User:Friday/Sandbox

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[edit] rfc stuff

[edit] older stuff

Lack of ability to see that "what's appropriate for the project" is distinct from "what I like".

Is part of the problem viewing things in isolation, rather than in the context of wikipedia in general? The belief that some "rule" on some page overrides the expected standards on another page?

How the hell do you do something useful about someone whose major aim editing behavior looks more like attention-seeking than improving the pedia? Attempts to resolve disputes are diffused by rather bizarre attempts to prolong the disagreement. RFC is just more of the same. Note: Forget motivation- this is just trying to guess what's in someone's head. Unproductive. Focus purely on behavior that can be observed, and leave speculation out of it.

The motivation must change- people who place more value on getting attention than on improving the 'pedia will invariably be disruptive ^{[citation needed]}. I can't see any option other than just admitting nothing can be done, and moving on. Resist the temptation to make guesses about the cause of this behavior, or any comments not related to wikipedia. We can educate editors about the expected standards of behavior here but outside of that, wikipedia is not therapy.

People may be trying to get blocked, just because they enjoy any kind of attention they can get, positive or negative. We're not here to feed people's desires for drama and attention, we're here to build an encyclopedia.

Maybe this should be in big letters on every page: "If you find yourself getting blocked for trolling, the way to prevent this is to stop trolling."

About AGF: I get the impression you don't know what this means. Assuming good faith does not mean assuming someone did the right thing.

Editors who are persistently unwilling to work with others will find themselves unwelcome. Fair or not, that's how it goes.

We strive to give accurate, on-topic answers at the ref desk. If someone points out to you that your answer may be wrong, please accept this constructive criticism graciously. Remember, we all want to improve the quality of the ref desk. If an editor persists in giving out bad information despite requests to be more careful, this behavior may eventually be seen as disruptive to the smooth working of the ref desk.

If you get complaints from other editors about your answers, do not just ignore them.

I hesitate to even mention it, but opinions contrary to accepted biology, even if accompanied by solid-sounding arguments, are exactly what "no original research" is about. If you want to present your own reasoning, submit it to some scientific journal. Wikipedia isn't the place for it. Plausible-sounding but incorrect science is worse than implausible-sounding incorrect science, in my opinion, because people might be more likely to believe it.

Utterly bizarre diffs: good looking guys are not crazy immunity proves a non-viral cause of disease non-understanding/non-acceptance of NOR apparent disbelief in germ theory of disease

Is it really this simple? Those who think in terms of factions, of course think factions are important. If the whole world is divided up into those who support the project and those who oppose is, it's very clear what side anyone would be on. And it's very clear which side needs your help, at any cost! But real life is rarely this simple or dramatic.

I agree that those 3 in particular form a particularly disruptive bloc. I don't know if they actually know each other or what, but they seem to support each other. The pattern, as described by David D. above, is that of pushing the limits- taunting, disruption, in short, asking to be blocked. In some cases, when a block occurs, the problematic behavior just continues, now with persecution complex added. Personally, the lot of them have exhausted my patience. Admittedly, I'm not the best to judge this, due to my involvement.

Is it time to just admit there's nothing for it? It sometimes stretches the imagination to think the folks involved want to change their approach to be in line with project expectations.

Blocks don't work. He wants to be shown some exact rule saying that his specific behavior is not allowed. He's unwilling or unable to grasp concepts like "We don't have firm rules" and "The spirit of the rules is more important than the letter." He's apparently unable to understand the general rule that "You're not allowed to belittle other editors". When people ask him to stop, he just continues and says he's doing nothing wrong, because, in his view "nicknames are allowed" trumps "don't be a jerk to other editors".

If an editor asserts that they're unable to tell what's rude, there are at least two possibilities: 1) they're being honest- for some reason, they really ARE unable to tell. or 2) they're just making excuses. A well-meaning editor in case 1 would, in the interest of harmony, take other people's word for it- if someone whose judgment they trust says "hey, you're being rude" they would listen and discontinue the rudeness, even if they didn't understand it themselves.

Maybe the only way is this: as soon as someone is being obstructive to discussion, call them on it saying "When you say things like >blah<, it sounds like you're trying to obstruct discussion rather than engage in it. People are likely to just not respond (or worse yet, respond in an inappropriate place onthe meta-issue) when this happens.

Maybe don't waste time more than once or twice trying to explain yourself, if it appears that the other people is intentionally not getting it. Just get on with life and do your thing.

Some people don't accept "here's why your behavior is harmful in my opinion"- they only want "here's the exact words of the exact rule that you violated". How can this gap be bridged?

People translate "here's why I think this is harmful" to "I don't like this." This could be 1) willful misunderstanding as an obstructive technique, or 2) a childlike simplicity in thinking, or 3) someone whose perceptions are so discolored by past experience that they simple cannot take other people's words as written. Anything else?

Focusing on scoring debate points, rather than focusing on the actual point being discussed, leads people to wonder whether you've read what they wrote at all.

This is a meta-issue: when there's disagreement, we should focus on the issue at hand, not on the disagreement itself. It's like looking through a window and seeing the window itself instead of what you wanted to see through it.

If you need exact rules, maybe what you really need is a mentor to help you figure out how to proceed? I dunno. (Is there any evidence that anything like this has ever worked?)

How did things get so far out of order here?

Do some people really believe there's no such thing as judgment?

There's not enough common ground for any kind of understanding between the alleged "factions"

Maybe the whole issue is "respect"? Understandable, everyone wants to be treated with a bit of respect (what this means might vary widely)

important: resist the urge to come across as saying "Could you children pipe down? The adults are trying to have a conversation, here."

Possible core problem: Some people think "respect" must mean "Your opinion, on anything, is just as good as anyone else's opinion." The obvious problem is that people have different areas of expertise. To some, the suggestion that they stay out of areas in which they are not an expert comes off as disrespectful. Taken to an extreme, some people see ANY disagreement as disrespectful and they take it personally (there's probably nothing can be done to make such people productive editors. That mindset is simply too foreign to how wikipedia works.)

What is the core problem here?

People hear "Yes, we can remove things at editorial discretion if they're unhelpful" and turn this into "I alone am going to remove whatever I want, for any whimsical reason that strikes me at the time." before processing it in their brains. Of course, they object to such a ridiculous statement. The problem is, what they're objecting to isn't what's being said.

A group of editors with apparently similiar ideas, goals, and behavior. Because there are several people who tend to agree with each other, this makes it difficult to convince any of them that there is broad consensus for some ideas they don't like. (Hard to convince someone to change their approach when their fan club is cheering them on)

One editor described this as "populist"- this may not be far off.

As far as I can tell, some common traits of this group are:

1. seeing admins as automatically a bloc- not apparently realizing the large number of conflicts that admins get in with each other
2. a denial that any editor has the "right" to criticize another. How they think a collaboration encyclopedia can function without criticism (in all senses) is not yet known.
3. A desire to answer as many questions as possible, with more value placed on "giving an answer" than on "giving a good answer". Is this a game, where any kind of response scores you a point?
4. StuRat does not value the input of those he terms "deletionists". Not sure how he defines it, but he thinks the criticism of his editing behavior is coming only from that one camp, and they're not worth listening to. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk&curid=4599013&diff=99425354&oldid=99423714
5. Being immediately horrified at the thought of comments being removed. Often, this horrification seems to be completely unrelated to the content of the comments that were removed. They see the removal as such a foreign, hostile act that it needs extreme justification.
6. (can't tell this for sure, but) I think it's likely that many of these people don't actually read the comments of others. This would explain how they so frequently misunderstand. I think maybe the skim other's posts, and then fill in, in their minds, some horrible position that they pretend their "opponent" has taken. I guess this all fits in with the "I must fight off my enemies" mindset?
7. general unfamiliarity with how Wikipedia works, accompanied by a belief that this is not the case. Some of them repeatedly point to large numbers of edits as an indication of their expertise.
8. Belief that most things we say here are ultimately opinion, and that all opinions are equally valid and therefor all opinions are good answers to questions
9. Belief that free speech and fairness are more important than the good of the project
10. Resentment of outsiders coming into the reference desk and trying to change things (this is one of the hardest ones- these same "outsiders" resent a bunch of non-acclimated editors squatting at the ref desk)
11. Belief that its good for editors to repond to any question, whether they have relevant knowledge or not. All points of view are helpful, after all.
12. (perhaps) a desire for personal interaction and approval outweighing a desire to improve the encyclopedia
13. a tendency to rules-lawyer and nitpick details rather than responding to main issues
14. a tendency to view disagreement between editors as a fight to be won rather than an effort to come to some consensus
15. Belief that questioners "deserve" to be answered rather than having their questions removed, even if the questions don't seem relevant to a reference desk
16. resentment/rejection of authority (this is probably alright- wikipedia functions mostly without authority)
17. a tendency to clump together and all become defensive if one of them is "attacked" (attack could mean simple disagreement, or a block for disruption, or whatever)
18. an apparently very black-and-white worldview: nuanced guidelines do not please them, they like exact rules. Why? (the exact rules mean you cannot get in trouble for anything not on the "don't do this" list. other reasons?)
19. a tendency to personalize disagreement (is this really true? or am I just seeing boogeymen?)
20. a tendency to take words at their literal face value and ignore any subtlety or nuance in them- but only SOMEtimes. this is the weirdest one.
21. a disregard for the goals of wikipedia. A belief that the reference desk is a seperate beast, not related to the resk of the project. This leads to the disagreement over "do we just provide whatever answers we think are useful, or do we rely on sources?"
22. A rejection of the idea that we judge things on the strength of the arguments presented. I guess this goes along with simple nose-counting? Apparently it goes along with the belief that "all ideas are equal", so the only way to judge a difference of opinion is by vote-counting.
23. an astoundingly stubborn desire to cast the disagreement in terms of "deletionists" and "inclusionists", despite many patient explanation of the actual meaning of these terms. It's all about "factions", apparently, despite many disagreements between different people allegedly in the same "faction"
24. I think part of it is, these people resent the existance of something like admins. (Partly, they appear to not understand what it means to be an admin) They deny any editor the right to say what is or isn't on-topic. They seem to find it greatly offensive that any editor would presume to tell another that they had done something bad. (Maybe they're just unfamiliar with the problem editors we get, and how we normally deal with them?)
25. are people rejecting all notion of substance? this may go along with "everything is opinion, and all opinions are equal". (is this just silly nihilism or something similar?)

Some of these may be vague philosophies that aren't worth addressing- focus on attitudes, or, preferably, behaviors that are harmful to the project.