[WikiEN-l] Re: Edit war policy meaningless

Mon Mar 15 05:41:26 UTC 2004

Anthere wrote:

> But Erik, you are trying to have edit wars solution be based uniquely 
> on 2 or 3 wik-like people, while there are many other very regular and 
> sometimes very respected contributors, who actually sometimes get into 
> edit war and reversion war themselves in the heat of the moment.

Of course.  And these are now and will always be a minority.  The 
interminable debates over ways to deal with these people are completely 
out of proportion to their importance, and are far more harmful than 
what this handful could ever be.  The Paris Commune was overrun because 
the communards did not know when to stop debating among themselves.

I can support something like the three revert concept as a guideline, 
but certainly not as a rule, and even less as an enforceable rule.  We 
need to begin trusting users again.  That was a key factor in 
Wikipedia's growth.   If Wik or some other identified person is a 
persistent problem user then let's deal with it without inventing more 
new rules to plague the average user.  The bad characters will more 
likely than not be multiply offensive, and decisons can be based on 
weighing a variety of factors rather than literal rules.  

Once an understanding has been reached, someone with the authority needs 
to accept the responsibilities for following through.

Ec