User talk:JzG/JR

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This is a workshop space for an informal attempt to mediate a dispute between User:Badlydrawnjeff (aka Jeff) and User:Radiant!. Other parties may contribute if they believe they can help, but anything from any party which is seen as not contributing towards fixing the problem may be removed, to prevent further escalation.

Suggested questions for the parties:

  1. Where do you think the dispute started
  2. Why do you think it escalated
  3. Is there, in your view, a pivotal moment where things started to go wrong
  4. What do you think you have done that has helped to cause this; what could you have done differently / better
  5. Have you done anything positive to try to fix the problem
  6. What do you think the other party has done that has helped to cause this; what could they have done differently / better# Has the other party done anything positive to try to fix the problem
  7. What would you like to see change (dangerous! be positive)
  8. What would you consider a solution (no, "leave me alone" is not a solution, sorry)
  9. Think of a really great thing about the other party
  10. Think of a something about the other party that really bugs you

Contents

[edit] Jeff

This section is for Jeff's answers to the questions, please leave this for Jeff at this point.

  1. Every time I think I've pinpointed where it started, I find an earlier instance. I do know that I never as much as recall noticing him before he went on Wikibreak, but noticed a lot when he got back and started tagging a number of proposals as {{historical}}. As I hadn't seen or heard of him before, it was somewhat bizarre to watch. I'd say the first time I really had any issues were at WP:SNOW, Wikipedia:Practical process, and, at the worst point, WP:DENY (relevant archive)
  2. For me, the tipping point was at polling is not a substitute for discussion, or whatever it's called. While I saw inklings of the tactics at DENY, I've only felt bullied by someone one other time at a project page, and that was by Tony Sidaway at WP:SNOW - and we know what happened there. Radiant's terse dismissal of opposing arguments and forcing of his view of consensus (ironically, at some point, using a headcount) pretty much stopped discussion cold. I still don't think consensus exists for the guideline tag, but who wants to fight with him anymore about it? This is where the escalation point with me occurred - it became clear to me that he wasn't going to even accept that there were significant problems with declaring consensus and with the page itself, to the point that even in places where I agreed with him, it didn't feel right because of how he was handling it
  3. While there was nothing much to say at DDV, it really went wrong the first time at WP:CREEP, where we fought about the existence of consensus (I showed that there wasn't any, he merely claimed it was historical per meta and that people tend to try and avoid it), and then asked for page protection while in the middle of the revert war. That was the first time I've honestly felt like he was not acting in the best interests of the project, and my good faith began to evaporate.
  4. I could have certainly not allowed myself to get fired up about it the way I did. As I've said elsewhere, I have made a couple attacks - not as many as Radiant accuses me of - that I probably wouldn't make were I able to do so again. I also would have probably gotten people I trust involved sooner, which I hesitated doing based on fears of being accused of canvassing.
  5. I've tried to get mediation going to no avail. I skipped RfC because it's worthless.
  6. I can't think of a thing he's done or offered to do to fix this problem.
  7. I'll try to be as positive as possible - I'd like to see him actively work toward consensus on pages he holds opinions about. I'd like to see more cooperation with people he disagrees with.
  8. The worst case scenario is that I'd like to see him remove himself entirely from project pages. That's a poor answer and not something that is tenable or fair. At the very least, I'd like to see him work on talk pages more - there are revert wars at the WP:BIO/WP:MUSIC/WP:WEB that he hasn't even touched the talk page, and that's simply wrong.
  9. Something great about Radiant: he came back. It sounds trite, but he saw enough worth in this project to look back at why he left and say "yeah, that sucks, but I can change things." That's pretty cool.
  10. What do I dislike? I absolutely hate that someone with few significant mainspace contributions since his return is attempting to judge consensus on what's worthy of inclusion. Last I checked, that's what we're here for - to build something, not to simply talk about it and nothing else. My mainspace contributions are low right now, I admit - I also bought a house while on semi-Wikibreak. What's the deal?

[edit] Explanation by Radiant of some of the issues raised above

  • I consider tagging proposals as "historical" a cleanup task. I occasionally look over CAT:PRO to see what proposals are "in the air". If I see proposals that have no active discussion, I use the {{historical}} marker to indicate that. Usually this means that (1) people have lost interest in the proposal and it's not going anywhere, or (2) people become aware that they need to advertise it more. When I came back from the break, there were about 200 open proposals, most of which fell in category #1.
    • For clarity, my pointing this out was not a criticism in itself, but an observation, and was meant to be nothing other than that. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Okay, no problem. I suspect that much of this conflict is caused by misunderstanding, hence I wanted to explain that. >Radiant< 15:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
        • Which is fine, and I hope that's the case. Essentially, what I ham-fistedly said there was that I wasn't aware of you before you got back and started in on that. It was an odd way to be introduced to a user. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I think the underlying disagreement is about adjudicating consensus. If I understand correctly, Jeff judges the consensus for a page by the supportive comments on its relevant talk page, whereas I consider it an important factor whether it matches actual practice. When evaluating guidelines and such, I look at what the page actually says and whether people agree or disagree with that in practice, not at whether proper process was followed in putting the tag on (because such a a process hasn't actually been defined anywhere).
  • I should point out that I (and others) have heavily reworded WP:PNSD, and at one point rewritten it from scratch entirely, in an attempt to address objections and reach consensus.

[edit] Radiant

This section is for Radiant's answers to the questions, please leave this for Radiant at this point.

  1. I'm honestly not sure where the dispute started, but underlying is a difference in philosophy. For one, I believe Jeff follows a rule-based approach, whereas I try to minimize bureaucracy; for another, he is a strong inclusionist and I'm not. I suppose from there disagreement would be inevitable.
  2. I think the locus of the dispute is those notability-related pages. There was basically a revert war between two versions. We both claim of one particular version that it was stable for long enough to be considered consensual ("my" version for a month, "his" version was stable before that, but I haven't checked for how long exactly; the pages are constantly in flux anyway). I suppose both of these are valid points. As I recall we both asked for outside advice on the village pump and the admin board; one reason this escalated is because nobody much responded to our calls, so it was just the two of us for the time being. Another reason it escalated is because we're both stubborn.
  3. For me, the pivotal moment is when the personal attacks came in. I do not particularly appreciate being called disruptive, or tendentious, or having-never-made-a-positive-contribution. In my opinion, even if you believe some person is a <whatever>, it is still inappropriate to call them that. For one, belief isn't fact; for another, it's not conductive to discussion.
  4. One thing I've been doing wrong is acting too fast. At the moment I've decided to comment on each talk page thread no more than once per day, rather than immediately responding to a response. This seems to be a calmer approach. Apart from that, I/we should have gotten outside comment sooner.
  5. I tried to get outside comment. It took awhile for that to arrive; once it did, I decided to drop the issue and let the other people decide on it, so I withdrew from the related pages and their talk pages and refrained from further comment. I'm sure there are plenty of interested people around to resolve it.
  6. Well, Jeff did attempt mediation, but it came out rather one-sided. Both pages read (to me) like "Radiant is disruptive, how can we stop this" rather than "There is a conflict between Radiant and Jeff, how can we resolve this". Incidentally this may be a flaw in the formal mediation templates. I also appreciate that Jeff has toned down his negative remarks.
  7. Regarding the notability guidelines, I am more interested in having a stable version than in what that stable version actually is, so I think that problem is resolving itself nicely by now. I suppose an RFC about the guideline content may help (as opposed to one about user conduct, which as Jeff states are pretty much worthless).
  8. Regarding Jeff, I think he should make less unfriendly comments; this is not just about me, but also the way he talks to e.g. Hipocrite or Alkivar (yes, Alk made a couple of incorrect speedies; no, that does not mean he is unable to read policy). Another thing that would help is if he would cite links or diffs to support his statements, if asked; I've seen several cases where he says that something is obvious, but other people don't see the obviosity.
  9. Jeff is passionately enthousiastic about this place and is not afraid to speak up for his beliefs regardless of whether or not he's in the minority.
  10. Jeff appears to hold a couple of black-and-white beliefs (e.g. that early closing of AFDs is always controversial or that precedent is never important); it would be nice if he would see the gray areas involved.

[edit] Explanation by Jeff of some of the issues raised above

I wanted to take a little time before diving in.

  • Regarding one, I'm politically a conservative, and that carries over into other aspects of my life. Surprisingly enough, I'm relatively opposed to unnecessary bureaucracies. The issue is twofold, though - if we're going to eliminate bureaucracies, we need to do it in a way that isn't going to step on people's toes, and we need to not eliminate ones that make sense to keep in place, such as our deletion processes. When the number one, all important thing to this project is content, every care should be taken to make sure things are clear, and I'll never not defend that.
  • Regarding three, fine, but there's a certain WP:SPADE element and I did allow myself to get too hot. I still don't believe I was wrong, but as I've said elsewhere, I could have handled it better. I will say this, though: This comment in particular very much rankled me at the time, but looking back, I did deserve it. Not because it was true, because I'm sure he knows it's not (I hope - we have much bigger problems to deal with if I'm incorrect in the assumption), but because he probably thought I was trying to get under his skin and decided he'd hit the one achilles heel he knows I'm stuck with here.
  • Regarding eight, I have good, sometimes great, relationships with lots of users. Hipocrite is not one of them, and that goes back to last July and August, and has no basis in this discussion, nor does his opinion especially matter to me. Alkivar, when someone we allegedly trust to be a steward of content goes 0/3 on speedy deletions for an entire week, it calls into question whether they were actually correct. A7 in particular continues to be very controversial, and it needs to be handled properly, and when I ask someone to reverse something, and they say "no, because of X" even though X has nothing to do with the policy, they can't read it. Again, WP:SPADE at work if we want to use that element. Am I supposed to not question someone's ability when they undoubtedly prove otherwise? It's a better alternative to get it heard in the open rather than end up in places it shouldn't belong.
  • Regarding the final, I don't see grey areas. Sorry. That's me. And that's why we need clear directives - so we don't have to have questions and disputes like this - that so-called "grey area" only causes problems and disputes, and creates improper results (see Gregory Kohs for my example du jour). --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I think I'll just agree to disagree on the gray area business. It's not that I like gray areas (I don't), and I do agree that having clear directives is a good thing, but I do not believe it possible to have rules prepared in advance for every possible situation. >Radiant< 12:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
      • And I don't think that it's possible, either. But it doesn't mean we can't attempt to form some guidance when something occurs multiple times. But yeah, fundamental differences. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment and discussion

Very much support this mediation. Looks like you all are off to a good start. FloNight 20:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question for Jeff

I'm curious about something, hence this somewhat hypothetical question. Suppose User:A nominates Some Article for deletion. It is put on AFD, discussed, gets three delete-comments, and eight keep-comments. Assume all of those are reasonable (no socks, no empty votes, etc). I think you'll agree with me that this gets closed as a keep. Now suppose that a week later, User:B, who doesn't know about the earlier debate, nominates Some Article for deletion again. How do you believe we should deal with this? >Radiant< 15:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Before I answer, some clarification: Was the "keep" clear, within the guidelines, etc? I ask because my answer changes a bit depending on what that answer is. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes. >Radiant< 15:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, what I'd like to be able to do is close it early. The problem is that it was overwhelmingly rejected when I brought it up. Further discussions on the matter have proven to be fruitless, so what should be done is let it ride - sending it to DRV would have probably been a better route, but it would get relisted anyway at worst, so... --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] By the way

I will likely not be online until monday. >Radiant< 16:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)