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(a)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(a)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(a)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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