Because by reacting harshly you create IP-vandals. -----Original Message----- From: larsen.thomas.h <larsen.thomas.h(a)gmail.com> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:29 am Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How to raise the tone of the wiki Hi all, I personally believe that the only solution to the problem of incivil users is to warn them once and, if their incivility continues, block them permanently. Serious incivility and egregrious personal attacks should be met with an indefinite block immediately. Harsh, perhaps, but every uncivil contributor degrades the reputation of Wikipedia and deters many potentially helpful people from expressing their thoughts and engaging constructively. I realise that this might be considered against Wikipedia's principles of assuming good faith, in which case, I say, these principles should be rejected. Why be nice to trolls and scare away newcomers? Of course, these standards should be applied equally to all contributors—ranging from anonymous-IP contributors to well-known administrators and stewards. —Thomas Larsen _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 11:33 PM, larsen.thomas.h <larsen.thomas.h(a)gmail.com You're wrong. "Uncivil" is a vague term and someone might just be having a bad day or two (or three). No need to react harshly. -- Alex (User:Majorly)

That only works Thomas when editors have full awareness. That is, other editors have to know what is happening *over here* to *this other* editor. And they just don't. None of us have a full awareness of the project. So acting harshly to one editor is not going to address the behaviour of someone else because that someone else does not see those actions. Nor do they see the reasoning behind them. Even people who live in-project get mainly only a superficial view of a lot of situations. I really don't see a civility problem today any larger than one we had three years ago. Maybe there is some kind of metric which exists like "number of civility templates slapped up" or something, but I don't know it. You don't stop terrorism by executing terrorists. We are always going to have editors calling each other idiots. We already have an way to deal with that in-project. We have templates and time-outs and so on. I'm not seeing why there is a call for anything stronger than what we already do. Will -----Original Message----- From: larsen.thomas.h <larsen.thomas.h(a)gmail.com> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 3:48 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How to raise the tone of the wiki having a Nobody should be editing Wikipedia if they are having such a "bad day" that they are unable to retain their composure and remain polite and friendly. Harsher reactions to incivility would lead to people thinking twice before posting inflammatory comments—surely, a good thing. Some people might not like politeness and friendliness, of course, and might leave the community, but that is also surely a good thing. —Thomas Larsen _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 12:00 AM, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net>wrote;wrote: "You know it when you see it" - that's vague enough for me! Often people don't know they're having a bad day, and may respond more harshly than they would normally. Not their fault, it's human nature. -- Alex (User:Majorly)

And the point here is not about "fighting with a policeman". The point is that two people often fight with *each other*, and when the police are called, they examine both people and provided there are no bruises or broken bones, they basically tell them to cool it and stay apart. They don't take them to prison, and they don't exile them from the island. -----Original Message----- From: Alvaro García <alvareo(a)gmail.com> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:28 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How to raise the tone of the wiki Oh yeah. And if someone, in real life, goes and starts fighting with a policeman for some reason, well, maybe he's having a bad day, let him go! -- Alvaro On 13-02-2009, at 1:02, Al Tally <majorly.wiki(a)googlemail.com> wrote: an nature. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Well, short of things like homicide, we can tolerate it for a day, and try to fix up the damage & counsel the offender. What we should stop tolerating is when it becomes repeated consistently over many months or years. On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 4:38 PM, Alvaro García <alvareo(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

I think Alvaro the distinction that we should draw is between "incivility" which may be a one-off, or even a once-per-week, versus "disruptive behaviour". It's not cut-and-dry, it's not an easy call and often people make the wrong call. If I'm antagonized I will respond. Parents might punish both children involved in a fight, judges have to decide if maybe one person was "more wrong" then the other. Deciding that it's OK to "indefinite ban" a type of behaviour that previously resulted in something like a 12 hour block is a bit Draconian. -----Original Message----- From: Alvaro García <alvareo(a)gmail.com> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 1:38 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How to raise the tone of the wiki Maybe my example's not too clear, but my point is you can't justify trolling nor excessive arguing with "Hey, let's be nice with him, he's having a bad day". That way the world would be in a massive chaos. -- Alvaro

2009/2/13 Al Tally <majorly.wiki(a)googlemail.com>om>: There's also people's tendency to be liberal in what they send out and conservative in what they accept. I remember one person moving to ban sarcasm from Wikipedia project space. He was inspired to this when someone responded sarcastically to him comparing them to Hitler. - d.

George, this is often why I wonder if a person in this medium would say the exact same words to the person if they were with them in-person, face to face. Marc

Too late. I have been watching Alex for some time now and I'm very disturbed. In fact I've alerted the FBI, the CIA, MI-6 and the Illuminati. I'm quite certain that Alex will shortly find himself confined in a very small room somewhere several hundred feet under a mundane gray building. Will -----Original Message----- From: Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 7:01 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How to raise the tone of the wiki <larsen.thomas.h(a)gmail.com on 2/12/09 6:36 PM, Al Tally at majorly.wiki(a)googlemail.com wrote: having a Alex, with posts like this, you are teaching us who to watch. Marc _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Rather like a police force growing fat and corrupt, their members exempt from parking and speeding tickets. There are a great many superb admins, hard-working, pleasant, polite. And there are a few who are not, who delight in their position, with some remarkably snarky behaviour, knowing that no wikicop is ever going to do more than gently chide them. I'd like to see standards enforced from the top down, rather from the bottom up. -- Peter in Canberra

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Spangled_Banner.ogg In a-cappella ("instrument free") mode, I tend to rewrite tunes, too. I think I hav heard Star Spangled Banner sung this way at the beginning and the end. Could be my imajination. My middle is different from the usual, especially "gallantly screening". I looked around for MIDIs. All three that I found were more repetitive, and with a different beat than I remember. You are welcome to match what I sing. Girls might hav trouble matching my Bayse if they are Soprano. Mechanical experiments can be made if you make something up. Is no try. Do or do not. --Yoda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spoken_Wikipedia/Recordi… I missed the part about putting the license and the source in the recording. If they aren't in the write-up, then I will put them there. One piece of advice that I happily ignore is that if I mess up a take, then I start from the beginning, with a reverse button. I did this one in about ten takes. I will probably write it in terms familiar to me, just in case I want to spend any time south of Calgary and memorize all three, now FOUR, verses. I should put this verse as verse two, then sing them backwards, like I do with O'Canada. Under windows, there is a volume control, and typically there are different controls for recording and playback, plus a selection of devices to record. One way is to pick "Stereo Mixer". That might require a couple takes to get the mix about equal. It has a noise disadvantage, and such recordings can not be used to make real stereo separation. The other way is to pick "mic", so that your recording is isolated from anything you might be listening to. That allows me to synchronize, then mix later, which reminds me of something I should be doing. The lyrics are here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia-spangled_banner