On Fri, 22 Nov 2002, tarquin wrote:
This gives me a thought: maybe we should all of us spend a week or so cleaning up ALL talk pages that have arguments, particularly the long-resolved stuff. Maybe these play a significant part in *not* conveying the impression that we play nicely here.
We could begin here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/How_to_destroy_Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_commentary/Responses_to_How_to_Destr...
I don't believe those pages have been refactored and I'm sure some people would object if they were. In fact, if we're *really* interested in cleaning up divisive pages that convey the impression that we don't play nicely, what would we do with this page?
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/Bias_Talk
A number of listmembers will find quotations from themselves on that page. Perhaps Cunc wants it known that people don't play nicely with him; but he never has explained why he has such a page, when no one else does. He also fails to supply the context that explains why he has elicited the reactions that he has, which isn't exactly nice itself.
(What if *I* were to put up such a page of quotations critical of me? How would you react? What if we *all*, each one of us, maintained a page listing all quotations that were critical of us? That doesn't sound like it would be a civilizing influence.)
If we were *really* serious about making Wikipedia more civil, we would demonstrate that we have the maturity and courage to talk about such problems openly and seriously--and then finally committing ourselves to burying the hatchet.
Cunc's pages aren't particularly important, of course. They're just an example of a festering issue that is easily glossed over in calls for civility and kindness. There are usually legitimate if not fully exculpating reasons for nastiness of all sorts on the website, and mere calls to cooperate will not solve them. Actually talking about them openly, however, might. Hopefully, such conversation could itself be done with civility.
I really would look forward to an atmosphere in which participants *actually did* show respect for each other. That might actually might persuade *me* to participate more again!
Larry