[WikiEN-l] Edit war policy meaningless

[Anthony DiPierro]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>So, are we going to do something about edit wars or not? What exactly is  
>page protection going to accomplish if an individual like Wik will engage  
>in an edit war on virtually every page they are involved in? Or per- 
>article bans? Are we going to ban Wik from dozens of articles? Run after  
>him wherever he goes?
>  
>
Page protection accomplishes nothing.  In fact, I'd say if anything it 
encourages edit wars.

>I note on the arbitration for Wik that the consensus among the committee  
>is leaning towards not handling the case of Wik directly because a 24 hour  
>ban policy is *under discussion*.  Well, that policy has been sabotaged  
>for nonsensical reasons which could easily have been addressed by flexible  
>language in the policy itself.
>  
>
Why don't you propose the flexible language?  It seems to me that 
flexible language would make things worse.  Users can already be banned 
for clear vandalism.  There's no need for page protection when a user 
can be banned instead.

>If people like Wik can engage in edit wars without serious consequences,  
>and I on the other hand am attacked for doing what I can to intervene (as  
>in the case of [[McFly]], where I protected the page which Wik had blanked  
>repeatedly and - gasp - edited it afterwards), then it is clear that the  
>Wikipedia community as a whole *wants* edit wars to happen.
>  
>
Speaking for myself, I don't understand what the problem is with edit 
wars in the first place.  The problem isn't the edit wars, the problem 
is the lack of discussion.  That's why I, and many others, support the 
revert guideline, *as a guideline*, but agree that there are cases where 
there simply is nothing to discuss.

Another issue, only tangentially related to edit wars, is what to do 
while a dispute is being resolved.  The general feeling is that the page 
should be kept in the state it was before the dispute until the dispute 
is resolved.  Perhaps this could be made into policy, or at least a 
guideline.  But clearly there are situations where this is not an 
acceptable solution.  For instance, blatantly incorrect contributions 
which didn't get caught for a while, but which is being held on to by a 
certain person or group of people.  These are complicated issues, and 
just saying "don't revert, or we'll ban you" is much too simple of a 
proposed solution.

Anthony