[WikiEN-l] Re: issues

[Michael Snow]

Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>As for Jimbo's comment (he apparently doesn't know the full story) that I
>should have used the mailing list, I have had nothing but trouble with the
>mailing list.  I'm not even sure if this will go through.  The mailing list
>is a terrible place to run a wiki.  The wiki should be run on the wiki
>itself.
>
>Instead of inserting a conclusion here, I'm going to take another day or
>more to think about things first.  I'm seriously disturbed by the hypocrisy
>of this organisation right now.
>
Jimbo can't always be expected to investigate every dispute, and there's 
nothing wrong with his suggestion that people try the mailing list in 
this kind of situation. It's not the only option, but plenty of options 
are better than provoking an edit war to make a point. The thing is, 
trying these options takes time, and apparently some people lack the 
patience and self-discipline to wait more than a few minutes to 
accomplish what they want.

Part of the problem is that quite a few people (Anthony is certainly not 
the only one - others have been debated here on the list as well) seem 
to feel perfectly justified in violating the 3-revert guideline. Not 
only do they blatantly exceed the limit, but in most of these cases they 
don't even pause before crossing the line. They make no attempt to get 
more of the community involved, which is the only way consensus can 
develop when issues are contested. Instead, they should be trying a 
number of other options, of which posting to the mailing list is merely 
one. There is also IRC, contacting other users who are on the wiki at 
the time (especially those who have edited the article before), 
mediation, [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment]], etc. I might entertain an 
argument that more than 3 reverts can be justified, but _never_ if you 
haven't tried other means of dealing with the situation first.

What's really appalling is that in many instances, not even the talk 
page of the disputed article is being used. The only communication going 
on is through edit summaries, and since those typically consist of "rv", 
accusations of vandalism, snide remarks, or the pre-filled edit summary 
from an admin using the rollback button, it's worse than useless.

--Michael Snow