uninvited(a)nerstrand.net wrote:
Probably the best example is an accurate, though
perhaps poorly worded
and misplaced summary of a fact that already appears elsewhere in the
article. Such prose can't be improved or rewritten, because it already
exists in the article in the proper place with the appropriate wording.
There is nothing useful to be done but revert the change, even though it
was done in good faith and was factually sound, and even perhaps
well-referenced.
An edit summary of "remove redundant information" seems quite adequate
and appropriate for this situation. I don't think the point would be
difficult to get across, even if the other person's editing skills are
sub-optimal.
That being said, I grant that there are cases where bad editors are also
too dense to realize that they're bad editors.
Because we emphasize being welcoming, it's very difficult for us to
reverse direction and suddenly tell someone that their contributions are
not helpful. ("Sorry, but when we said anyone can edit, we didn't mean
you.") However, I think if someone consistently degrades certain
articles, it would be appropriate to ask them not to edit those
articles. This could be handled through arbitration or perhaps some
alternative to the current dispute resolution process. In doing this, we
should still avoid getting into the substantive content of the article;
the focus would be on poor writing.
An incremental approach of taking people off particular articles is less
drastic and leaves them free to make more helpful edits elsewhere. Those
that are particularly attached to their material would have a powerful
incentive to retrain themselves, since we don't have time to be their
writing tutors. However, if someone gets asked off of a number of
articles, then at some point we would need to look at asking them not to
edit any more. Incidentally, I would still very much like to see a
per-article blocking feature.
--Michael Snow