--- "steven l. rubenstein" rubenste@ohiou.edu wrote:
...2) what appears to be a personal attack on the part of Adam Carr is simply an example of how members of the community, acting in their anarchic, unregulated way, try to protect the quality of articles after reasonable, polite efforts have failed.
(..merging two posts...)
If an editor is obstructing improvement of the article, or is damaging the article, we need an effective mechanism to deal with that problem, directly.
Would none of the measures in [[Wikipedia:Resolving disputes]] have been appropriate in this instance? For example, quantifying consensus via a vote, requesting sanctions against a user who flouts consensus...etc. I'm not convinced Adam Carr was placed in a situation where he had no other choice but to be rude in order to maintain the quality of the article.
In any case, becoming abusive is a completely ineffectual tactic in these situations -- it's only likely to exacerbate the situation. Moreover, for third parties, it muddies the waters about who is in the "right" in a dispute: at first glance, it's very tempting to favour the side of whoever sounds calm, measured and rational, regardless of the substance of the debate itself.
--Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]
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