[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

Continuation --

MB: So I have some questions:

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

JA: Again, the issue not the presence or absence of a single quotation.
    I once started out a routine copyedit of an article and found myself
    in the middle of a personal essay, with no citations but the author's
    own blog, that turned into a not so [[desultory philippic]] against some
    of the author's former colleagues at a university named in the indictment,
    and ended by giving their email addresses and home pages.  I deleted the
    personal aspersions and personnel data forthwith and moved the essay to
    talk with a request for anybody that still cared about it to clean it up
    and cite a few reliable sources or forget it.  I think that any sensible
    editor would do that.

JA: But that's not what we are talking about.
    We're talking about a series of deletions
    that made the following total difference
    to an article:

Total Difference:  23:51, 10 June 2006 (edit) --> 08:13, 12 June 2006 (edit)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Peirce&diff=58174814&oldid=57953106

And it was no personal essay or unsourced content that got deleted in the process.

Jon Awbrey

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

MB: 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.

MB: 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.

MB: 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.

MB: "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.

MB: 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.

MB: 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).

MB: 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.

MB: Jon, do I have your positions right?

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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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