[WikiEN-l] A narrower concept of boldness

[The Mangoe]

On 6/23/07, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
>
> G'day The Mangoe,
>
> > On 6/22/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> The main reasoning behind BOLD is the fact that it's easy to undo any
> >> mistakes. That holds for (most) administrative actions as well as
> >> basic editing, so why wouldn't BOLD apply?
> >
> > But the problem is that it isn't that easy. 3RR gives whoever makes
> > the first change an advantage: their opponent will get hit by the rule
> > first. Being BOLD in policy is a major cause of The Wrong Version,
> > because it's likely that disputes will get the text locked in the
> > changed version.
>
> This shows a major misunderstanding of 3RR, BOLD, and The Wrong Version
> (although you may have been ironic with that last one).  I'm not,
> however, surprised.

It's hard to say that it's misunderstood when established admins are
using in that manner. But in any case, 3RR only kicks in when people
don't participate in the "edit/revert/discuss" cycle. I think it's
fairly common that people "understand" what they are doing perfectly
well, and that they understand that if they make a "bold" change (that
is, one which they don't worry about any consensus for) they can make
it stick as long they don't get banned. Or maybe they don't, and
believe that they are authorized to make bigger changes than they
really are. Either way, a policy that is generally misunderstood by
those unfamiliar with it is by its nature problemaitc.