User:Friday/Misc
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Note: if you feel strongly enough about one of my ramblings that you have to disagree, feel free- but please do it on this talk page.
This is just a random collection of thoughts on various wikipedia topics. This crap is for my own use, but others can feel free to read, edit, or comment on them if they wish. But, be warned, much of this stuff is half-baked thoughts that may or may not make sense to anyone else. Also, some of this is old and may or may not reflect my current opinions.
[edit] How to patrol new pages
Don't just automatically slap a delete tag on something, just because the content is junk. Some things could be become a useful redirect, if there's an appropriate article that already exists. Redirects are cheap. Sometimes a tiny bit of research (a quick google) can tell you what something's about.
[edit] Having time for sysop chores
Opposing an adminship on the grounds of the person not having sufficient time for sysop chores is silly and pointless. We're all volunteers here; we have no right o demand a certain level of contribution from anyone. A person doing RC patrol for 20 minutes a week is better than not having them at all, right? A trusted editor is a trusted editor; any amount of time they have to contribute to the project is appreciated.
[edit] Cabal
There is no cabal. We also don't really want people thinking there is, either. For this reason, ideally we should go out of our way to avoid the appearance of a cabal. Failing that, we should at least not go out of our way to give the appearance of a cabal. I would have thought this was obvious.
Related to this is the idea of a "two-class society". Many editors complain that this is the case on wikipedia, with admins doing whatever the hell they want while the "regular editors" are held to the rules. I don't see that this is particularly the case, altho I do quite often see surprisingly bad behavior from admins. I think we need to make a serious effort to de-emphasize the divide between admins and non-admins. We're all just editors.
[edit] Newbies
Maybe this already exists somewhere. There needs to be a welcome page for newbies that explains that even though anybody can edit Wikipedia, it doesn't really mean anybody can put anything in it. Some kind of newbie-friendly introduction to the notions of verifiability and NOR is needed.
[edit] Leet
Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man or something, but IMO any edits made to any page using L33t-speak should be instantly reverted by anyone who sees them. Citation needed
[edit] Afd/Drv
Any random person in the world can come along and blank a page or replace its content with "DICK CHENEY IS SATAN!!!!". We accept this. We depend on the wiki process to undo such vandalism. Why, then, do we attach bizarre rituals to deletion and undeletion?
[edit] Bloc voting
"Voting" (or otherwise wiki-ing) in a bloc is supremely stupid. People should not support their wiki-friends because they like the person. Individual issues on content should be decided on their own merits, not because your friend wants it a certain way. Good, responsible editors should be able to disagree strongly on content issues without it becoming a personal problem. Taking content issues personally is a huge cause of wiki-stress.
[edit] Out of Band communication considered harmful
Maybe there is a cabal. Or rather, probably a handful of them. We should not have "wiki-friends". I mean, we should be friendly to other editors, but we should never give someone support on something as a personal favor. Every situation should be considered entirely on its own merits, not on whether your IRC friends are involved.
[edit] Blogs
Blogs, and other internet crap in general, are overrepresented on Wikipedia. We often disregard WP:V when it comes to such things, and allow the website itself to be used as a primary source, with no secondary sources at all. Individual flash cartoons and videos having their own articles is rather silly. If a reasonable number of third-party sources aren't talking about a given blog or website, it's a good indication it shouldn't have an article.
[edit] ICS
Between "Ignore All Rules" and "Use Common Sense", I think some people got confused. The idea is not "Ignore Common Sense", despite this being an apparently popular thing to do.
[edit] Provenance
I don't care if Satan himself suggests a good edit. A good edit is a good edit. (This statement is not intended to suggest that I literally believe in Satan.)
[edit] Afds
Afds seem increasingly incapable of producing consensus. Unfortunately, this often means that verifiability gets put into a corner and forgotten. Try Afd'ing an trivial politician or political group, and editors will come out of the woodwork claiming bias. The arguments seem to be increasingly "this person is important because..." and verifiability be damned.
[edit] Weight of editors
Should editors's "votes" or arguments be given more weight based on how long they've been around? Absolutely not. (However, very new editors who show up in unlikely places are rightly seen as suspicious.) But, I see nothing wrong with weighing people's "votes" based on the strength of their arguments. Of course, this is very subjective.
[edit] Significance
I'm starting to believe that importance is a reasonable requirement, in addition to verifiability. Many think differently. If we had better standards for verifiability, I might think differently. But, considering a personal website a source for purposes of verifiability sometimes happens. This, to me, means we should ask for significance in addition to "mere" verifiability. Of course, if we had higher standards and actually required a number of reliable sources before a thing was considered verifiable, I would feel differently.
More thoughts on this: Importance is important, I think. If verifiability were the only criteria, my car, my girlfriend, my church, my employer(s), my band(s), any one of a few schools I attended, and probably several other things related to me might all have articles about them. Then, I could easily assert that with so many important connections, I should have an article too, right? Some of the things listed above already have articles about them, and I bet at least a couple more of them could have articles and enough verifiability could be asserted that they would survive. I'm not sure that such artciles hurt much of anything, if they're neutral and verifiable, but this sort of thing sure does open up the door for vanity.
[edit] Notability is a religious issue
We should understand that, just like the FSM, some people believe in notability, and some do not. We are all obliged, however, to believe in (or at least observe) verifiability.
[edit] Why Afd/Drv is bad
It produces a terrible environment for productive discussion. Cases that are obvious deletes don't need it, and cases that will be controversial would be better off being discussed on the talk page, with no particular time limit. There are few cases I can think of where current Afd rituals actually make sense.
[edit] "Black" v "white"
I'm rather dismayed at the apparently "black v white" worldview that some people seem to have. Wikipedia does not have "black articles" or "white articles". There are only "articles." This is an encyclopedia, not a forum for racism. Everyone needs to understand that while editors with opinions are most welcome (we'd have no editors otherwise), using Wikipedia to push your opinions is not welcome.
[edit] Binary Afd
Afd should not be seen as binary, where everything is a "keep" (the article is just fine as it is!) or "delete" (everything is unsalvagable crap). If deletion discussions were on articelt alk pages nistead of Afd pages, maybe people wouldn't see it as binary. Sometimes the topic is encyclopedic but the article is bad. Binary Afd has no way of dealnig with such things.
On the other hand, people are using past Afds to argue against normal editing after the fact. Specifically, since some people say "merge" on Afd, people take this to mean the article should never be merged if it's gone thru Afd and not been closed as a "merge". If people just said "keep" or "delete" instead, this may help. Altho, I think if people understood Afd better this issue would go away also.
[edit] Experiments
All of Wikipedia is experimental. The encyclopedia content and the policies and guidelines are a "work in progress".
[edit] Cutting off communication
As a general rule, if user deletes things from their talk pags regularly, and/or frequently finds themselves telling people not to contact them anymore, that's frequently a bad sign. Openness and transparency grease the wheels of the community.
[edit] How to change policy
If you're not sure how to create a new policy for the brilliant new idea you had, don't sweat it. Just start using it. People will let you know soon enough if it's good or bad.
[edit] Conflicts of interest
We have guidelines about people involved in Afd's and whatnot refraining from being involved in the "judgement" phase of such things. These are reasonable. A good rule of thumb is, if you could reasonably be seen as having a conflict of interest, don't do it. Let someone else with unimpeachable disconcernment do it. I see no problem with closing an Afd you "voted" on, for example, if the closure is certainly non-controversial. Let's not limit ourselves unneccessarily.
[edit] Hmmm
Sometimes Wikipedia seems to be coming apart at the seams. Admins behave like newbies, everyone gets pissed at each other.
[edit] Breadth vs Depth
Insofar as Wikipedia article space is a tree, there is the question of breadth vs depth. Some people don't understand this issue. The questions of what information to include vs what articles to include are seperate.
[edit] Significance of groups
The size of a group is a fairly ridiculous indication of significance. People in Canada who have brown hair would be a large group indeed, but what can be said about them that's verifiable?
[edit] Doing vs Undoing
Doing something and undoing that thing should require similiar efforts. If someone makes a 5-second decision to delete, and it's contested, it's downright silly to spend 5 days discussing the undeletion. What's easily done can be easily undone. This is not to encourage edit warring, it's to encourage common sense.
[edit] Afd preventing normal editing after the fact
I never would have imagined anyone would think so, but there's apparently a sizable segment of editors who feel that a past Afd prevents normal editing of the article after the fact. Specifically, people feel that a merge is prevented by a prior Afd, because if the merge were indicated, the Afd would have been closed as a merge. This is very bizarre reasoning to me. See Talk:Brian_Chase_(Wikipedia_hoaxer)#Settling_the_merge_issue for an example.
[edit] Wikipedia is insane
Wikipedia has gone batshit insane. Even some of the old experienced editors are apparently stark raving mad. Weird. I'm starting to think those who claim the project cannot scale are probably right.
[edit] Userboxes
Userboxes are fairly pointless. Spending time arguing about them is even more pointless. The bizarre thing is, many of the people spending so much effort debating the issue are the same ones who started by saying "these are not relevant to the encyclopedia". Well, neither is arguing about them, is it?
[edit] Harm reduction
When dealing with problems or disruption, harm reduction is often a better goal than proving who's "right".
[edit] Personal attacks
I believe there is an important distinction between a personal attack and a strongly worded condemnation of someone's behavior. This distinction seems to frequently be overlooked.
[edit] Judgment
It's easy for your judgment to become clouded when you know you're in the right. Sometimes we forget how our actions might look to an outside observer who is not already convinced that we're right.
[edit] Process and privilege
Process is also the mechanism by which users can trust that others are playing fair, that the rules do not suddenly change, nor are they different for some privileged editors.
- This can go the other way too. By relying on specific processes over common sense, the "privileged" (here I mean "experienced") editors do enjoy an advantage. By knowing the "rules", they can accomplish what they want.
[edit] Wheel wars
Idea to think about (and possibly suggest, somewhere): Wheel wars should be reviewed. Possibly, if reviewers determine there is prima facie evidence of inappropriate use of admin powers, the sysop rights should be temporarily revoked pending further investigation. This may be extremely controversial or do more harm than good. We'd have to think carefully about how to define a "wheel war" that is subject to review. The intent of those involved is important. A simple undeletion of a deletion someone thought was wrong is not a wheel war, for example. This is akin to what you sometimes see in old westerns: if there's a shootout in the street, all involved parties give up their guns until it can be reviewed by a judge. If someone is found to have been acting reasonably, the sysops rights are reinstated without prejudice. If someone is found to have been acting inappropriately, other sanctions may be applied.
[edit] Community
There's been much debate lately about the community v the encyclopedia. I think most of us can agree that the encyclopedia is the desired end result here. However, another way to look at this is with the "give a fish/teach to fish" analogy. Making a good article is like giving someone a fish. It helps, immediately in the short term. Making the community more productive and functional is like teaching someone to fish. It continues to pay off over time.
[edit] Damage control
It's great to have people contributing brilliant new articles. But, more and more, a lot of the work that needs done here is damage control. Reverting vandalism, fighting off POV pushers, etc. Those editors who focus on damage control shouldn't automatically be considered less or more valuable than those who quietly contribute new content.
[edit] Choose your battles
You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime... If something is not a very big deal, it's probably not worth putting too much time into fighting over it.
[edit] I don't get it
In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Deeceevoice, the Arbcom cautioned me "to avoid suggesting to users who are the subject of Arbitration proceedings that they abandon Wikipedia." Yet, in the very same decision, they enforced a probation that allows the editor in question to "be banned by any administrator for good cause from any article or talk page which she disrupts. She may be banned from Wikipedia for up to one year by any three administrators for good cause." So, what the Arbcom is saying here is that they're specifically giving me the ability to ban her from particular pages, or even (with 2 others) ban her completely for a year, but my advising her to voluntarily leave the project was out of line. How does this make any sense? If the best thing for the project involves getting someone to not edit at all, how is forcing it better than suggesting it? Users who voluntarily leave seem less likely to return as socks than those who are forced out.
[edit] Contradictions
Policies and guidelines are no different from each other, and they're both mostly works of fiction. WP:NOT is allegedly policy, and it clearly says WP is not a dictionary or slang guide. But try nominating List of Internet slang for deletion, and see how that goes.
[edit] the Truth
Whenever someone says that they're trying to put "the truth" into Wikipedia, and others won't let them, it almost always means they're a POV-pusher who doesn't understand NPOV and V.
[edit] prod is a fumbling first step
The community seems to be fumbling in the dark toward WP:PURE with this prod stuff. To me, it seems obvious that Wikipedia:Experimental Deletion/XD7 does everything prod does, and more, with less effort. It may take some time for other folks to catch on, though.
[edit] Wikipedia IS an indiscriminate collection of information
Let's face it, WP:NOT no longer applies. Individual buildings and bits of road have articles simply because they exist, and these things tend to be deletion-proof on Afd. Maybe this doesn't hurt anything, I don't know. I don't see that it adds value, and this stuff is only going to become more of a maintanance headache. Maybe it's not worth worrying about tho, and if WP 1.0 or some similiar happens, it will get left out.
[edit] Be careful
Be careful about what's nonsense or gibberish. This means almost nothing to me: "Sean Denham (born April 29, 1969) was a much unheralded rover, who came to Essendon from Geelong in a swap that saw ruckman John Barnes sent the other way following the 1991 season. His style of play as a tagging run-with player, typified during the 90's the changing face of the modern game.."
To me, this is meaningless drivel. But, apparently he's some important footballer. Sometimes what looks like a speedy is not.
[edit] Schools
This is the best example I've ever seen of why it was a mistake to decide that all schools automatically get articles.
[edit] Wheel warring
Wheel warring is dirsruptive and causes bad blood, just like edit warring but maybe even worse. But, undoing an action you disagree with once isn't much of a wheel war IMO. We need to use common sense. We shouldn't reverse other people's actions too lightly, but neither should be let something unreasonable stand simply because "Well, someone did it, and we shouldn't undo it without a one-week discussion." Generally there's not much reason to be in a hurry. But, it's probably less harmful, in the case of an inappropriate block, to undo it right away than to let it sit.
[edit] Deletion
Deleting things seems to be becoming increasingly unlikely. Things that are speediable are usually fairly obvious.. I wonder if it's really worth spending the time and effort to delete things that aren't speediable.
[edit] Listcruft
"List of..." are generally very poor excuses for articles. Maybe there are some that make sense, but it sure looks like most of them are cruft. For whatever reason, we seem to have collectively decided that if you take a bunch of unencyclopedic stuff and put it all together in a list, it somehow becomes encyclopedic. This is bizarre. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_United_States_shopping_malls_by_state should have been an obvious delete.
[edit] Afd doesn't work
Afd should just be ignored, I think. Things that can be speedied should probably be the only deletions we bother with. Deletion via afd is quite difficult, due to the large number of "everything that exists should be kept" editors. There is no comparable analog on the deletionist side- nobody says delete everything, the closest you come is people who want to delete what's unverifiable or insignificant, however you define significance. So there will be a natural imbalance favoring keeping- maybe that's ok if it's sufficiently slight, but the imbalance seems to be getting larger.
[edit] Racism on Wikipedia
Wikipedia has the tremendous advantage of nobody being able to tell the color of anyone else's skin. This helps cut down the trouble caused by those mentally damaged folks for whom such trivialities are a big deal. We should not undermine that advantage by going out of our way to say "I belong to this-and-such race!" These things are irrelevant to being an editor, and from what I've seen, they can cause much harm for no advantage I've been able to determine.
[edit] Forking
Larger articles providing better context are better all around than a collection of smaller articles. They tend to get more eyeballs, and thus tend to be higher quality. When in doubt, don't fork! Wait for the main article to become too long, then consider splitting off subtopics.
[edit] POV warriors
A few editors who look to me like obvious POV warriors, somehow attracted their own fan clubs. Some members of the fan clubs even appear to be reasonable people! Not sure how this happens.
[edit] Admins
I find myself increasingly embarassed to be an admin. In far too many cases, people wear it like a badge and assume it gives them more-than-normal influence over "mere editors". This is very very wrong. Admins are just people with a few more software features on the assumption they won't abuse them. We all need to remember also that editors don't have a magical way of knowing when someone is an admin, and even if they did, we should not want them to treat us with special deference due to our access level. We're all just editors here.
[edit] Elitism
I've read the criticisms that say there's an anti-elitist culture here. This may be true, but there's a pro-elitist culture here also. Not in the case of subject matter experts, but in the case of longtime established contributors. There are editors here (reasonable people, even) who tend to support each other because of who they are. This is harmful to the project! Good people make mistakes, and we do no one a favor by standing behind someone's mistake due to their good track record in the past. There is absolutely nothing wrong with telling another editor (or admin), "Look, I respect your contributions, but I think you were wrong here." Judge each situation on its merits, not based on who's involved.
[edit] Silencing dissent
Free speech has nothing to do with wikipedia. But, for purely practical reasons, we do ourselves a disservice by trying to silence those who have complaints. Let people complain all they want (unless they're being disruptive). If the complaints are sound, this will be apparent. If they're not, this will also be apparent.
[edit] The rapier and the club
Editors (and particularly admins) should always try to be the rapier, never the club. Use the least invasive way of fixing things or dealing with problems. Using the club unneccessarily is counterproductive.
[edit] Wikidrama
Wikidrama is annoying and counterproductive. We can help eliminate it by focusing on articles, not editors.
[edit] Disruption
Disruption is a funny thing. I could go around deleting user subpages which aren't part of the project, but this would result in offended editors and disruption. I think we should follow the "principle of least drama"- if a thing is causing drama, maybe it should be deleted. But if a thing is just sitting there not hurting anything, remember that the deletion itself may cause drama. Proceed with caution. Don't be a fanatic.
[edit] Polemical and divisive
Isn't it ironic that certain campaigns against things that are "polemical and divisive" are themselves polemical and divisive?
[edit] Adminship
Simplest way that could work: grant adminship to anyone who applies and possibly meets some basic criteria, as long as nobody objects in say, 5 days. Then, instead of RFA, it'll be requests for de-adminship, where if there's reasonable consensus that the editor has abused the tools, they lose them.
[edit] Priorities
Why fight against unencyclopedic content outside of article space when you could spend your time removing it from inside article space?
[edit] Policies
All the rules, policies, and guidelines in the world are no substitute for human judgment.
[edit] Trolling and tolerance
Some people lose faith easily in new editors who show problem tendencies. This may or may not be good, it probably depends on circumstances. One thing I really cannot understand though, is why we tolerate trolling from established, longtime editors. I would have expected this sort of thing would be extremely frowned upon.
[edit] Contradictions
Doesn't it seem weird that many of the self-described "elite"- people with friends in high places (arbcom, the foundation, etc) are some of the rudest and most disruptive editors we have? Is it really that they're reasonable people facing unreasonable opposition, or is something else going on here? Or is it just a case of longtime contributors becoming less and less patient, and large parts of the community continue to support them no matter how rude they become?
[edit] IRC and cabalism
I wonder how strong a correlation there is between people who hang out on the wikipedia IRC channel and people who tend to support each other's actions on-wiki. There is a potential for harm here- if someone spends 10 minutes on IRC talking their buddies into something, that conversation is lost. If people do things on-wiki as a result of off-wiki discussion, that's not very transparent, and some of the actions may seem unreasonable to those who weren't in on the original discussion.
[edit] Free Speech
Free speech has little to do with Wikipedia- most of the people who mention it are trying to defend their "right" to post an article about their cat. However, we should not suppress dissent. Doing so does more harm than good. Criticism of any facet of Wikipedia- whether foundation issues, culture, policies, or actions of individual editors, should always be welcome.
[edit] degrees of disagreement
People can agree or disagree over a spectrum: there's "That's exactly what I'd have done", and "That's not what I'd have done, but it's not unreasonable". There's even "That's not what I'd have done and I think it's unreasonable for anyone to do that". finish this thought later.
[edit] Checks and balances
Admins should be expected to be a check on each other. We're all human and we all make mistakes. This is part of the reason we have many different admins. I should perform my duty as a check on other admins, and other admins should be a check on me. This is how things go. The culture of "never revert an admin action without prior consultation" may have been reasonable a coulpe years ago, with only a few admins. Now, with over 1000, trying to follow this rule would lead to bureaucratic paralysis. What's easily done should be easily undone. We could possibly help by accepting only admin candidates to indicate a willingness to be reverted, but what about the old timers? What can be done to help everyone see the harmfulness of the "never revert" culture?
[edit] Reasons and blocks
Often times, someone will be blocked on trumped-up reasons, and when this is questioned, the blocker will assert that there are also valid reasons for the block. Well, if there's a valid reason, why would you block for an invalid reason? Isn't it faster and more effective all around to block for the good reason first?
[edit] Free ammo giveaway
Don't give ammo to trolls or malcontents. This means don't insult them or pick on them. Surely we're all adults and can deal with problem editors in an adult manner.
[edit] deletion
I guess it all comes down to a simple difference in points of view: some people see no point wasting time trying to delete content if it's not harmful in same way. Some people, rather than just wanting content to cause no harm, want it to seem actively good or relevant in some way. (is this just the classic "write an article about your dog if it's neutral and verifiable" thing?)
[edit] Afd is random
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of transgender-support organizations and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of transgender-rights organizations are very nearlt the same thing, yet gettiung vastly difference results. Conclusion: Afd produces random results, don't use it.
[edit] Trouble vs Value
Is it ever appropriate to make a practical cost/benefit analysis on deletion questions? I don't see why not, we apply similiar reasoning in other areas. This, if an article is of minor value but attracts major trouble, it could be deleted for being more trouble than it's worth.
[edit] Trolling
Some people are fond of saying things like "no quarter to trolls". Well, nobody really disagrees with this, but the devil is in the details. If we had a magical way of detecting who was trolling, "no quarter" would be easy. But I've noticed that what generally goes along with being in the "no quarter" crowd is jumping to the conclusion that normal editors are trolls the minute there's disagreement. This is very harmful. I've seen established editors say things so ludicrus that I'd have thought they were trolling if not for their history. I bet this happens to everyone. So, while no responsible editor wants to help the trolls, pithy little sayings like "no quarter to trolls!" are stupid and unhelpful.
[edit] Wow
Wow. Rfa is a complete sham. We might as well do away with it. Is this just another example of the sick culture of insiders protecting their own?
[edit] Maturity
Maybe most of the admin problems are caused by admins acting like junior high schoolers? The idea of everyone being either good or bad, and good people only do good things, while bad people do only bad things, is particularly childish. Real life isn't so simple- surely nobody could reach adulthood and not realize this?
[edit] The Mob
There probably is a large number of editors around who aren't very familiar with how things go here. And, it's all well and good to give the reasoned opinions of experienced editors more creedance then the howling of the mob. However, that can be a dangerous route to go, because many people put anyone who disagrees with them in the category of the howling mob, even if some of those people are reasonable, experienced editors. In the end, we have to judge each case on its own merits, not based on who was arguing for which side.
[edit] Criticism
Criticism of Wikipedia does not automatically not belong on the wiki. Project space and user space are both for exactly that purpose. If there's a problem, we should try to resolve it. Completely stupid or useless criticism isn't helpful, but people should be free to express their opinions of the project in their user space (or in essays in project space)- how else will we improve the project?
[edit] Belligerence
If editors want to make statements criticising Wikipedia culture- saying, for example, that admins can do whatever they want, and trample "mere editors" in the process, telling them to shut up about it (and blocking them if they don't do what they're told) is a supremely bad idea. I'd have thought this would be obvious to anyone with the intelligence of a brick, but perhaps it's not? Does one abhor a doctor for diagnosing a disease, when his only intention is to cure it?
[edit] Expectations
I highly agree with recent comments here and there that we should expect good behavior from admins. Absolutely. We should expect more, not tolerate less. Anyone unwilling to be on good behavior has a temperament unsuitable to an admin.
[edit] Unreasonable people
Unreasonable people, subjected to harsh circumstances, often degrade into a sad parody of themselves. (Is this good, bad, or neutral? Maybe it's just an easy way to identify unreasonable people.)
[edit] Culture war
Wikipedia culture seems to be at a crucial point. Some habits and expectations that made sense in the "there-are-only-a-dozen admins" days may make less sense now that there's a couple hundred active admins. It's been said many ways in many places, but the role and behavior of admins is particularly important. The perception of admins as being "above the law" is most troubling, and we need to do whatever we can do prevent this. The sad fact is, I see "mere editors" being blocked for the same kidns of remarks that many admins make with relative impunity.
[edit] Faith in consensus
Some editors have an almost religious belief in consensus- going so far as to think that anything that actually happens is supported by consensus, because how else would it have happened? This may or may not be a good thing to think, but it should be recognized as a religious, not rational, belief.
[edit] Bullying
Some people enjoy being the biggest bully on the playground. It surprises me that people of this type would pick Wikipedia as their playground of choice, but it does happen.
[edit] Consensus and fatigue
Sometimes I think fatigue is mistaken for consensus- i.e. some people think consensus exists on an issue, where the real situation is that people on one side simply got tired. In particular, when dealing with editors with poor communication skills, this happens a lot. If people think talking to you is like talking to a wall, they'll easily tire of talking to you, right? (Hmm, maybe people do this on purpose to get those who disagree to go away)
[edit] admins
We should be more conservative about giving out the block button. The damage and drama caused by a bad block is IMO significantly larger than caused by a deletion, protection, or rollback.
[edit] Odd
Perhaps the problem is that we have an odd number of problem admins. If we had an even number of them, they'd all block each other for trolling and the problem would solve itself.
[edit] sigh
more drama sucks. Can we reduce drama by dramatically trying to squelch drama queens? Who knows.
[edit] dysfunction
Is Wikipedia dysfunctional? Yes, in some ways. In other ways it's usually functional. The culture needs to be fixed here and there.
[edit] Personal relationships
Personal relationships with other editors (or even people otherwise involved in the project or with the Foundation) are a two edged sword. I happens to not know Jimbo Wales, for example- I've never even met him. This gives me the freedom to do whatever I think is best for the project without regard to aliances and without worrying about who's feeling might be hurt.
[edit] bullies
Wow. People accuse others of bullying. That's common enough. But, then the bullies accuse others of bullying? Seems bizarre. Is everyone a bully, or wtf is going on?
[edit] know when to say when
Note to self: if someone calls you a troll and takes to deleting your talk page messages without reply, it's probably pointless trying to communicate further.
[edit] process
If someone ignores "process" this could mean two things: 1) ignoring the letter of the rules. This is often OK. or 2) ignoring consensus and the objections of other editors. This is very rarely OK.
[edit] Get out of jail free
We need to watch that voluntary leavings, resignations, or other changes of access do not become "get out of jail free" cards.
[edit] What is trolling?
Trolling, verb (intransitive): to call someone's actions into question, if that person disagrees with you strongly enough. (This seems to be the commonly used definition here.)
[edit] Best thing ever
[edit] Reference desk
The concept is alright, but much of what actually happens there is crap. Relationship advice? Ideas for some school play? Please. Why are editors wasting their time on such rubbish? The RD could be conducted in a useful way that doesn't reflect poorly on the project, yet somehow in many cases this is not happening. A certain amount of irrelevant chatting might be unavoidable- as long as it doesn't hurt anything, it's not worth arguing over.
Some people commented that the RD is the first thing of wikipedia that some newbies see. This might explain a hell of a lot- newbies don't generally get what we do here. If the first thing they saw was the RD, this is perfectly understandable.
Wikipedia is not:
- a forum
- a how-to guide
- a place for our own opinons and experiences
Yet, the reference desk is these things. Why are we intentionally giving people such wrong ideas about the project?
I invite anyone to watch the various reference desk pages for a few days. This should clearly illustrate why a lot of the crap posted there is irrelevant to the project. It's nothing more than a chat board in some cases. This is about the best example we could hope for of how the reference desk is harmful to newbies.
The RD has somehow acquired its own culture, very different from Wikipedia. At least, among a few of the people who are active there right now. This is bad- these folks have little or no idea how things get done at Wikipedia, and they're very resistant to those who do. Discussions have been extremely difficult, because we can't use standard wikipedia practices as a starting point- instead we're starting from scratch everywhere.
Of course, examples of relevant uses of the reference desks are in abundance as well. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have a hard time believing it's so completely broken that it cannot be fixed.
[edit] Fundamentalism
I define wikipedian fundamentalism as having a strong desire to ensure the furtherance of that holy trinity of principals, WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR. Fundamentalists also tend to lean heavily toward WP:IAR. Fundamentalists give the encyclopedia' much greater value than the wiki. Fundamentalists give all editors their due respect, but have no love for people who's goals run contrary to producing a quality encyclopedia.
Fundamentalism in this case should not be assumed to mean a tendency to adhere to tradition. Traditions which do not advance the core goal of the project can be disgarded if there's reason to do so. Fundamentalists realize well that Wikipedia is not paper, but also remember that it is an encyclopedia and some degree of encyclopedic standards should be expected.
[edit] Judgment
Some editors are "lovable idiots"- lacking judgment, disruptive, but friendly. Sadly, we often tolerate them too much because they're friendly. This is a mistake- if you lack reasonable adult judgment, you cannot be an effective editor, no matter how nice you are. Sad but true. Historical examples may come to mind for folks who've seen this before.
[edit] Willfull ignorance
If someone demonstrates a complete disregard for Wikipedia norms despite people trying to educate them, what can be done? This is tricky. They see other editors as butting in where they're not wanted. But, experienced Wikipedians see that editor as someone who has barged in and demanded that things be done their own way with no regard for established practice. In short, both sides see the other very similarly, and as the enemy, and as inherently wrong. Very little understanding is possible between such opposed people.
[edit] Experienced editors
I tried to make the case that "experienced editors" understood a certain thing. This is unsatisfactory because it comes off sounding like "Well, the people who are on my side all agreed with me, so we must be right." So in the face of nonacceptance of "how things work at Wikipedia", what's to be done? Obvious (and probably unsatisfactory) answer: focus on what you think should be done to move forward. Do not focus on other people being "wrong".
[edit] Disruption and outages
Some people seem to be defining "disruption" to mean "outage"- something that keeps Wikipedia from working on a wide basis. Where did this weird idea come from?
[edit] Split?
Split admins into two (or more?) camps: janitors and bouncers. Blocking often requires a different touch than deletions.
[edit] The Buffalo through the window
Sometimes, a talk page discussion is a little bit like a group of people inside, looking at a buffalo through a window. We're trying to decide what to do with this buffalo. Some people disagree so strongly that in their shouting, they get spit on the window. This builds up. Over time, people notice the grimey buildup on the window and start talking about the window itself, rather than the buffalo we were originally talking about.
[edit] Good faith
Some people misinterpret "assume good faith" as "assume nobody ever makes mistakes". How is this possible? That's not at all what the words say. We absolutely can disagree with what someone did without saying they were being intentionally disruptive. Where's the room for misunderstanding here?
[edit] The Brute squad
Sadly, Wikipedia is a place where, sometimes, people you don't know suddenly show up on your talk page, suggesting that you do things differently. Sometimes, these people can even be pretty persistent- they may even become more demanding over time. We haven't figured out how to operate without this yet, but we try to keep it to a minimum. Ideally, this would never go past the "suggestion" phase.
[edit] Saying vs doing
This is a tricky balance. Sometimes, if what you want to say be be best done by doing (making an edit versus a talk page suggestion for en edit), you should do it instead of talking about it.
[edit] Priorities
The good of the project always overrides any desire to coddle editors. If you can't stand your contributions being edited mercilessly, Wikipedia is not for you. Editors who require ego-stroking to go along with disagreement soon become tiresome.
[edit] Tired, flawed arguments that nobody should listen to anymore
I've just about had it with the "everything that exists should have an article" crowd. From what I've seen, these people misunderstand the concept of "encyclopedia" to a man. Usually what they're really arguing against is WP:NOR and WP:V but they typically refuse to frame their objections in those terms. The worst is when they go around deprodding obvious junk while paying no attention to the objections that lead to the prod.
[edit] N and V
(Surely this is already explained somewhere, but..) We're an encyclopedia, not a panel of experts. We don't make up our own stuff- we use sources. This is what WP:NOR is about. So, it's a violation of NOR to decide that "A building is notable if it's more than X feet tall". We don't decide this- we go by what the experts say. This subject-specific guidelines were always misguided for this reason (or, perhaps not misguided, but misunderstood. Intended as examples of things in simple terms.) Now, we've mostly "seen the light" and decided that "notability" is conferred by the sources, not by our own opinions as editors. If I say "Webcomic X is notable because it does blah blah blah", this is just my opinion. We use sources instead of our opinions, because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
Notability is just enough verifiable information about a subject that a non-permastub could be made about it.
[edit] Fakes
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Content that's not part of the encyclopedia or related to the work we do here can surely be removed without so much fuss? If people say these faked messages make their work more difficult, there's no offsetting argument in favor of keeping them. So the answer is to remove it.
[edit] Reform
Sometimes I think we spend too much time/effort on reforming problem editors. Has this worked, particularly? Would it be quicker/easier to just indef block them? This is basically a way of saying "You've irreparably damaged your reputation as editor X. You're ejected. If you can come back under a new identify and behave sufficiently well that nobody knows it's you, you're welcome to do so."
[edit] Rights
If someone is talking about their "rights" on Wikipedia, this is almost always an indication that they've gotten lost somewhere. Rights have very little to do with making an encyclopedia.
[edit] Annoying editors
Is it proper to ban an editor mostly for the crime of being annoying? In some cases, I would have to say yes. Now, editors should not be easily annoyed- part of working on Wikipedia is being able to work with people you disagree with, perhaps even people you think are complete idiots. So let's be a bit thick-skinned. That said, if an editor very frequently annoys a large number of other editors over a prolonged period of time, this is disruptive. Not terribly disruptive, perhaps, but disruptive just the same. There are other editors who can do the same useful work without the annoying side effects. Editors who are consistently unwilling to abide by community expectations of behavior may sometimes need to be shown the door.
