[WikiEN-l] "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement"

[Risker]

On 18 April 2012 06:22, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:18 AM, David Goodman <dggenwp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> The problem is not the ratio between editors and biographies, but the ratio
> of editors editing within policy vs editors who come only to write a
> hatchet job or an infomercial. This is something that can be addressed by
> Pending Changes.
>
> Let all those who only edit an article to defame or advertise, to write
> hatchet jobs or infomercials, make their suggestions.
>
> And let an editor who understands what a coatrack is, and who is committed
> to core policy, decide what the public should see when they navigate to the
> page.
>
> The right to edit BLPs, and approve pending changes, should be a
> distinction that people are proud of, just like they are proud of rollback
> or adminship. And like rollback, it should be a privilege they will lose if
> they abuse it.
>
> The really hard calls on how much negative material to include in a BLP
> should be made by teams with a diverse composition. A whole new culture
> needs to be built around BLP editing.
>
>

Andreas, I generally agree with you on matters relating to BLPs.  I don't,
however, understand why you think Pending Changes will have any effect
whatsoever on improving BLP articles.  Bluntly put, the policy that is
currently being discussed on the current RFC[1] does *not* authorize
reviewers to shape the article (in fact, it doesn't really give any
instructions to reviewers), and it permits any administrator to grant or
withdraw reviewer status on a whim; there's no requirement or expectation
that the status is granted or withdrawn in relation to actual editing.
During the trial, we had a rather significant number of experienced editors
refuse to accept reviewer status because they do not want to have any
permissions that can be withdrawn by one single administrator.

Please go back and read the proposed Pending Changes policy in the RFC, and
tell me that you really and truly believe that it will have the effect you
desire.  It is essentially the same policy that was in effect during the
trial, and there was never a determination of whether it meant "reject only
vandalism" or "reject anything unsourced" or "reject anything you do not
personally think will improve the article."  There are problems with all of
these interpretations  of the policy, just as there were considerable
problems with them during the trial.  It just seems that nobody cares to
actually mine the data from the trial itself to figure out whether or not
Pending Changes does what some people want it to do.  Of course, it's quite
possible that the proposed policy is so vague specifically so that people
can read into it what they want, and use it in ways that aren't supported
by the majority of the community.

Risker/Anne

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012