User:Jahiegel/Views on Wikipedia

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[edit] Views on userboxes

When last I added a userbox to my user page (early April 2006), I had more than 220 userboxes on my page, the most politically-charged of which dealt with issues from abortion to the War on Drugs and nations from Albania to Zimbabwe; since I was a strong proponent of POV userboxes (and a vociferous opponent of the out-of-process removal of such userboxes, I think I ought to explain the evolution of my thinking and the reasons for which I've removed the political userboxes from my user page (recapitulating the reasons for which I removed non-divisive userboxes [save those on the {{Babel}} template], I should note that I found a userpage without userboxes much simpler and more personal; in any case, I found that I better communicated that which one ought to know about me by explicating my views and not simply capriciously adding templates to which I'd given only a cursory look).

I surely understand that Wikipedia is not a social networking site, and that user pages exist only to further the work done on the encyclopedia. I do not, though, believe that one's expressing a point-of-view on a subject that one reasonably expects is controversial necessarily proves deleterious vis-à-vis the continued growth of the encyclopedia; indeed, I think the concomitant salutary effects far to outweigh the negative effects, upon which conclusion I base my judgment that, on the whole, the expression of political views on one's user page is, for the encyclopedia, propitious. There are two primary benefits associated with the expression of political views on one's user page, viz., (a) that one may readily know whence an editor comes and thus better be able to appreciate any POV insertion in articles (especially where avolitional), and, (b), where one feels comfortable and is able to disseminate information about him/herself, he/she is likely to stay and participate in the community, which, assuming arguendo that, on the whole, more editors are preferred to fewer, benefits the project. I further find that, given the intellectual capabilities of most editors and the good faith I apprehend in (and impute to) nearly all editors, it is unlikely that two users will fail to collaborate in view of their finding themselves to differ politically. I've encountered many editors here who have pro-George W. Bush userboxes on their user pages; as one might gather, inasmuch as Bush is, by an objective analysis, the United States president who has most aggrandized the federal government in at least 70 years, I'm not a fan. Nevertheless, I've been able to work constructively with these editors, and I can't imagine that most other editors would, at least passively, damage the project by failing to work with (or, worse, work plainly against the project, elevating POV concerns over objective encyclopedic concerns) editors with whom they would otherwise disagree and whom they might dislike. Even as political discussion is sometimes seen as untoward when essayed at workplaces, I am eminently confident that many workplaces comprise employees of divergent views, where discussions about those views stimulate employees in order that they might better perform their jobs and in any case make those jobs more interesting, such that they should be more likely to continue to work productively.

The only appropriate objection that I find to userboxes that reveal a POV, in my opinion, is that, even as such userboxes are beneficial, the benefits they convey do not outweigh the (admittedly mild) strain placed on servers by non-mainspace content. This objection, furthered by my belief that those who donate to the Wikimedia Foundation likely intend that their monies should fund encyclopedic activities, did resonate with me, and I found this objection to militate sufficiently against my using political userboxes that I planned to remove such userboxes. I have found, though, that there is a good deal of content on user pages that is related to the project only tangentially (in a similar fashion to that in which userboxes are related to the project); I'd adduce, for example, the placement of pictures of a user on his/her user page (intended to facilitate discussion and personalize a user name, I suppose), which placement Raul654, inter al., has recently, in his considered judgment, discursively, if not ministerially, ratified, as well as the long-lived Wikipedia chess championship.

One may also observe, though, that, even as userboxes themselves and in the abstract prove beneficial to the project, they have had the practical result of creating divisiveness, such that debates over userboxes have a cumulative negative effect on the project. One must also note, though, that simply because debates about an issue becomes divisive, one oughtn't to compromise capriciously over the underlying issue. Notwithstanding that proviso, though, and in view of the fact that I'm not particularly attached to the idea of userboxes (many of mine were, I think, added when I was a very new user in search of things to add to my user page and hoping to express disagreement with the Great Userbox Purge of 2005-6), I have concluded that, for me, this objection is persuasive; where the use of political userboxes, no matter the content therein, is likely to inflame other users and to impede our collaboration, it is better that I should remove the userboxes and most references to my political views.

One often hears the term censorship ascribed to the deletion of userboxes, and I understand why some would use such term, but I think it must be said that I do not act to censor myself here in view of the expressions of a mob (see, e.g., as in a heckler's veto scenario; here, I forbear for the good of the encyclopedia), and that, in any case, one may disagree with Jimbo with respect to whether political userboxes are appropriate and nevertheless conclude that such userboxes are exorbitantly divisive for the project (even if they shouldn't be). I yield to no one in my defense of free speech, but, of course, Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and, whilst one may think the breathless fervor with which some argue against POV userboxes to be wholly unnecessary, one must nevertheless acknowledge that fervor. I surely would wonder about an editor who expressed an inability to work with me because I expressed, on my user page, an admiration for the Liberal Party of Australia, and I might even think such inability to be demonstrative of intellectual infirmity; I ought to recognize, though, that such inability might be widespread here (and surely doesn't reflect intellectual infirmity) and that, then, I do more harm than good to the project by pontificating with respect to the politics of Venezuela on my user page. Were I sufficiently attached to userboxes and were I altogether convinced of their nature as beneficial, I'd likely attempt to convince others of the correctness of my position or would leave Wikipedia, unwilling to compromise my beliefs; happily, neither applies here, and so I may readily dispense with my userboxes and continue with my editing. There are other fights the disposition of which is much more important to Wikipedia's developing in the fashion that I think it must (e.g., WP:NOT EVIL, where encyclopedic content, rather than user page content, is the focus), and I elect to devote my energies to those debates.

[edit] Views on deletion

When first I joined the project, I added two userboxes to my user page that I thought best conveyed my views with respect to deletion; the first deemed me

a Wikipedia darwikinist in my understanding of the internal workings and construction of the encyclopedia,

while the second revealed me to be

a Wikipedia inclusionist in my forming views relative to the creation of pages and the insertion of information, although I am more likely to support the retention of potentially unnecessary information in an article than the creation or retention of an article of a topic of apochrypal or dubious notoriety...Nevertheless, I think presumptions should be always be made in favor of keeping, rather than removing, information.

Each still reflects my views generally, although my participation at Articles for deletion might lead one to think me a deletionist, so I ought to flesh out my thinking relative to deletion.

I continue to embrace the idea that Wikipedia will comprise, as Jimbo puts it, the "sum of all human knowledge"; after all, I participate in the project primarily in order that other established editors or new visitors might find in an article I've edited (or, in the latter case, in a reference desk response) information for which they were searching and might then decide to stay and expand the encyclopedia, increasing the chances that I might later find information for which I'm looking (ancillarily, the project is intellectually stimulating and presents me unique opportunities to correspond with all manner of remarkable individuals). Nevertheless, the encyclopedia is surely diminshed, both as a source on which I might rely and as a repository of information others might find useful, such that they might later contribute, where unsourced, unverifiable, or unencyclopedic information (or, worse, articles) remains in mainspace.

[edit] Specific issues

(notability by relation) Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles what is speediable (A7 Brynn Cameron koala nuts) remove speedy tag

Consequently, there are several conclusions to which I have come with respect to deletion:

  • Where a subject is of (at least arguable) notability but an article offers very little salvagable content (or, in any case, content the independent duplication of which would not be taxing), my preference is that the article be deleted and that a request for an article apropos of its subject be made at WP:RA, in order that the project should not forget altogether about a subject for which the encyclopedia ought to have an article.
  • The vitiation of WP:NN (a guideline that does not necessarily command the support to the community writ large but nevertheless is appropriately practicable) would run contrarily to the spirit of WP:NOT; even as a "vote" of non-notable sometimes denotes an AfD participant's ignorance of a given subject, there surely are subjects that, by virtue of their insignificance and/or academic or cultural triviality, are unencyclopedic. It is often suggested that WP:RS and WP:V militate sufficiently against our not having articles for which sourcing can never be effected as to remedy the problem of our having articles that are wholly insubstantial, but there are surely those subjects for which complete sourcing can be found the articlizing of which would doom the project. The fact of the existence of the street on which I live is verifiable, even other than by primary research (e.g., by our adducing a city blueprint)—there are articles in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that reference by streeth and the characteristics thereof&mdashand an article apropos of the street on which I live (which isn't, as against Rodeo Drive, commonly thought of as encyclopedic). I readily concede that enucleating (to say nothing of enumerating in detail) the criteria by which I adjudge notability is exceedingly difficult; indeed, it is fair to say that I know it when I see it. Were the successs of the project dependent solely upon my nebulous (if not capricious) notability criteria, we might well be in trouble. As it is, though, the AfD process works similarly to that of the article editing process; the considered judgment of many editors, taken collectively, produces a desirable result.

[edit] Views on adminship and requests therefor

For a concise treatment of the standards against which I judge candidates for adminship, please see my RfA subpage.

Admins are not, to my mind, infallible, and the judgments of admins should not be seen as inviolable in such instances as they, one can objectively observe, are inconsistent with the will of the community. Even as they may seek to shape consensus discursively (as any other editor), where they act in their official positions they (almost categorically) serve to interpret and implement the wishes of the community, not unilaterally to determine what those wishes ought to be. When the community gives its imprimatur to a candidate for adminship, it does so, I think, in view of its belief that the candidate can be trusted to carry out the wishes of the community, as expressed either in extant policies and guidelines, which ostensibly command the support of the community, or in specific community discussions (e.g., XfDs); the giving of tools imbues or endues a newly-minted admin neither with omnipotence nor, consequently, with omniscience, and such omniscience should not be inferred, either on the part of an admin (even when he/she becomes "tenured") or on the part of a "regular user" with whom he/she may have occasion to interact. Admins must recognize that there is a distinction between that over which they think there ought, amongst learned and valuable editors, to be no debate and that over which there is actually no debate; I think it indisputable that George W. Bush isn't particularly bright, and I have difficulty understanding why anyone would think contrarily, but I recognize that some do, and that, even as I might continue to think myself to be altogether correct (and might even think ill of those who disagree with me) and might close my mind to all other possibilities, those others are substantial in number and sincere in belief, such that, in a collaborative enterprise, they oughtn't to be dismissed straightaway or cursorily. I strongly support, of course, the idea that admins should be open to recall, and it is not, I think, coincendental that many admins over whose work I am most impressed and for whom I have great respect (e.g., Friday, Xoloz, Blnguyen, AmiDaniel, CrzRussian, Yanksox, User:Aaron Brenneman, and Bunchofgrapes) subscribe to the same.

In view of my sense of adminship, I condition my support of a prospective admin on the disposition one question: Whether a given user's becoming an admin is likely to have, on the whole, propitious or deleterious consequences for the project? I am disinclined to believe that if a prospective admin indicates that he/she won't use the admin tools everyday he/she ought to be opposed; indeed, overeagerness (especially for blocking) is not a particularly auspicious quality in a prospective admin. A user with whose judgment and knowledge one feels comfortable—who, one thinks, is well-versed in policy to act to implement the consensus of the community and, in situations where he/she is either insufficiently knowledgable about the relevant processes or unable properly to ascertain the consensus of the community, inclined not to act—should, irrespective of avowed intent to use the tools, be approved, except in situations where the prospective harms to the project (e.g., the user's account's, being relatively dormant, being appropriated by another who will abuse admin tools or the user's becoming insufficiently familiar with the project to use the admin tools properly and thinking him/herself otherwise able) outweigh the prospective benefits. Such standards, I think, are consistent with the idea that every action one takes here ought to be viewed in the context of whether it advances the goals of the project. As one might expect, given the lenient and flexible nature of my criteria, I support candidates much more frequently than I oppose, but that speaks, I think, more to the quality of those who are nominated for adminship than exclusively to my tolerant attitude.

[edit] Views on blocking

I was altogether happy when first I learned that our policy was to block to prevent disruption rather than to punish conduct; such formulation was identical to that which I'd have preferred. I am not at all a fan of the gotcha block requests made by some, where punishment is sought for personal attacks or Wikistalking that, while perhaps untoward or indecorous, are not obstructive of the collaborative editing process, and I must admit that I sometimes infer—probably unfairly if not wrongly—that a user who frequently complains at the personal attack intervention or admin noticeboards about personal attacks and harassment is marked by intellectual infirmity or intersocial unfitness, although I ought more often to recognize that there are some users who are genuinely off-put by personal attacks that they ought not to have to endure (this presents, of course, a heckler's veto situation in which users attacking different users might be treated disparately, but all personal attacks ought to be looked upon with disfavor).

Wikistalking ought, I think, to be viewed a bit differently from personal attacks, since Wikistalking need not to be harassing and may be productive. Where one knows a particular contributor to be productive on the whole but to tend toward the biased or slipshot in his/her editing of a given article or set or articles, it is not inappropriate that the former should check up on the latter, so long as he/she is motivated by encyclopedic concerns or, at the very least, does not subjugate encyclopedic advancement to vendetta satiation. Likewise, one does not err if he/she follows another to various main- and project-space talk pages to offer disagreement with another where the disagreement offered is legitimate and the intention is to advance encyclopedic concerns and not puerilely to be difficult.

The relevant question, as with all else, is to what extent project disruption occurs and whether, in consideration of the prospective contributors whom he/she might drive away, the person making personal attacks nevertheless produces a positive net effect on the project; were Grutness (whom I've chosen randomly from the top twenty non-bot editors by edit count), for example, to assail a neophytic contributor, even with vituperative terms that caused ten other infrequent editors to leave the project, our blocking (arguendo, indefinitely) Grutness to preserve those eleven contributors might harm the project more than our losing those eleven contributors.

Similarly, users who don't contravene policy but who do not contribute productively, even where they surely act in good faith, ought, should they continue to disrupt, to be blocked indefinitely. A user, for example, who is able to contribute rudimentarily in English but whose mainspace edits tend not to advance the goals of the project and who, having been apprised of the consensus of the community that his/her edits are not beneficial to the project, continues to edit in a less-than-productive manner, either in view of his/her contumacious unwillingness to comport his/her editing with the wishes of the community writ large or in view of his/her inability well to comprehend the entreaties of others (especially where such inability is held concomitant to an improper appreciation of the nature of the project), he/she is unlikely ever to prove a productive editor and ought to be blocked indefinitely, for reasons rather orthogonal to those of the Wikipedia is not therapy essay.

Even as I think personal attacks to be necessarily inferior to rational or logical arguments, I cannot conceive of a personal attack that one might level against me that would disrupt my editing here or make me less likely to contribute positively to the project, I am certain I will never seek to have another user blocked because he/she has written pejoratively; such writings won't disrupt my project participation and thus needn't to be prevented or proscribed via block. I also tolerate profanity, worrying that those who are irked by swearing out perhaps to find other things about which to worry, but, since there is typically no encyclopedic (or other legitimate) purpose advanced by one's swearing, and since there appears to be some disruptive effect, I eschew profanity here generally, except where I am corresponding on the user talk page or a user whom I know well and with whom I often communicate jocularly. It is never appropriate unnecessarily to inflame other users, even those to whom one ascribes the appellatives troll or vandal, even as such inflaming may please one viscerally, and I do not approve of the impulse of some to write in a fashion they'd not otherwise consider when dispensing with a troll or vandal (not only in order that trolls shouldn't be fed but also in view of the general need for civility).

[edit] Views on biographies of living persons and office actions, or, more generally, on the ethical or moral impulses that ought to underlie our editing

I have spent much too much time on this topic passim, and I intend to withdraw myself from the discussion a bit, not least because, even as I enjoy the abstract argument as much as anyone, I derive more pleasure from creating articles or portals into which to throw myself (and think I benefit the project more in this way, since, as one might expect relative to an issue that invites many extra-Wikipedia questions, the views of most users—even those who partake only peripherally in discussions apropos of the pernicious WP:BLP—are rather fixed, such that discussion will likely serve, salutarily, to codify an extant consensus in order policy might better reflect practice and general agreement (toward the worth of which see, for example, the WP:PII discussion infra) and only ancillarily to change the mind of other users; since my efforts have tended toward the latter, and since others are more capable than I of ascertaining where the views of the community lie and reducing those views, laconically, to words, my time is best used in other areas of the project, both vis-à-vis the project itself and vis-à-vis my own delectation.

In brief (which term I may not understand), I oppose our considering the nebulous human dignity in editing biographies of living persons, believing that our editing an article in such a fashion as is otherwise consistent with our guidelines but that as will have a profoundly harmful effect on the subject of the article is not at all morally inappropriate; in any event, I find that moral questions are necessarily unencyclopedic and have no place here, thinking it appropriate that we edit with disinterest and dispassion (as against, for example, consistent with a harm limitation principle). Because I tend toward the amoral, I haven't any particular problem conflating my desire to edit disinteretedly with my desire not to harm those about whom I might write, but I recognize there are those who perceive an ethical dilemma when editing biographies of living persons; I think, though, that the moral imperative that one edit without respect to the consequences of one's editing, so as truly to be an independent encyclopedist, is much stronger than that which I nonplussedly suppose others apprehend (i.e., that one ought not to harm another by disseminating information; I view the moral dilemma here to be akin to that confronted by the appellate judge who must, contrary to his pro-life views, write an opinion consistent with Roe v. Wade or who must, contrary to his views about flag desecration, decide a case in view of Texas v. Johnson). To be sure, there are many individuals who are avolitionally public and only (quasi-)notable, and I am certain that there are those (e.g., Brian Peppers) who suffer harm as a result of our featuring articles that reference them, if only because Wikipedia pages often return on the first page of Google searches. There are situations in which even I am irked by such harm, since, as an anarcholibertarian, I oppose nearly every criminal law and am altogether incensed when individuals are untowardly confronted by the state; my being irked, though, is altogether immaterial to our encyclopedic pursuits, and surely doesn't affect the public or encyclopedically notable qualities of a given subject. There are those who, rather potently, submit that our having an article about a subject whom we later deem non-notable (upon the revelation of such conclusion we delete the article) might harm the subject thereof and eventually fulfill no encyclopedic purpose. I think, though, that this objection can be readily rejoined with the larger, invited question of why we ought, in the first instance, to create articles about living persons (or anything) whose notability we can imagine might be transitory (if we can ascertain, I think, that an individual will almost certainly not meet our notability guidelines in 50 years, he/she should not be understood to meet those guidelines now). Many have also suggested that WP:BLP only serves to observe that WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NPOV ought to be followed explicitly in articles dealing with living persons and that those who fear that BLP will prevent the project from having certain articles ought instead to realize that those articles would fail as unsourced, unverifiable, or apropos of non-notable subjects. Brian Peppers is as good a counterexample as one might find, though, inasmuch as BLP (at least were it modified to include a human dignity provision, as well it may be) might well counsel that, notability and verifiability notwithstanding, we ought not to have an article about Peppers, because our having such an article serves to sponsor disparagement of Peppers. I don't disagree with the latter conclusion, and I certainly oppose the maintenance of sex offender registeries (and the dealing with most physical assaults criminally), such that, under a system of governance I'd adopt, Peppers wouldn't be a public figure. He is, though, and it's not for us to subordinate our disseminating information to his not being ridiculed. There are, I think, only two reasons that we might treat living persons differently: (a) lest we should harm subjects or (b) lest we should incur legal liability. I evidently think (a) to be less-than-persuasive (where there are neutrality problems with the biographies of living persons, those problems should, of course, be ameliorated (if not wholly resolved) as NPOV problems with any article) and think (b) to be of such little import as insufficiently to miliate against our having articles of which the subjects are avolitionally public living persons. There are, of course, causes of action one might essay against Wikipedia, but it is almost certain that any action undertaken relative to an article in which any ostensibly defamatory information is sourced (or true) would be summarily dismissed. In order that the resources of Foundation employees and Brad Patrick should not be consumed unnecessarily, and in order that Wikipedia should not suffer from negative publicity that might discourage others from joining the project or from donating to the Foundation, we want, of course, to avoid lawsuits (even those from which we'd seem to be immunized), but a weighing test ought to be employed. The benefits of our featuring articles about subjects who are notable outweigh any harms that might befall that project in view of our having those articles, including harms that may befall living subjects. Ceteris paribus, should an article with respect to a living person, even he/she who asks that we be compassionate and respect his/her privacy, be treated than article with respect to a narrowmouth toad or to the Notre Dame de Paris cathédral? In my opinion, no.

The ascendance of WP:OFFICE invites questions similar to those above; for one, whether, as Jimbo explained in his elevation of OFFICE, those making complaints via OTRS ought temporarily to be placated even where no broad encyclopedic purpose is served and even where no legal compulsion exists. Once more, I think any temporary and small publicity gain (or negative publicity avoidance achieved) means less to the project than the compromising of encyclopedic principles. OFFICE applications are most concerning where an individual observes that an article of which he/she is a subject is biased. No legal liability, of course, attaches here; we could feature an article containing only negative facts about George W. Bush, even those that are unsourced (where they're offered as personal opinions and not as objective and veritable factual observations) and be altogether free from legal jeopardy. Of course, we want our articles to be neutral, and so, where a subject or a subject's agent complains about a given article, we ought to look at it as we'd view any other article. When an article is blanked, under OFFICE, as irreparably bad, there is an attendant implication that the very foundations of the project are rotten and that some articles might become so inconsistent with our general principles as never to be able to be saved by the thousands who contribute here; I understand, then, that such an OFFICE action means to subjugate the collective knowledge of our many editors to that of a few, and I have much difficulty abiding such subjugation. As WP:LEGAL makes clear, if one wishes to essay legal action against us, he/she may and should. If suits are filed in exorbitant numbers, some Foundation funds, to be sure, will be consumed, but the net effect of such consumption will be positive: a preservation of encyclopedic principles and a suppression of future suit. For those who are motivated to edit principally by humanitarian concerns (e.g., as Jimbo, toward the end of our making available to the impoverished children of Africa, for example, the sum total of the world's knowledge), then, I would suggest that the best encyclopedia for others is created when we follow a categorical rule with respect to ethical editing, toward which following I would suggest that our employing any other than a categorical rule so damages the project (if only in view of the difficulties relative to the attempted conflation of the moral schemes and reasons for editing held by the community qua individual editors) as to diminish significantly (first in principle and, surely, thereafter in fact) that which we might hope to give humanity, surely to a greater degree than that to which we might help (ethically) living subjects, for example.

I intend, though, to leave these debates to others, because I think many of my views are inconsistent with those of most here (although so too, I think, are those of the biggest BLP supporters) and imagine that I won't successfully persuade others to think as I (such learned and valuable users as SlimVirgin, Herostratus, Fred Bauder, Steve Harris, UnivitedCompany, and FloNight[1]well and successfully make a case contrary to mine), and because I, as is my wont when I participate in morality-related discussions, insinuate myself obsessively into those discussions, to the exclusion of all else, which is neither good for the project nor for me. I am concerned, though, that many of the discussions with respect to OFFICE and BLP occur on the sundry mailing lists or over IRC; there is surely some need for discretion on the part of debate participants, inasmuch as meta- and legal concerns entail, but IRC and the mailing lists, by their nature and notwithstanding Jimbo's pronouncement that the mailing list, more central as it is than any other discussion venue, ought to serve as the medium on/over which policies and guidelines are discussed generally, attract tenured users and aren't particularly insulated against groupthink. If discussions are undertaken at the talk pages of various overarching policies, though, such as BLP, many often aren't aware and don't participate; to this, I haven't a solution.

One may here find some of my more lucid comments on the subject: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14].

Alex S. survey

[edit] Views on the juxtaposition of process and rule igging

Is process important? Generally. Should all rules be ignored? Sometimes. Can the two be reasonably conflated? Surely. Each of those essays mirrors substantively and recapitulates much of my thinking, and so I'll not set out in great deal why I think each of the two essays holds a good deal of water. In short, though, process is important because most processes exist to implement the consensus of the community, consistent with the collaborative ideals that underlie the project, most prominently that the product of the participation of many is likely superior to the product of the participation of one. To the extent, then, that process is important can be understood to mean where there is or is likely to be (cf., should be) disagreement amongst the community over a given issue, process ought to be followed, in order that the issue might be disposed of consistent with encyclopedic principles and the wishes of the community, especially through an ordered and cooperative discussion, I think process is important. Ignore all rules understands quite well that the only relevant issue in our adjudging any given conduct in any namespace is whether it is beneficial to or destructive to/disruptive of the project; the rub, of course, is that one man's beneficial is another man's destructive. Where there is not likely to be (cf., should not be) disagreement about an issue, one should, consistent with WP:SNOWBALL and WP:BB, act without complying strictly with policies and guidelines (one wonders, of course, why there should exist rules that are unnecessarily idiosyncratic, but some instruction creep will always occur), viz., by interpreting those policies and guidelines in view of meta (qua uber) principles and, most importantly, with a mind toward common sense and civil collaboration. Where it is probable someone should object (where we can understand someone to mean a user who has been with the project more than a short time or is new but understands well how the project works and appears to be devoted to the project as it is understood by others) to the ignoring of a given rule, the rule should not be ignored; we should reduce confusion by interpreting, and then following, rules (which, if obtuse or constricting, ought to be changed by and through community-wide discussion). Where someone does objet to to the ignoring of a given rule, process should be followed (or, where process has been ignored, restarted). If there exists a consensus for a given view, it is eminently probable that a discussion will bear out the fact and nature of that consensus. There is no need for one to panic; if, absent the immediate and unilateral action of a given admin, something horrible will happen, the project is much worse off than one would otherwise think (if is simply a [perhaps unnecessary] discussion that will happen, there are many, many worse things that could happen). Finally, many adduce inviolable encyclopedic principles toward the proposition that, even where a consensus appears to exist, an admin should act against the wishes of the community (even dismissing the community—or some not insignificant segment thereof—cursorily); as WP:POLICY notes, though, it is inherently repugnant to the nature of a wiki to understand certain prescriptions to be immutable, and so everything here is subject to change (I leave unconsidered whether/when/how the Ship of Theseus paradox would entail), such that one ought not simply to say I'm ignoring all rules for the good of the encyclopedia and then to deign to explain to others that no reasonable disagreement as to the good of the encyclopedia can be had. The project suffers little appreciable harm when various discussions are permitted to proceed to exhaustion, and much harm when certain discussions are prematurely ended; in any event, one admin shouldn't think him/herself so wise (even if he/she is, he/she ought to let the rest of us discover that fact on our own) as best to be able to determine when to ignore rules where there will exist much disagreement or confusion.

Tony nad Kelly RFC2 and An/I and Cyde Carnildo RfA 3 and xplanation

[edit] Views on the 2006 Board of Trustees election

There is no candidate whom I support entirely, but there are twelve individuals about whom I am other than indifferent. I support AaronSw, Alex756, Arnomane, Cimon Avaro, Evrik, Kim Bruning and Linuxbeak, whilst I oppose rather strongly Improv, Mindspillage, Kelly Martin, and Charles Matthews, principally in view of the position of the latter four that we ought to edit other than with dispassion vis-à-vis our subjects and disinterest vis-à-vis the external consequences of our editing, and the concomitant affection held by the latter for WP:OFFICE and its progeny; Mindspillage, for whom I have great respect, makes the case most perniciously at her board candidacy talk page: It's important for us to be responsive to those wrongs when they are pointed out, to have it be clear that as an organization we are committed to doing right by people, that we choose to do this even where it may mean difficulty for us and even where it is not strictly required that we do so (emphasis added). I am also disinclined to support Uninvited Company in view of his board candidacy talk page profession that, whilst producing a neutral, accurate, comprehensive, and free reference work is an objective good, whilst many [Wikipedians] (including [him]) believe that free flow of information is a good thing, and whilst it generally isn't the Foundation's role to prescribe editorial policy...or [to create] policy by fiat, we should be concerned about the consequeces of our publishing accurate, verifiable information that negatively affects [subjects] and should delete [information]...the making...readily available [of which] poses a safety risk; because he takes great pains to offer deep analysis and does not dispose of the question summarily and because he seems to consider the implementation of a balancing test to be in order, I can't strongly oppose.

[edit] Views on the December 2006 Arbitration Committee election

[edit] Views on miscellaneous topics

Having attempted here to assemble (with expansion) various views previously expressed in userboxes, I've been left with a few issues for which expansion is unwarranted or that I'm otherwise unable to categorize:

  • I abide in nearly every circumstance by the one-revert rule; as one may have deduced from my prolix periphrasticity :), I'm rather a fan of discussion, and I think it is always best to talk—ideally on talk pages, but at worst in edit summaries—than reflexively to revert. By noting one's concerns on an article's talk page, one necessarily solicits community input (without a formal RfC), and a third solution that best serves encyclopedic purposes might well be reached, or in any case preserves a discussion in order that editors happening upon an article in the future might best understand its history and the discussions that shaped the article. The anti-edit warring measures of the harmonious editing club are excellent, and the defend each other (or each other's edits) collaborative spirit they engender is wholly consistent with the project's goals.
  • I very firmly believe that Wikipedia ought not to be censored for, inter al., the protection of minors.
  • I think, even as I support intellectual property rights (though with several modifications consistent with my anarcholibertarian political views) for reasons most cogently expressed here, that our fair use restrictions are overly restrictive, improperly prohibiting our fair use of images in portal space, for example, and ought to be modified, perhaps even in such a fashion as to place Wikipedia in legal jeopardy, in such situations as we can be relatively certain that a civil action against the Foundation will not be undertaken.

Free content, unprintworthy, or cd…they take risk but anyone using not mind either (except if moral convictions), Just as whether copy encyclopedia without history, Downstream users, WP talk:logo, de facto free (soviet stampps) assume ecost,

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ This enumeration, to be clear, should not be construed to be a list of editors whom I think to be enemies of the project or of me (some editors host such lists, which seem contrary to the collegial and collaborative atmosphere the preservation of which is essential to the continued survival [to say nothing of growth] of the project); instead, these users are others with whom I have most stridently disagreed but whom I think to make cogently and sincerely the arguments for positions I do not hold, and I surely hope that those users who should disagree with me will consider the arguments of these users, in order that they might best appreciate the encyclopedic arguments that run contrary to mine.
This space is, by its nature, perpetually under construction.
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