[WikiEN-l] Please, try to be kind to one another.

[Daniel Mayer]

>His text was everything you say it is -- 
>POV, and in the wrong location (at best), 
>and partly false (perhaps).  And yet, I think 
>that it's worthwhile for everyone (especially 
>Fred, but others, too) to take stock of how 
>this might have been handled more amicably.
>
>--Jimbo

I agree. I also tried to moderate the tone on that
talk page but I gave up. Throwing around terms like
"vandal" to describe Fred is, IMO, over the top and
greatly cheapens the word. A certain very longtime
user throws that word around all the time to describe
what he sees as anti-Israeli/Jew POV and the result is
that, I at least, don't take his "vandalism" claims
too seriously anymore (I also tend to stay away from
articles that he edits - lest I become labeled a
vandal). It is also a red herring that diverts
attention away from discussing what to do with POV
text (which can often be made acceptable by
attributing POV and moving it to another section or
even article). The result of name-calling like that is
often a war between egos AND NOT a discussion about
improving the disputed text. This makes compromising
very difficult and it makes it near impossible for the
person labeled a "vandal" to agree with his accusers
that his text was not at all appropriate to begin with
(since by agreeing with that he also implicitly agrees
to being a "vandal").

And since when is an article supposed to be limited to
one POV (in this case the "political science
definition")? If there are other valid POVs on what
the term means then those POVs should be included in a
neutral and fair way (per our NPOV policy). Fred was
just adding what he thought was valid explanatory text
that described the characteristics of a communist
state. This text is, IMO, is a bit biased against
communist states and is also misplaced (it is really
about the characteristics of totalitarian states). But
this is a difference of opinion and NOT vandalism. 

If 10% of the effort put into writing kilobyte after
kilobyte of text slamming Fred on the communist state
talk page and this mailing list where put into
improving Fred's text and moving it to a more
appropriate page, then Wikipedia would have a great
article on totalitarian states. But instead we have a
talk page (and two archives!) that would be right at
home in the archives of USENET flame wars.

Also, saying that you putting forth "ironic mockery"
is a cop-out for bad behavior; it is difficult enough
to properly express those types of language and
cultural subtleties in emails to close friends who are
familiar with you, your culture and the way you
express yourself (and who have the same or similar
disposition/temperament). On a mixed list like this,
with people from different cultures, dispositions and
different levels of mastery of English, it is not
possible to be both "ironic" and "mocking" without
coming across as petulant or even mean-spirited. I
know that I'm guilty of being rude at times too, but I
almost always give a real apology after I have my
hissy-fit.  

I for one am sick of the low level of discourse on
many talk pages, this list and especially edit
summaries. Talk pages can be archived and forgotten
but we should think about how edit wars will look in a
page's history a month, year, decade or more after the
event. Screaming summaries like "PLEASE BAN FRED
BAUDER FOR CONTINUOUS VANDALISM OF THIS ARTICLE. HIS
VANDALISM HAS HAD TO BE REVERTED NEARLY 20 TIMES HERE.
HE HAS DONE THE SAME ELSEWHERE " can only be answered
by other screaming summaries - and all that is part of
the page forever. 

I feel that Wikipedia is a very important project and
that one day there will be historians and
ethnographers mining our page histories, talk pages
and mailing lists to see what made us tick as a
virtual society. So we should all think to ourselves
about what type of legacy we want to leave behind. 

Please, try to be kind to one another.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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