[WikiEN-l] Re: Article quality deterioration (was: a valid criticism)

[Michael Snow]

uninvited at nerstrand.net wrote:

>Probably the best example is an accurate, though perhaps poorly worded
>and misplaced summary of a fact that already appears elsewhere in the
>article.  Such prose can't be improved or rewritten, because it already
>exists in the article in the proper place with the appropriate wording. 
>There is nothing useful to be done but revert the change, even though it
>was done in good faith and was factually sound, and even perhaps
>well-referenced.
>  
>
An edit summary of "remove redundant information" seems quite adequate 
and appropriate for this situation. I don't think the point would be 
difficult to get across, even if the other person's editing skills are 
sub-optimal.

That being said, I grant that there are cases where bad editors are also 
too dense to realize that they're bad editors.

Because we emphasize being welcoming, it's very difficult for us to 
reverse direction and suddenly tell someone that their contributions are 
not helpful. ("Sorry, but when we said anyone can edit, we didn't mean 
you.") However, I think if someone consistently degrades certain 
articles, it would be appropriate to ask them not to edit those 
articles. This could be handled through arbitration or perhaps some 
alternative to the current dispute resolution process. In doing this, we 
should still avoid getting into the substantive content of the article; 
the focus would be on poor writing.

An incremental approach of taking people off particular articles is less 
drastic and leaves them free to make more helpful edits elsewhere. Those 
that are particularly attached to their material would have a powerful 
incentive to retrain themselves, since we don't have time to be their 
writing tutors. However, if someone gets asked off of a number of 
articles, then at some point we would need to look at asking them not to 
edit any more. Incidentally, I would still very much like to see a 
per-article blocking feature.

--Michael Snow