[WikiEN-l] 172

[Stan Shebs]

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

>It is very unfortunate when a talented contributor leaves the project in 
>disgust, and other people consider doing the same. In this case, 172 was bullied 
>off by people who have yet to respond to the content of his arguments beyond 
>some rhetorical ranting about things which are barely relevant to the content at 
>hand. It was done with personal attacks, using terms such as Stalinist, 
>revisionist, totalitarian, etc.
>
Just for the record, the sense in which Fred used "revisionist" is a
well-understood technical term (it's the first of the definitions in
[[revisionism]]), along with "traditionalist" and "post-revisionist".
Cold War specialists describe their own positions relative to these
groupings for instance. It can hardly be construed as a personal
attack by anybody who understands the meaning of the term.

>If the problem was content, then answer his arguments on a point by point 
>basis. If it is his political positioning, then point to where rather than 
>engaging in the same political positioning. Very often, the attacks we make on the 
>foibles of others are a projection of our own foibles. 
>
>
I've spent hour after frustrating hour on talk pages with 172 actually;
when one resolves not to get into edit wars with somebody who has a
habit of reverting (VV is just one of many who 172 has reverted), talk
pages are one's only option. You should review them for yourself before
you start talking about foibles and projection.

>To everyone, I suggest that maybe the time has come to start considering 
>quality over quantity and content over form. If we don't, it seems to me that we 
>will end up with neither.
>
Well, I've spent a bunch of time in the library checking 172's content,
and found some serious problems. Unfortunately, my attempts to discuss
it were so frustrating that I turned away from those articles, and it
now falls to others to fix them.

Stan