On 11/14/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:57:28 +0530, "Relata Refero" refero.relata@gmail.com wrote:
Just to repeat: the original edits by that IP were not trolling, but relevant contributions to the discussion at WT:SOCK, but put with a directness - not drama - that most of us would have avoided.
You think. I think it was repeating a baseless allegation made by a banned user with a grudge. But then, I have been harassed by these people for so long that I am inclined to think that anything which has its origins in one of their memes is done with deliberate intent.
Okay!! Well, we're making progress. That's basically all I've been saying. There's been a culture developed where good-faithed editors who "sound somehow similar" to the banned people generally face an assumption of bad-faith and are often inappropriately treated incivilly because of it.
I think this is a natural human response to feeling "under attack"-- people get this "under siege" mentality, get a little hostile, a little hypervigilent. Wanting to protect your team. To create a safe place. To stamp out attacks. To defeat the enemy, etc. Falling victiming to that trend doesn't make you a bad person or a bad-faith editor-- just a loyal wikipedian.
It's great that you recognize a tendency to equate "similarity to banned users" with deliberate bad faith. It's bad that you don't automatically see this as a problem that needs fixing. But one step at a time.
Alec