On 6/24/07, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher(a)student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
G'day White Cat,
Any article one dislikes can be seemingly deleted
with enough persistence
and adequate trolling. That was the case with [[Daniel Brandt]]. A valid
rationale isn't even necessary anymore.
Arguably.
AFD is clearly a vote even though policy and
people claim it isn't. AFD
can't be fixed so long as the approach towards it is a vote. Consensus !=
votes but worthy comments. A lots of '''delete''', few
'''keep''' should be
kept if the delete remarks have no valid rationale and vice versa. We are
explicitly seeking a "majority" vote to the point of calculating
percentages. How can something like that NOT be a vote? "no consensus"
closures should be given breathing space to promote people to discuss
otherwise it is a vote.
I've closed rather a lot of xfDs in my time, and only ever calculated
the vote tally once (my first complicated closure post-award of
adminship). My efforts must have been bloody poor, since xfDs are all
votes, and it's surprising that people weren't constantly squawking for
my head on ANI and DRV.
We've seen a hell of a lot of cases of bad decisions made by
vote-counters. We've seen a few cases of bad decisions made by
consensus-judgers. In the case of the latter, it's because they misread
the situation and made the wrong call. In the case of the former, the
bad decision was built in to their status as vote-counters. If xfD is
not a vote, we'll get the odd bad decision if the closing admin makes a
bad call. If xfD is a vote, then bad decisions become an inherent ---
celebrated! --- part of the process.
Trolling should be strictly forbidden. Anyone
trolling on RFAs, VFDs, CFDs
should be immediately blocked rather than given any slack. Trolling itself
should also be removed. If people are not able to give a rationale reasoning
they shouldn't be participating in the discussion anyways.
The problem with this is: "How do you define trolling?"
"Troll" has become a very useful catchphrase: you can use it as an
insult and have the added benefit of hopefully damaging the credibility
of your opponent (something that doesn't happen if you call her a
"wanker"). People throw the word "troll" around at first resort,
without thinking, without stopping to consider that it may or may not be
appropriate.
More serious than this is the fact that many people, including those who
presumably are quite well-respected on Wikipedia, don't even know what a
troll *is*. Jeff Raymond's "trolling" was nothing more than criticising
the Cabal (he did more than that, but it was for this crime that he was
dubbed Sir Troll); do we want to see blocks like his more frequently? Why?
Not every critic is a troll. Heck, not every *vexatious* critic is a
troll (sometimes a chap is annoying because he's right and you don't
want to admit it). Until we can reliably distinguish critics from
trolls, we should run screaming from your proposal as fast as our skinny
little wikilegs can carry us.
In sum the first thing that needs to be done is
to lower the bar for
trolling tolerance. Second drop the vote approach.
In two words: Hell, no. Step *away* from the Big Red Button, before
someone gets hurt.
Cheers,
--
Mark Gallagher
"'Yes, sir,' said Jeeves in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten
in the leg by a personal friend."
- P G Wodehouse, /Carry On, Jeeves/
"Heck, not every *vexatious* critic is a
troll (sometimes a chap is annoying because he's right and you don't
want to admit it)."
But it's sure nice to have a once-size-fits-all word to throw down at
those vexatious ones.
It's been overdone for a long time.
I've never looked up the meaning of troll, in the cyber
toss-down-the-guantlet sense. I'd always assumed it was the Swedish
bogey-man troll, but I guess it must mean the fishing troll. It's
hard to tell, with the way the word is tossed into a conversation by
anyone frustrated for something to say.
The WP article on trolling is pure doo-doo, when fisheries are a major
news item. Not a single mention of the dangers of tuna trolling--the
most deadly commercial fishing experience. I'll see what I can do,
without inserting what I think should happen to people who go out with
the intent of en masse killing of the blue god Thunnus thynnus. Any
on-list fishermen/women might take a look at the article, too.
Wikipedia still has too many articles in desperate need of work for
its editors and admins to be so cavalier with name calling. (Hes and
Stan will wonder if that's just a plug for my favorite investigator of
lesser known kingdoms--probably.) Shouting troll to close an argument
should be seen for what it is: not an attempt to get rid of
inappropriate dialogue, but an attempt to close dialogue. The
articles are better when dialogue resolves issues, not when bullying
and name-calling resolves issues.
George, good comments about the need for a little PR-consciousness
raising on Wikipedia. Being a little more aware of how others look at
the random community creating one of the top sites on the web is
important.
KP