[WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

[Jon Awbrey]

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Complaint:  Priority Inversion
Specifics:  Pseudo-Consensus Overturning the Big Three (and the Five Pillars)

JA = Jon Awbrey
MB = Matt Brown

MB: So I have some questions:

MB 1.  What would have been the ideal outcome in this case?

JA: First off, no single case of alleged abuse proves anything.
    I am responding to the request to cite a number of actual
    incidents, and it is the pattern of conduct that we ought
    to be concerned about, namely, where 2 or 3 or 4 possibly
    different persons, and possibly independent voices, or
    possibly not, acted in a way that I am alleging rather
    obviously violates what are and ought to be higher
    priority norms of participation in WP.  These are,
    among others, lack of due regard for Relevant and
    Verifiable information, in contrast with the mere
    opinion of the editors, consensus or otherwise,
    and lack of due regard for the good faith time
    and effort of other editors to improve the
    quality of an article.

JA: The pattern of conduct that was exhibited over the space
    of a few days by this small group "new users" was a type
    of slash and burn and section blanking that I personally
    consider to be nothing short of rank vandalism, whether
    anybody else had the boldness to call it that or not.

JA: The ideal outcome in this case and the others like it --
    what should be the routine outcome if the Policies of
    WP are respected in their declared order of priority --
    would be that a simple reference to [[WP:Policy]]
    would suffice to remind the editor(s) in question
    what is most important in Wikipedia, as opposed,
    let us say, to the rules of some chat-room.

Have to break here.

Jon Awbrey

MB. 2.  Do you think the editors should be forced to discuss
    the issue with you before removing this block quote?

3.  Do you think consensus should not be used to guide decisions
    regarding Wikipedia content?

4.  If so, then what decision making process should replace it?

MB: I hope I'm not putting words in Jon Awbrey's mouth by stating that he thinks
> the problem is that when consensus can be defined as "Me and three of my friends
> I IM'd to come and agree with me", there's a problem.  Especially when a "consensus"
> among like-minded people on the same side of an issue can be used to trump core
> Wikipedia policies and standard Wikipedia ways of working.
> 
> Part of the issue is that there's always tension between deciding an
> issue for good on the one hand, and having every single opinionated
> person coming along to any article being able to re-open things for
> which an adequate conclusion has already been reached.
> 
> Standard Wikipedia policy / practise here is that there are no
> permanent decisions on Wikipedia apart from core policy, but that if
> an issue has been decided by strong rough consensus, we're resistant
> to re-opening the issue unless the one wishing to re-open it can
> convince enough people that the previous rough consensus no longer
> holds.
> 
> "Strong rough consensus" in my opinion means an issue that for the
> vast majority of contributors has a result they can live with - even
> if not outright approve - and that has been reached after a
> satisfactory discussion, a satisfactory attempt at compromise, a
> respect for policy, and with sufficient editors involved that are
> representative on the issue.
> 
> IMO, a rough consensus is not a strong one, a good one, if it has been
> arrived at without discussion, without attempts to find common ground,
> without regard for over-riding policy, or without sufficient numbers
> of contributors or variety of points-of-view to be truly
> representative.
> 
> There are many editors on Wikipedia who want to truly do the right
> thing and achieve good results.  There are enough others, however, who
> want articles to say exactly what THEY wish them to say, and who will
> game the rules and do everything they can to get their way.   (There
> are probably other categories of editors, of course, but this is
> simplifying).
> 
> I have a feeling that another issue Jon has is that some contributors
> are too willing to remove things from articles if they don't like
> them, regardless of the work that went into them, the usefulness of
> the content, or in any way trying to achieve consensus for that
> removal.
> 
> Jon, do I have your positions right?
> 
> -Matt

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inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey
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