From: <jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk>
This is getting ridiculous. This issue has now generated close to 60 messages. I urge Blair, his detractors and everyone else to stop this discussion.
I apologise for adding to an already overlong debate, but my name has been mentioned many times, motivations have been attributed to me, and I would just like an opportunity to respond to the allegations, and to clear my name. Apart from this one email, I will not post further to this mailing list. Even if Blair responds--and I have no doubt he will--I will not be responding.
Before I begin, may I first thank Blair for his recent attempts to discuss the issues at hand on the Weight Training talk page. I hope that a compromise can be achieved that will be satisfactory to all parties concerned.
The fact is that the first revert was made by Blair, not myself. I'm sorry if this sounds like a kindergarten justification ("he started it", "no he did"), but this fact sheds light on what follows, so please bear with me. Here are Blair's original changes: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11090304&... oldid=11088511
I left the bulk of the changes as they were, and only undid changes to the lead section that I felt removed information, or put in information that had already been disputed by three other editors (Sfahey, Taxman and myself): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11158163&... oldid=11090304
The information that was removed was: * that whether weight training is effective at building strength depends upon how it is done * that weight training provides functional benefits (etc.) only via increases to strength and muscle size * that the progressive overload principle is essential to building strength via weight training
The disputed fact was Blair's assertion that weight training is aerobic if done at a sufficiently low intensity. I explained my reasoning on the talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Weight_training#Article_summary
This was, at least, an opportunity for Blair to discuss the proposed changes, and seek consensus before putting in place an agreed text, but instead he simply reverted my last edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11159169&... oldid=11158163
Why did I revert his revert? Because I didn't want to see one stubborn individual override the consensus that had been achieved by the other interested parties.
Why did I count my reverts (first, second, third) in the edit summaries? Because I didn't want to break the 3RR myself, or give Blair any opportunity to accuse me of doing so. And because I knew that the revert war was futile, since we were both limited by the 3RR, and I wanted to make this fact totally obvious. After my third revert, Blair made the following changes: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11177874&... oldid=11171514
While not exactly the same as his previous edits, this edit implemented all four of the changes that I had discussed on the talk page. I felt that this was an attempt to subvert the 3RR. I therefore flagged it as a possible 3RR violation, while mentioning the fact that the 4 edits were not exactly alike. I left the matter to the discretion of the admins monitoring the 3RR page.
I mentioned the potential 3RR violation to Taxman while asking his advice whether to open an RfC. He suggest not to do so yet, and to "try as hard as you can to see what part of what he has to say is helpful and incorporate those changes." Being an admin Taxman could have blocked Blair at that point, but he chose instead to merely revert once more, and leave it to another admin to block Blair. Taxman's behaviour has been beyond reproach at all times.
After Taxman's last revert, I attempted to create a compromise version that included as many of Blair's grammatical and phrasing changes as possible, but including all of the information that Blair had removed, and without the disputed assertion: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11226439&... oldid=11185482
From: Blair P. Houghton <blair at houghton.net>
It was a trap. GeorgeStepanek accepted almost all of my edits, but only after I was blocked. Clearly he wasn't disagreeing with everything I was saying, he was just
reverting the page to goad me into re-reverting it.
This is simply not true. I did not, and still do not agree with the four changes described above, and that I have discussed at some length on the talk page. I utterly reject the insinuations that I somehow "tricked" Blair into breaking the 3RR. Indeed, by counting the reverts, I was making it as obvious as possible just how many reverts we were each doing.
From: John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com>
If you would stop blabbing about Taxman and George for a minute to understand this, we might get somewhere. Just because they are the aggressors does not give you the right or privilege to go ahead and participate in the fight.
I hope that the above evidence is sufficient to show that I was not "the aggressor" in this "fight". I do not wish to have such aspersions against my name left on the record.
I am aware that this issue has become a political football between those who support the 3RR, and those who oppose it. I do not wish to enter this debate, except to mention some aspects that no-one has yet mentioned:
1. Yes, Cecropia had every right to unblock Blair. But think about it: isn't this just reverting CryptoDerk's actions? What efforts did Cecropia make to discuss the issue with CryptoDerk, and achieve consensus? As the admin community grows, are we going to see more and more "admin revert wars" pitting one admin against another? Isn't this just going to motivate troublemakers to try to exploit differences of opinion between admins?
2. Yes, a 24-hour block is ineffective in itself at resolving ongoing disputes between long-time users. But a 3RR sanction is not ipso facto meaningless in such cases. To compare it to a real-world example, why do we have $50 parking fines if most people can easily spare $50? A sanction like this is effective because it unequivocally conveys the message that you have broken the rules. It also serves as evidence of poor conduct for any future investigation of the dispute.
3. The 3RR prevents edit wars with hundreds of reverts on each side. Does anyone seriously want to go back to that? It's an arbitrary rule, to be sure, but rules help people to work together by clearly indicating where the boundaries of acceptable conduct lie.
4. Does a paraphrase count as a revert? If not, then won't we see edit-warriors adding and removing the same information over and over again in slightly different words? A strict interpretation of the 3RR rule will simply convert revert-wars to paraphrase-wars. It will be just another way to game the system.
5. No-one can build the Wikipedia alone. Indeed, given how hard it is to write to a strict NPOV, I would argue that no-one can even create a single article alone. Jimbo's primary goal--creating an encyclopedia--is impossible without a community that can work together effectively. We should find ways to identify, sanction and eliminate any and all forms of disruptive behaviour, simply because they just stop us from achieving our primary goal.
From: JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com>
Am I the only one who feels that the 3RR is making life harder for admins?
I'm sure you're not the only one, but I feel quite the opposite. More importantly, I think it's made it less likely for regular (i.e. non edit-warrior) editors to be scared away from Wikipedia.
May I note some of Blair's assertions that no-one has yet challenged. He refers to me as one of the "Evil Ones", disparages my appearance and compares my actions to "rape". Is this kind of language and conduct acceptable in Wikipedia?
I have found this dispute to be deeply unpleasant and stressful, and I really do not wish to find myself in this kind of situation again. I am therefore withdrawing from Wikipedia. I will still read articles, and fix typos when I find them, but I will no longer be working seriously on any more Wikipedia articles.
Thank you for reading my comments.
George Stepanek
No, George, the page history shows Sfahey and I were working on it, including one revert that I made on 10 March, then on 11 March you made several edits that removed the facts I'd installed, then on 13 March I edited again, and you reverted it and the actual edit war began.
BTW, the link you posted to what you claim was my first revert went to the last edit on the page. I don't know why and I don't care.
Yes, I compared your actions to a rape, and I explained right along with the comparison why taking that personally would be inane. That you would take it out of context in order to grandstand is telling. Learn the difference between an analogy and an attack.
I was not acting unilaterally, I was imbuing the article with factual truth and including some of the elements of the discussion. I wasn't participating in the discussion initially because I assumed reasonable people would accept the facts. You don't seem to be a reasonable person, preferring to use your revert to try to hold me hostage in the talk page.
Your desire to pretend to be the owner of the page precipitated what followed. Both Dan100 and I have called you on that. I am happy to see that you have taken a step back from the page, but not happy that you spent the time to create this laughable case. You persistently force people into unnecessary discussion of innocuous edits. The fact that you reverted then later included all of my additions, but refused to elide any of yours, is the most telling evidence of all. You just don't understand how Wikipedia works.
And if you don't think that embargoing the truth and twisting the facts and playing politics are less civil than using figurative language to point out someone else's flawed reasoning, then you don't understand yourself.
--Blair