Let's stop pussyfooting around over this issue. If you're going to quote remarks that you think are an indication of increased incivility you should provide links to them; let people decide for themselves if a comment, even if rude, was an appropriate response to preceding discussion and remarks.
Otherwise you're going to have repeats of the current situation where some jobsworth has forwarded the issue on to other mailing lists and people will be throwing up their hands in horror and condemning people when they haven't a clue about the circumstances under which a comment was made.
Brian.
-----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of bawolff Sent: 06 February 2009 01:23 To: Wikinews mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Increased incivility at wikinews [en] <warning:contains rant>
First off, sorry - my email was far from being well thought out, and I apologize if it seems as if I was singling you out.
However I still think such behavior is not appropriate. And no, I do not mean swearing, I am referring to the content of messages. For example: "But no, you've gotta be an asshole just like always" is not offensive because you used the word asshole, it is offensive because you're implying the other person is being disruptive and shows bad judgement currently, and on a regular basis. It is a dirrect attack on the other person's personality. I don't know if you meant it like that, but if you did it is simply not an effective way to solve a dispute, and if it wasn't - I'm really not sure what else you could of meant by that, but regardless it is an inappropriate thing to say to someone else either way.
Administrators are, for better or worse, the standard of what is appropriate, and as such should be careful to set a good example. I am concerned that such incivility will only lead to more incivility, resentment and grudges, until eventually wikinews will no longer be a friendly place to edit.
-bawolff
p.s. Again I would like to apologize for my previous email. Although I do believe that there are issues that should be worked out here, it was inappropriate of me to target SGN in my previous email, while implying I wasn't targeting anyone. Although that partly happened because that was something that was currently happening, and thus it was easy to pull examples from, that's still not an excuse. Sorry.
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Jon wiki@konsoletek.com wrote:
ROFLCOPTER. Ah, thanks for that Bawolff, that made for a good laugh this morning.
I'd like to take this brief moment to point out that if these are random samplings, then apparently I'm the devil of EN.Wikinews, because 3 of the
4
comments are me (For the kids playing along at home, you can try the
"Guess
which comment _isn't SGN" game. I'll give you a hint, look for rampant swearing). Another factoid is that all 4 of these comments came from just
2
threads. The even funnier and less statistically random part of these selected entries, is that all 4 of them are directed at the same user. I won't name names, because frankly everyone already knows who and why.
So to the topic at hand. Was my commentary rude? Probably (In fact
someone
did leave me an incivility note about one of the threads). Was it
uncalled
for? I don't think so. I will apologize for swearing, but I won't
apologize
for being human and having emotions. Yes, I go off the handle on
occasion,
I try to play nicely, but sometimes it happens. I generally apologize afterwards.
In the same respects I've seen others of us "go off" for one reason or another around the wiki and around IRC. We're all human (ok, at least
most
of us are) and we all have certain things that make us angry. I've had other users go off on me, and I don't expect them to be banned because of it. Once everyone is calmed down, everything is back to normal.
Oh, and lastly to address your subject line, that we have rising
incivility,
I really don't think so. Granted I don't have years of experience with Wikinews to draw on. But from what I've seen about the wiki, it is no
worse
than it was 6 months ago, and no worse and any other wiki. And really, you can't pull this commentary out of context and say "It's ok to pull it out
of
context" because it's not. Context gives meaning to everything. IMHO for the one comment that wasn't me, what was done to the user that wrote that was far worse (and FAR FAR FAR more discouraging) than what that user
wrote
back in reply.
-Jon "The Devil of EN.WN"
[[User:ShakataGaNai]]
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 21:34, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
[I happened to stumble upon what appears to be an aftermath of an edit war, and am quite disgusted by it. The following is basically a rant about it, as I'm not really sure how best to bring it up]
I've recently noticed a marked increased in incivility between contributors on Wikinews. I find this really disturbing as it is often between admins who one would think know better. For example (And I'm not trying to pick on anyone, these are just some random ones i came across):
*"But no, you've gotta be an asshole just like always" *"A small amount of brain activity would lead to the presumption that someone in my position knows what they're doing" *"I suggest you get the fuck off your high horse or get the fuck out of dodge" *"they are _MY_ comment sections and _I_ can write what ever the hell _I_ want."
Now, I know I am taking these out of context, but to be blunt I don't care if the context was responding to poop vandalism - It is incredibly inappropriate for admins to say these things under any circumstances. If these were new users making these comments, they would have been blocked in the neighborhood of 2 weeks to a year, maybe even indefinitely.
How can we really expect to recruit and retain new contributors, when this is how the long time contributors are treated?
-Bawolff
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