Daniel Mayer wrote:
On Tuesday 13 August 2002 08:24 pm, Ed wrote:
I looked some of Ark's comments on Talk:Infanticide, and he sure seems upset about something. I'm going to see if I can engage him in dialogue, and see if I can figure out why he feels he must use language like the following snippets:
- my lazy opponents ... you lazy bums ...
- I don't accept the judgement of idiots. ... I am dealing with morons ...
living in denial * I'll say what conclusions can be supported from the evidence (which I don't feel the least need to spell out ...)
Perhaps he (she?) doesn't realize how hurtful such words can be, to other contributors.
Perhaps. I think it is morely likely Ark has experienced how hurtful such attitudes can be and feels turnabout is fair play. How can we, the Wikipedia community, ask he/she to forgive and forget past transgressions and focus on the friendly assertive dialogue so necessary to building a correct consensus view regarding article content and phrasing; if we are incapable of ignoring current trangressions or heated hurtful rhetoric?
Ed Poor
Ed please try, but be advised that I have already spent /many/ hours trying to do the exact same thing (although you do seem better at this type of thing than me).
I have asked nice; that didn't work
In an anarchy he/she is as sovereign as we are.
I have pleaded; that didn't work
See above.
I have suggested that his rhetoric is harming the project; that didn't work
Perhaps his/her personal assessement is different.
I have stated that his rhetoric is a violation of our etiquette policy; that didn't work either
This is incorrect.
We have suggested guidelines, not enforceable policies. The single exception to date (that I am aware of) is the posting of material perceived by others as physical threats. If Ark has read the guidelines then your statement merely diminishes your credibility or the Wikipedia community's. Either you do not know what you are talking about or the community has failed to accurately articulate the governing guidelines.
Hmmm ... that sounds a bit like 24's early wild allegations, before moving on to productive personal attacks, flame wars, and ultimately temporary banning .... erroneously mutating into a long term ban.
The guidelines explicitly state do as you please, serene in the prospect of others editing your work to suit themselves and eventually the community at large.
The sole remedy laid out by the existing guidelines to poor material is editing. Banning is not mentioned for the heinous crime of being in flagrant disagreement with others.
I have even stated that if he did not play nice and continued to sap the energy of other contributors that his actions will have to be reviewed by the mailing list and he may be blocked from editing;
Exlicitly threatening he/she with the nonexistent cabal.
That warning obviously hasn't been headed.
Implying that you have authority to issue such a warning.
I personally give up and say we should issue one final warning and then test the block user function if that warning is also ignored. This person is not at all worth loosing any valued and long time contributor over. Wasn't the fact that we tolerate stuff like this (the amature and persistant POV stuff Ark does, not the rhetoric) the reason why Michael Tinkler left the project?
Retaining long time contributors is a poor reason to block other contributors. This approach guarantees built in bias and makes a mockery of the NPOV guidelines we currently embrace. How can we present all views, appropriately tagged and merged into an overall NPOV presentation, if only material from the current majority view is available?
If it means loosing somebody like Ark to keep somebody like Michael, then I say we should have some, but limited tolerance for the Ark's of the world.
If it means losing newcomers to keep long time contributors, then I say we should tolerate some stodgy appeal to long time authority and seniority, but stop far short of a closed union shop. After all, we already have some contributions from the long time regulars. Better to get some fresh thought and blood into the project occasionally.
Best of all would be to improve our methods such that strange esoteric (to long time regulars) views or incorrect materials are not so threatening to the perceived quality of the Wikipedia and the reputation of Wikipedians associated with the project.
regards, Mike Irwin aka mirwin