On 6/3/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
You have a good point. I just looked the Willswikihelp case. He bit a newcomer who wrote a little eulogy to Sonny Bono in the middle of the South Lake Tahoe, California article. That's very bad behavior. What made it even worse was that another editor backed him up. A touch of groupthink there, I think.
I hope RickK will apologise to this guy. This really didn't look like vandalism, just a newcomer making an inappropriate edit.
Then RickK jumps into Isabella Allende and reverts what looks to me like a reasonable, if wordy, edit about her children's books. Cantus jumps in and does the same thing. Very bad behavior.
SchmuckytheCat then goes and lists Chertsey.jpg, which Willswikihelp uploaded, on IFD claiming it was "no source, uploaded by vandal" and without going to Willswikihelp asking him to complete the licensing information on the image.
There's a huge failure to assume good faith here, and I see absolutely no reason for it. The image was in effect trashed without any kind of good faith request for licensing information. That kind of behavior is enormously bad for Wikipedia.
I'm shocked.
Then why not practice what you preach, and go talk to RickK? It does seem like a mistake has been made (although it is worth noting that Willswikihelp did seem to have some problems with Wikiquette when I looked, but that didn't make him a vandal), but would it be not be more appropriate to talk it over and see what happens rather that running to the mailing list calling for blood? I'm getting awfully tired of this small group that believes a non-admin deserves a thousand chances and neverending good faith in the faith of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, whereas if an admin slips up, they deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered.
-- ambi