|From: Oliver Pereira omp199@ecs.soton.ac.uk |X-ECS-MailScanner: Found to be clean |Sender: wikien-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org |Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 01:35:28 +0000 (GMT) | |On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Tom Parmenter (Ortolan88) wrote: | |> Look at what he she or it has contributed to [[Talk:Isaac Asimov]], |> dragging people into debates over pointless subjects, subtly shifting |> ground from one tiny truism to another while everyone else fumes, |> engaging in look-at-me-I'm-horrible ploys, and generally poisoning the |> well. So I don't want to drink from it. | |I don't want to get involved in any discussion right now about the merits |or otherwise of Vera Cruz's edits, but here is one of my conclusions from |the Isaac Asimov argument. | |As a general matter of principle, I think that any Wikipedian should be |prepared to back up any of their additions - if specifically asked to by |another Wikipedian - by pointing to some reference source. I do not think |that saying that "everybody except you agrees", which some people (not |Ortolan88, I hasten to add) were doing, is at all acceptable as a |response. Of course, people will not always have their references to hand, |but they can always just say on the Talk page that they will check. Then, |once they have a reference, they can put their addition back in, with the |reference. Just reverting things back and forth doesn't help anyone. If |someone is not able (or simply refuses) to back up an addition to an |article, then they should not complain about it being removed. Otherwise, |the Wikipedia will never be a reliable reference source, as it will always |contain unsubstantiated statements. | |I also think that removed sections should always be placed on the relevant |Talk page, with a note saying why it was removed. It's quite tiresome |having to look through an article's history to find out what people have |removed, and since there are often no comments explaining the removal, I |never know whether I should just put the sections back in or not. | |As I say, I don't want to get into an argument about Vera Cruz's edits, |but do let me know if you disagree with my general principle! | |Oliver |
I certainly agree with this, both with the principles pronounced and with the suggested practices. However, I have to add two points:
1 -People just plain get tired of arguing over and over as the ground shifts beneath their feet, as, in this case, a discussion of "the best known short story" turns almost undetectably into a discussion of "the best known work in any genre" and they lose their manners and good sense sometimes.
2 -Vera Cruz *never* documents or justifies his her or its changes in any way and trolls just as hard in the talk pages as in the article.
Tom P. O88