[WikiEN-l] Reflections on the end of the spoiler wars

[George Herbert]

On Nov 15, 2007 7:36 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 16/11/2007, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This argument seems to generally have been exceptionally "clean" and
> devoid
> > of noticably policy-violation behavior on any side.
>
>
> About all there was was some 3RR blocks on advocates of spoilers.
>
> The advocates of spoilers were sure the action of removal of spoilers
> was a violation of *something*, but shopped it to every venue they
> could, including an MFD, a policy RFC, arbitration twice, mediation -
> during which Ken seriously proposed putting back all 45,000 spoilers,
> presumably including the ones on [[The Three Little Pigs]], [[Hamlet]]
> and [[Anagram]] - and even the AutoWikiBrowser permissions talk page
> ... and failed to interest anyone in their cause. I suggest this is
> because they didn't and don't have a case.
>

We can agree to disagree on that point, I hope...

For someone who feels that they're fundamentally a good thing, putting them
all back is the logical thing to do.

Though "all" has some rational exceptions for things which are not truly
current, I guess.



> > Phil, I understand that you're tired of it, but you've been painting a
> > picture of an unethical opposition here which does not match my
> recollection
> > of events or any evidence I've seen posted anywhere.
>
> Coming here and making false claims of ban threats in the
> abovedescribed processes is not just sore losing, but odious.



Those were also retracted after people looked and didn't find.

Phil's post which started all of this rather explicitly and literally called
the set of people opposing the removals "lunatics" and "totally insane".
After which he then proceeded to argue that some viewpoints should simply be
excluded from future policy discussions.

Some people went hyperbolic following that, but it's hard to argue that
there wasn't provocation.

I don't want to bag on Phil.  I think Phil did a relatively fine thing by
venting about his frustration here and not elsewhere.  In some senses,
wikien-l is a far better place to vent than on-wiki or some other venues I
can think of, despite the S/N complaints others have been making today.
It's far easier to test the "feeling of the community" on some issues here
than on the larger wiki, and AGF concerns are less in play here among those
who are known.

The point, that the disagreement still lingers, is valid...

But the nature of the discussion has led to a moderate amount of drama here
for no progress towards resolution.



-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com