[WikiEN-l] Votes for deletion and due process

Tue Aug 19 17:35:41 UTC 2003

On Tuesday 19 August 2003 00:24, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Nicholas Knight wrote:
> >a) Most people have their freedom abruptly denied
> >before recieving any notice. Cops show up, say
> >"you're under arrest", and cart them off to jail. The
> >analogy really doesn't work.
>
> That is talking about probable cause for cops to make an arrest. My analogy
> is akin to providing proper notices to appear in court. The analogy is very
> sound

I apologize, I was extrapolating in a flawed manner.

> and mentioning cops making arrests is a strawman.

"Strawman" implies it was an intentional attempt to be underhanded. It wasn't.

> >b) Speaking of the analogy not working... The article
> >is on trial, not the author.
>
> Thus the notice goes on the article itself; the author may or may want to
> act in the article's defense. Your reasoning is weak.

I don't see how it's any weaker than the rest of the reasoning that's gone 
into this policy decision and its ex post facto discussion. In your analogy, 
you need to give notice to the person being put on trial. That person can 
then decide who they want to notify.

> >The article should have all the time in the world
> >to check vfd and prepare its defense
>
> You have any idea how odd that sounds? The article cannot be its own
> advocate.

Of course I realize how odd it sounds. My entire argument is intentionally 
absurd to point out the ridiculousness of the analogy and the situation 
itself. Do you not bother reading things in parentheses? You certainly have 
no trouble removing them from quoting when they provide vital context. I was 
making a point.

> >"unwiki" means very different things to very
> >different people. To me, personally, "wiki" is
> >purely a TECHNICAL term, not a philosophy.
>
> Wiki is a philosophy, a very radical one in which websites are open to
> contributions by complete strangers. Thus "unwiki" is anything which tends
> to make things less open (like listing articles for deletion without
> providing notice on the article itself).

That is YOUR assertion. Not everyone agrees with you. And furthermore, not 
everyone who shares your idea that "wiki" is a philosophy may agree with your 
definition of this "philosophy".

> >What I have a problem with is being told I'll
> >have to go through yet another irritating step
> >that was never needed until somebody decided
> >for themselves that it was.
>
> It became necessary once the volume of submissions to the VfD page became
> as large as it is today. Since so many things are listed there is less
> debate on each item. Thus the chances of something being unfairly deleted
> increases. Our policies have evolved this way; at first everything was very
> informal and lax, but as we have grown we have needed to develop written
> policies to make things run smoothly.

And these written policies are apparently developed in back rooms with no 
input from the community. Convenient for you until you realize it goes 
directly against your "policy" of forcing openness upon the unwashed masses. 
Pick a way and stick with it, please, so I can decide whether to jump ship 
and stop wasting my time.

> >Why wasn't this little "policy" decision advertised
> >far and wide?
>
> It was an extension of our current largely un-written policies of openness,
> accountability and fairness. IMO, the Admin that made the written change
> was just codifying these precepts to apply in this particular case.

What would have been wrong with the "admin" giving some notice before he made 
what some view as a unilateral policy change? Or would that have been too 
inconvenient, since people might disagree?

> >I never saw any mention of it until Saturday.
>
> You are well aware of it now.

Only because someone I have no respect for complained about it on the list. 
Not everyone subscribes to or reads the archives of the list, just like not 
everyone monitors every policy page; and if they do, some may entirely ignore 
threads started by certain people in an effort to avoid wasting their own 
time. If you want to be forcefully open, you're going to need to make a 
greater effort to dissiminate information about what is being done with 
policies.