[WikiEN-l] Votes for deletion and due process

Wed Aug 20 23:56:43 UTC 2003

Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>None of this argument makes any sense to me, because there has been no
>policy change, unilateral or otherwise.  I just reviewed the entire
>history of the phrase in question, going back to when it was on the
>VfD page, and tracking it through every iteration.  I recommend the
>same to Nicholas.

*Every* iteration?  Even this one by mav?:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion&diff=1292719&oldid=1292709
That's not a request!

>Nicholas Knight wrote:

>>Except mav suddenly seems to think that a unilateral policy change
>>without any discussion or even notice is OK. I don't remember that
>>little detail being advertised anywhere in the system.

>Disregarding for a moment what "Mav suddenly seems to think" (because
>I think you're misunderstanding him), it's nonetheless not Mav's
>unilateral thoughts that determine what policy is, as I'm sure he'll
>be the first to agree.

Indeed he would, which is why it strikes me as especially odd in this case
that mav was seeming to impose such a dramatic change like this.
He explains that it's not dramatic -- just an extension of
our long-standing policies of openness -- and that's a good argument.
But it's a good argument for /instituting/ the dramatic change,
not for claiming that it isn't dramatic in the first place.
I remember mav's getting upset at The Cunctator for doing similar things,
and Cunc would also explain that his change was just clarifying wiki nature.

>It's misleading to elevate your disagreement with Mav about what
>policy should be into a broad and false claim that he's making policy
>unilaterally, or that policy is made "in back rooms with no input from
>the community".

I think that the point that Nicholas was trying to make
is that /if/ mav's edit (cited above) were accepted as OK,
/then/ en.Wikipedia would be making policy with no input.
But mav's edit has been challenged and doesn't stand,
so we're not actually in this position.
You (and I) know that we don't in fact work this way,
but a relatively new person might reasonably fear
that mav's edit might end up being accepted as OK.

>WHAT is being forced on anyone?  Are we reading the same web pages?
>There is absolutely nothing required, not in the current version, and
>not in the previous version.  No one has ever been required to post a
>notice, and there was nothing in the written policy that ever said
>that this was a requirement.  Period.

You probably aren't reading the same web pages;
you in particular don't seem to have read the one cited above:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion&diff=1292719&oldid=1292709

>So acting like you're being forced to do something is silly.  The
>passage in question has always said "please", a request, not a
>command.  No one has even gotten in trouble for not doing it.

There've been reports of mav's placing warnings on user talk pages.
(I haven't confirmed myself that these exist as reported.)
To be sure, this is hardly getting anybody in trouble.
But to a new user, that may not be so clear -- it helps to clarify.

>There has been no policy change at all.  Not unilateral, not by
>consensus.  Someone writing "please" on a web page does not establish
>policy.  It doesn't even _purport falsely_ to establish policy.

It seems to me that no policy change has successfully gone through.
It does look to me like one was attempted, however.
(To be sure, article history can be confusing sometimes,
so perhaps clarification of the diff that I cited would be in order.)

-- Toby