<<In a message dated 4/2/2009 5:18:23 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, carcharothwp@googlemail.com writes:
Will, look at the example I provided earlier in this thread. Established editors and admins were blindly reverting vandalism and leaving an article in a state of previous vandalism. How do you begin to address that problem?>>
You don't address it by allowing any admin who got their badge knowing next to nothing about NOR (as many don't) do remove the right of established users who have been in-project ten times longer than they. I will never, not ever, agree to giving admins extra powers. They already have several powers they should not have in my opinion. The idea behind admins, imho, was supposed to be that they are helpful janitors clearning up messes, not theat they were thought police enforcing the boundary line with clubs.
If we want to create new powers, then we need perhaps new categories of user. For those users who do not want to be police, but are quite willing to enhance the content of the project, we should create a parallel track, not a subordinate one. No matter what anyone states, if a reviewer's right can be removed at the whim (yes whim) of any admin, then reviewers are subordinate to admins. They should not be.
Will Johnson
**************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10 or less. (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000001)
Personally I could agree that the power to "remove reviewer right" could be restricted to some special class of user, but only if the power to "grant reviewer right" is subject to even more scrutiny.
If reviewer right is wrongly removed - we'll have the internal problem of an upset editor (big deal? not - get over it!), however if it is granted to someone who misuses it then it breaches our quality control and can damage living people.
I really have little sympathy for those more concerned about internal power structures or egalitarian principles in wikiland, that how what we do impacts on the reader, and more importantly the bio subject who is the victim of our structural carelessness.
WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
<<In a message dated 4/2/2009 5:18:23 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, carcharothwp@googlemail.com writes:
Will, look at the example I provided earlier in this thread. Established editors and admins were blindly reverting vandalism and leaving an article in a state of previous vandalism. How do you begin to address that problem?>>
You don't address it by allowing any admin who got their badge knowing next to nothing about NOR (as many don't) do remove the right of established users who have been in-project ten times longer than they. I will never, not ever, agree to giving admins extra powers. They already have several powers they should not have in my opinion. The idea behind admins, imho, was supposed to be that they are helpful janitors clearning up messes, not theat they were thought police enforcing the boundary line with clubs.
If we want to create new powers, then we need perhaps new categories of user. For those users who do not want to be police, but are quite willing to enhance the content of the project, we should create a parallel track, not a subordinate one. No matter what anyone states, if a reviewer's right can be removed at the whim (yes whim) of any admin, then reviewers are subordinate to admins. They should not be.
Will Johnson
**************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10 or less. (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000001) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
doc wrote:
Personally I could agree that the power to "remove reviewer right" could be restricted to some special class of user, but only if the power to "grant reviewer right" is subject to even more scrutiny.
If reviewer right is wrongly removed - we'll have the internal problem of an upset editor (big deal? not - get over it!), however if it is granted to someone who misuses it then it breaches our quality control and can damage living people.
In other words it seems that you feel that it's worth it to punish the innocent to soothe your paranoia that some stranger might do damage.
I really have little sympathy for those more concerned about internal power structures or egalitarian principles in wikiland, that how what we do impacts on the reader, and more importantly the bio subject who is the victim of our structural carelessness.
I guess that's what makes your concern for internal power structures and my concern for egalitarian principles so different. It may have escaped your attention that most of us who have stuck around for a long time do support steadily improving quality, and can do so without becoming such obsessives. No matter what we do there will always be a residue of problematic articles. With the law of diminishing returns it is a matter of determining when the cure becomes more harmful than the problem being attacked.
Ec
There are few active people here who have not made that mistake, at least once or twice; the only way to have no errors is to have no encyclopedia.
What we are out to do is produce the most accurate encyclopedia that can be produced by our methods--and it is already much more accurate than anyone would have suspected beforehand, knowing the chaotic way in which it was to be edited. Some people join because they see errors and want to correct them; others join because they see surprisingly good things and want to add to them-- that was my personal reason.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 2:51 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
<<In a message dated 4/2/2009 5:18:23 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, carcharothwp@googlemail.com writes:
Will, look at the example I provided earlier in this thread. Established editors and admins were blindly reverting vandalism and leaving an article in a state of previous vandalism. How do you begin to address that problem?>>
You don't address it by allowing any admin who got their badge knowing next to nothing about NOR (as many don't) do remove the right of established users who have been in-project ten times longer than they. I will never, not ever, agree to giving admins extra powers. They already have several powers they should not have in my opinion. The idea behind admins, imho, was supposed to be that they are helpful janitors clearning up messes, not theat they were thought police enforcing the boundary line with clubs.
If we want to create new powers, then we need perhaps new categories of user. For those users who do not want to be police, but are quite willing to enhance the content of the project, we should create a parallel track, not a subordinate one. No matter what anyone states, if a reviewer's right can be removed at the whim (yes whim) of any admin, then reviewers are subordinate to admins. They should not be.
Will Johnson
**************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10 or less. (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000001) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
This is a fallacy.
That the only way to make sure no cancer ever enters my body is to destroy every cell within it - is not an argument against ever using chemotherapy or carrying out a hysterectomy.
"What we are here to do is to produce the most accurate encyclopedia that can be produced" - agreed "by our methods" - yes and no
What if a more accurate encyclopedia could, in fact be produced, by modifying our methods at points?
Our method - open editing, inclusionism and evantualism are certainly the great engine that has made the encyclopedia possible - but like all engines you sometimes need gears (and breaks) if you want to move to a particular destination. We regularly block, protect and delete - those are breaks and gears. Wikipedia should always be open to using more or less of these as required to manoeuvre.
Dogmatic puritanism, and hang the consequences is as unattractive here as it is with any society of zealous true believers.
Wikipedia exists in the real world, has real power, and with that power comes responsibility too. It is time for Wikipedians to grow up.
Scott MacDonald PhD etc.
David Goodman wrote:
There are few active people here who have not made that mistake, at least once or twice; the only way to have no errors is to have no encyclopedia.
What we are out to do is produce the most accurate encyclopedia that can be produced by our methods--and it is already much more accurate than anyone would have suspected beforehand, knowing the chaotic way in which it was to be edited. Some people join because they see errors and want to correct them; others join because they see surprisingly good things and want to add to them-- that was my personal reason.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
David Goodman wrote:
There are few active people here who have not made that mistake, at least once or twice; the only way to have no errors is to have no encyclopedia.
This is a logical fallacy.
That the only way to make sure no cancer ever enters my body is to destroy every living cell within it - is not an argument against ever using chemotherapy or carrying out a hysterectomy.
What we are out to do is produce the most accurate encyclopedia that can be produced by our methods--
You said "What we are here to do is to produce the most accurate encyclopedia that can be produced" - agreed "by our methods" - yes and no
What if a more accurate encyclopedia could, in fact, be produced by modifying our methods at points?
Our method - open editing, inclusionism and evantualism are certainly the great engine that has made the encyclopedia possible - but like all engines you sometimes need gears (and breaks) if you want to move to a particular destination. We regularly block, protect and delete - those are breaks and gears. Wikipedia should always be open to using more or less of these as required to manoeuvre.
Dogmatic puritanism, and hang the consequences is as unattractive here as it is with any society of zealous true believers.
and it is already much more accurate than anyone would have suspected beforehand, knowing the chaotic way in which it was to be edited. Some people join because they see errors and want to correct them; others join because they see surprisingly good things and want to add to them-- that was my personal reason.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
Wikipedia exists in the real world, has real power, and with that power comes responsibility too.
Some errors are fine. Wikipedia is a work in progress. However, untamed eventualism is not a suitable doctrine for BLP.
Scott MacDonald PhD etc.