[WikiEN-l] Please, no more personal attacks

[Jimmy Wales]

Fred Bauder wrote:
> Tannin, 172, and Jtdirl exhibit a common pattern of partisan
> behavior, of left wing historical revisionism, of deleting blocks of
> factual material that does not meet their ideological criteria.

It would be more helpful if you could give a link to a specific diff,
so that we could see for ourself that "oh, in such-and-such a case,
this person deleted this block of text, when they probably should have
just edited it to remove bias".

> My method of dealing with a group like this is just to treat them
> for most purposes as a single individual and accord them no more
> respect than I would to any single individual with a couple of
> puppets dangling from his hands.

I think it would be much better to take a deep breath and bow our
heads momentarily out of respect for the gift that someone else has
given us by writing on the topic at all.  We may not agree, but we can
respect that they have reasons for what they have written, and we can
accept our humble responsibility to join with them to make the article
better.

Feeling a lack of respect for others is not usually conducive to
level-headed thinking about how to make the article change so that it
is acceptable to us both.

> The holocaust was real, people who say it was real are telling the
> truth.  When I make a link to [[mass murder]] in an article on the
> [[communist state]] I'm not making something up.

I agree.  In this case, both sides have a responsibility to come to
the table with fresh new ideas.  How can that part of the article be
changed so that both sides will be able to view it as neutral?

> Those who would delete any mention of [[Tiananmen Square]] from the
> article on [[China]] cover themselves with shame.

I agree completely that an article on [[China]] needs to have a
mention of [[Tiananmen Square]].  What reasons were given for omitting
it?

> The abuse comes in when anyone who happens to not accept the group
> product tries to edit it and the whole bunch jumps on them. That
> would be unacceptable and not worthy of respect.

I do agree with you completely.  If a group of people are working
on something, and if they all tend to agree on a particular worldview,
then it's undoubtably helpful to them if someone with a different
perspective comes in to review the article.  The individuals in the
group, and the individual coming to the article, BOTH have some
responsibilities, of course...

1.  The newcomer should be kind and thoughtful with changes, making
minor changes to wording whenever possible, rather than wholesale
delections.

2.  The group should avoid being defensive about their work, and even
if the newcomer is wrong in some way, try to accomodate what is good
in what they are doing.

-----

One view of the wiki process is _competitive_, i.e. we each work to
insert our own bias into articles, either subtly in order to fly under
the radar or blatantly in order to have a bargaining chip in the
ensuing melee.  ("If I write that Noam Chomsky is a deranged
psychopath, they'll go ballistic, but then I'll be well fixed to offer
the 'compromise' that Noam Chomsky is an advocate of genocide.")

But a better view, the proper view, is to view the process as
_cooperative_.  We each work to eliminate our own bias in articles,
trying to help others make a presentation that's satisfactory to us
all.  ("Hmmm, this article is all praise for Noam Chomsky, but fails
to acknowledge that many people have been sharply critical of his
positions over the years.  I'll insert something to that effect,
couched as carefully as possible so as to not reveal that I personally
think that he's a deranged psychopath.")

--Jimbo