits for being a newbie, I wanted to point out that that approach doesn't work in an egalitarian collaboration. Does he have any real experience in that, anyway? He doesn't seem to.
I would like to think that everyone here is acting in good faith, but it's hard to think that of someone who's being dishonest.
A couple of people seem to think I'm being a stickler for policy. But the policies I'm talking about are basic-- how to edit a page, how and why to revert (and when not to), what is blocking policy, etc.-- much of it about basic ways to get along. From what I've seen, they're actually quite good, and the system of policies allows the core values of Wikipedia to be realized (egalitarianism, anyone can add to it, ways of resolving disputes, various recourses always available, etc.) I only got concerned with policy when other people started doing things that seemed unreasonable, so I sought out what was standard practice in the Wikipedia world. Note this: For newbies, what's written on the policy pages may be all they have to go on.
Since Timwi wondered, by "double standard" I mean the practice of applying a set of rules to one set of people, and applying a different set of rules to another. Most commonly, the last half translates into "acting as if the rules don't apply to oneself or one's friends." (Maybe we need a Wikipedia page about it.)
That's all for now. I'll do the policy violations list next, but this has taken a long time already and I may not get to it tonight. Thanks for trying to improve the system-- as you know, this is not really about me, it's about the Wikipedia system.
Cheers, James ............................................................................ James Marshall james@jmarshall.com Berkeley, CA @}-'-,-- "Teach people what you know." ............................................................................